Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“I strongly associate myself with the earlier part of the Prime Minister’ comments. May I raise something slightly different though? It is nearly four years since the Grenfell Tower tragedy claimed some 72 lives, yet hundreds of thousands of families still live in unsafe, unsellable homes, and many leaseholders face crippling debts, through no fault of their own—Trident Point, Pearmain House and Amber Court are all in my constituency. Given that this was the biggest building scandal in modern UK history, why did the Prime Minister order his MPs to vote down our efforts yesterday to get this scandal sorted once and for all?”
“Nurseries are a vital part of community infrastructure, helping our youngest to get a better chance of a good start to life and making it easier for parents to go to work. Given that over 300 shut their doors for good in February and March, will the Prime Minister publish a covid recovery plan for nurseries and early years providers to help to get them back on their feet?”
“I notice that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not mention young people. Recent figures reveal that the kickstart scheme is helping only 5% of unemployed young people who were made redundant during the financial crisis. Given that there are over 600,000 young people out of work at the moment, why did the Queen’s Speech not contain more measures to help tackle youth unemployment? Did he just forget?”
“It was asleep at the wheel when London Capital and Finance was collapsing, again asleep at the wheel when Greensill tottered into insolvency, and now seems determined to take sleeping tablets as a thriving, well-capitalised British success story is being handed over lock, stock and barrel to one of America’s most controversial private equity giants. I urge Ministers to take the opportunity to investigate. I share the concerns, too, about the proposed complete overhaul of the English planning system. It will drastically reduce the role of councils and communities, such as those in my constituency, in our ability to stop inappropriate development. It will make it harder for councils to make sure that the right sorts of homes are built to the right standard and in the right sorts of places. I urge the Government to think again.”
“Mr Cook cleverly proposed the conversion of LV= to a company limited by guarantee and got the Financial Conduct Authority to agree, all the while telling his owners—his customers—that he was not going to demutualise Liverpool Victoria. Remarkably, that is exactly what he is now proposing to do. To be fair, the FCA did make it clear to the all-party parliamentary group on mutuals that there would be some boxes it needed to tick as the sale of LV= proceeded. Serious questions are now being asked about the FCA.”
“Australia is a great case study, as the Economic Secretary is aware. Why on earth has the long-promised deregulation of credit unions not happened? Secondly, Ministers should investigate the takeover of Liverpool Victoria. The former managing director of the Post Office, Alan Cook, now the chairman of Liverpool Victoria, is selling this 178-year-old friendly society, which was originally founded to help working people in Liverpool to avoid the Victorian scandal of a pauper’s funeral. Presumably Mr Cook expects to make millions from the deal. It is the first major demutualisation of a financial mutual since before the financial crash.”
“Without mutuals—without that corporate diversity—the industry would be even more open to the consequences of excessive market power. Sadly, little has changed since the Competition and Markets Authority investigated the banks back in 2016. For all the talk of challenger banks, the big banks that swallowed up all the building societies that demutualised before the financial crash still dominate. Given the obvious lack of appetite for taking on the banks, that market power will not abate any time soon, but Ministers could have used the Queen’s Speech at least to prevent the situation from getting worse. First, they could take the needs of financial mutuals even more seriously by modernising the rules by which they are governed, helping the smaller mutuals to raise capital more easily.”
“Hidden in plain sight in the City and beyond are financial mutuals: friendly societies, building societies, credit unions. They are like the steel girders in the Shard; they are not glamorous but their role is critical. Their savings products, life assurance, pensions, mortgages and other products are rarely beaten for value, and as a result they make a huge difference to the quality of life of so many of our constituents. They play another critical role: they keep traditional financial businesses such as banks—shareholder and investor owned—from the temptation to take ever more value from customers’ savings. The City and the financial services industry, as this House knows only too well, have seen enough stories of excessive fees, ridiculous levels of executive remuneration and excessive profit taking.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). I strongly share the view that the decision to move away from 0.7% of our national income being spent on development is the wrong one. Not only is it damaging for Britain’s reputation abroad and for numerous programmes such as the girls’ education programme that he highlighted, but ultimately, in the context of covid, it is self-defeating. We will not be able to feel secure in a world free from the risk of covid unless we help to build up other countries’ ability to fight covid. Aid is part of that solution. Britain’s financial services industry is world leading. It generates huge wealth for our country, creates thousands of jobs and delivers considerable soft power in its wake.”
“I urge the Minister to publish that evidence, even at this late stage. Arms sales resumed very quickly, reaching their highest total compared with any of the previous 19 quarters put together, before the Court of Appeal’s decision. As other hon. Members have made clear, a series of countries—not least the United States—have taken the decision to suspend arms sales. It continues to be surprising that the UK has not followed suit. I look forward to hearing the Minister attempt to justify that decision.”
“One year after the Court’s judgement against the Department, the Secretary of State published a new internal assessment of the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, it was claimed that despite “isolated incidents” where international humanitarian law may have been broken, there was no pattern of activity that would lead her to question the intent or the capacity of the coalition to comply with international humanitarian law. It is striking that, despite our requests, the Secretary of State has still not published any of the analysis that she undertook on the Saudi bombing campaign. She has repeatedly refused to publish a list of allegations that her new analysis examined. She has also refused to disclose which incidents she classed as possible violations of international law.”
“The failure in the beginning of March of the UN’s annual appeal for emergency funding to match last year’s pledges is deeply worrying. As Members have highlighted, the decisions of UK Ministers to impose an almost 50% cut in our aid to Yemen is striking. Many of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world are in Yemen, and our country has a strong and long history with the people of Yemen. As the House knows, the Government’s failure to implement their own laws relating to arms exports led eventually to the Court of Appeal ordering, in July two years ago, the Department to stop granting licences for exports of arms to Saudi Arabia. The Court of Appeal’s decision was based on a long catalogue of attacks on the civilian population since 2015. Thousands were killed in air strikes. Weddings, funerals and markets were all targeted.”
“A decade of fighting has produced the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and over 230,000 people have already been killed by the war, and the resulting food shortages and disease. Millions of people are still at risk of starvation and disease. If the situation in Yemen was not bad enough, covid and the failure thus far of ceasefire negotiations is quite clearly exacerbating the terrible crisis still further, particularly in the oil and gas region of Marib, where up to 2 million people are sheltering from the intensifying conflict. At this stage, I echo the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West that his 29-year-old constituent be released from prison and allowed to return home. I am sure the whole House supports his call for that to happen.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) on securing the debate. She is already known in the House for strong and challenging interventions, and her speech today will only add to that reputation. My hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali), for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), and for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) all underlined in their contributions the fact that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is desperate.”
“The Government’s “Global Britain, local jobs” analysis does not take into account Brexit or covid, it ignores Welsh farming and Welsh steel production, and it appears to think that there are still 1,500 people employed in car production in Bridgend, which sadly there are not. Does the Secretary of State therefore think that this outdated, incomplete analysis is a reliable foundation on which to base her trade policy for Wales?”
“I think what the Secretary of State meant to say was that there is room for improvement, and that is certainly true. The stark reality is that Wales is getting a raw deal from the Trade Department. According to her own figures, the Department delivered 638 new inward investment projects for London but just 62 for Wales—a lower number of new investment projects than in any region in England, and for three years in a row. How can she justify those figures?”
“I strongly support the call by Michelle Bachelet, echoed by my hon. Friends today, for Britain to use the Magnitsky sanctions that it does have available to it against Shavendra Silva and Kamal Gunaratne. In the short time that I have left, I also want to praise the recent Amnesty International report and note the important contribution from Freedom from Torture urging the Home Office to take another look, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, at the country note that it uses to judge whether or not refugees should be returned to Sri Lanka. Clearly, given the scale of torture and other human rights abuses, it would be totally wrong to return people with credible concerns about the situation in Sri Lanka. I look forward to the Minister finally taking some serious action against Sri Lanka.”
“The Tamil community want Ministers to back a call for Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court. A number of Members have referred to the courage of Mrs Ambihai Selvakumar in her recent hunger strike, which, I am pleased to say, for her sake, has ended, but which served to draw international attention to the issues that we are debating today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said in her excellent speech, the frustration of the international community and the Tamil community in many of our constituencies dates back to the end of the conflict in 2009, when terrible war crimes were committed against the Tamil community, including civilians and those surrendering at the end of the conflict. No one has ever been held accountable for those crimes.”
“There is anger with the UK Government for their tolerance of that impunity and their complicity, at international level, in thus far failing to get the international community to take action against the Sri Lankan Government. There is also disbelief that Tamil refugees might be returned to a country so obviously ravaged by human rights abuses. There is among the Tamil community in my constituency a demand, similar to those expressed by others, for Britain to use the powers that it already has at its disposal to hold to account those who are clearly implicated in serious human rights abuses—as alluded to by many Members, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms)—and to take action, as recommended by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.”
“As others have alluded to, Sri Lanka is a stunningly beautiful island, but for its Tamil citizens or, increasingly, its Muslim citizens, and certainly for its citizens who are Sinhalese and interested in human rights or are opponents of the Rajapaksa family, it is a very dangerous country. Many of those who are Tamil and live in my constituency believe that nothing short of a genocide continues to take place against Tamil citizens in Sri Lanka. They believe that Tamil citizens are increasingly viewed by the Sri Lankan Government in apparently the same way as the Chinese Government view the Uyghurs. There is deep frustration with the apparent impunity of the Rajapaksa family and their supporters in respect of either domestic or international accountability.”
“Never again will our own businesses’ expertise be ignored in a national emergency. Ministers should get on board. I commend my Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Gareth Thomas, Yvonne Fovargue, Rosie Cooper, Graham Stringer, Dan Jarvis, Mrs Sharon Hodgson, Christina Rees, Mr Kevan Jones, Mr Barry Sheerman, Steve McCabe, Mr Virendra Sharma and Sarah Champion present the Bill. Gareth Thomas accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 275).”
“The British Standards Institute could provide this service and promote it alongside the other kitemarks it operates for us. The last thing that Britain should do is to close its mind to the world outside our shores. It would be madness to turn our backs on expertise from overseas, on the imagination and enterprise in the great goods and services that we can purchase from our friends in Europe, across the Commonwealth, in Asia, Africa and, of course, in the Americas and Australasia, but just as many of our allies overseas seek to buy local when they can, so should we. The Conservative party has been in power for a decade, yet it has never backed a serious “Buy British” campaign. My Bill would change the landscape for British businesses across the UK and not just those in our capital city.”
“If a business is based in the north-east, the east of England, the midlands or Yorkshire and Humber, there is a lower chance of it winning a large Government contract. Ministers have no plans to do anything about that. At the very least, and after recent court cases, figures should have to be published as part of the levelling-up and recovery agendas in which the Conservative party claims to believe. There should be debate about whether every region is getting a fair chance of its businesses landing a big job-creating deal from Government. Lastly, for those of us who want to buy British whenever we can, why is there not a national kitemark, the flag of the United Kingdom, on every good and service provided in Britain, which British businesses can use to demonstrate to British consumers that a product is at least 50% made in the UK?”
“The rules in international treaties on procurement that we have signed up to must be respected. But once those rules are met, British firms creating jobs in the United Kingdom should have a better chance of winning the contract than an overseas rival. British firms in general work to high standards, and while our markets are far from perfect, effective unions and a robust media all help to reinforce higher standards in our high street shops than in some overseas markets. The suspicion in many boardrooms is that it helps to be close to London to win Government contracts. Indeed, what limited figures there are confirm that London and the south-east do disproportionately better for firms winning big Government contracts.”
“There has recently been a review of Government procurement, but despite its spirit, there is nothing in that review that will shift the dial, no great new move to help British firms to find favour in Whitehall, and no move either to help those outside London and the south-east. Many will remember the contract that Ministers gave a French firm to make our British passports. Today, when Russia is declared enemy No. 1 by the Prime Minister, we find out that a Russian company got £2.5 million to build his new briefing room. Without question, tough rules that force civil servants to secure the best prices and the best value must be maintained. Taxpayers should not pay over the odds, certainly not after the scandal of the billions spent on Test and Trace, which those who have investigated think made little difference.”
“If even at a time of national crisis, when the need for basic supplies was on the front page of every newspaper and running on every news bulletin, British companies’ offers of help were not getting through, it is difficult not to wonder what on earth it must be like for British businesses that want to offer their products and services to Government when there is not a national crisis happening. Ministers made a series of claims that they were building up the UK supply of PPE, going so far as to claim that 70% of PPE was now from British sources. Sadly, this was not true; no such data was being kept. My Bill would put that right. Data would be kept and could be scrutinised.”
“What is striking too is that many of these firms were based outside London and the south-east—for example, the Birmingham firm that offered to supply a quarter of a million aprons and masks, or the company further north, in Ripon, that could have provided 100,000 face visors per week. Some British firms that offered to help and revealed the source of their supplies discovered deals were done directly with their overseas supplier rather than with them. Indeed, in a scathing report last year on the PPE scandal, the National Audit Office found that just 12% of all PPE ordered by the Government supply chain between February and July came from UK manufacturers.”
“Contracts with overseas firms led to the extraordinary situation of much hailed deliveries of PPE from China and Turkey ending up being paid for, but not all used. Huge contracts were given to overseas firms such as the Miami-based Saiger jewellery company, and who can forget the Spanish businessman paid vast sums to be the middleman, ultimately by British taxpayers? All the while, local firms employing our constituents were missing out. As Make UK, Britain’s lead manufacturing body, made clear at the time, lots of firms that work with textiles and are used to working with plastics were extremely keen to help, registered on the relevant Government website and, all too often, then heard very little. Thirty-six British companies went as far as contacting Labour Members to make it clear that they had offered to help and had been ignored.”
“Time after time, British manufacturers, often on the doorstep of the very hospitals and care homes where staff were crying out for more PPE, struggled to get doors in Whitehall to open for them. Many were firms that because of covid were having to look for new products and new markets to keep staff employed. As the National Audit Office has set out, Ministers spent £12.5 billion on PPE that one year earlier would have cost just £2.5 billion. There was, without doubt, a huge scramble to secure PPE, but our country ended up buying equipment that was five times, or £10 billion, more expensive than the year before. If more British manufacturers had been helped to win PPE contracts, Ministers might have got better value and now have the money to spend on proper pay rises for NHS staff.”
“It is about the huge social value that Government can create for our constituents, and the stability for families and new career opportunities when procurement is done with imagination. The Conservative party’s handling of covid and lockdown has made the economic damage, never mind the cost in lives and health, so much worse. One extra measure that Ministers could take to speed the recovery is to encourage consumers to buy local, to buy British, and they should start with Whitehall. The PPE scandal law year saw British firm after British firm that was offering to make personal protection equipment ignored. Only those who had the mobile number of a Minister or two had the chance to win a lucrative contract.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a presumption in public sector procurement in favour of purchasing goods and services from businesses based in the UK; to require the Secretary of State to publish data on the value of Government contracts awarded to such businesses, and estimates of jobs created as a result, by region and nation; to make provision for a kitemark scheme for goods of predominantly UK origin; and for connected purposes. Ministers could and should do more to help British firms win British Government contracts. After more than 10 years of this Government in power, too often the best British companies are ignored when Ministers give out contracts. This is about jobs, and how quickly Britain emerges from recession.”
“It has now been two months since Ministers agreed a trade deal with Cameroon. It was shortly before the US Senate voted to suspend theirs because of President Biya’s human rights record. Incredibly, we do not know what the UK’s trade deal with Cameroon says on human rights, because it has still not been published. Can the Minister tell us when Parliament will be finally shown that deal, and can he guarantee a debate on it in Government time?”
“The Secretary of State has threatened to reimpose tariffs on the United States if the Airbus dispute is not settled, but that threat will only carry any impact if the US believes that we have the legal authority to carry it out. Will she agree to publish the UK’s legal advice or our exchange of letters with the World Trade Organisation to prove that she is not bluffing and that we genuinely have the authority to reimpose those tariffs if we need to do so?”
“Never has any party embraced with such enthusiasm a trade deal that is set to generate unprecedented levels of red tape and form filling—new red tape for farmers, new plant and animal health checks, new red tape for manufacturers, new rules of origin checks, and new safety and security checks. Businesses will have to get used to an estimated 400 million new forms. Not surprisingly, one of the fastest growing areas of employment in global Britain is in handling all the new red tape.”
“The one advantage that Ministers in the Department for International Trade start the year with is that expectations of them are not high. The deal with the European Union that the Prime Minister negotiated, while better than no deal, is proving already to be very thin gruel. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton noted, 80% of our economic output depends on services. We might reasonably have expected Ministers to fight harder to maintain our access to EU services markets, but there is nothing on, for example, mutual recognition of professional qualifications, and the Prime Minister’s claim that his deal means certainty for financial services—one of the industries where Britain leads the world in jobs and skills—will surprise many who work in that industry.”
“It was difficult to disagree with the right hon. Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) that cutting our aid and abolishing the Department for International Development is hardly going to build confidence in the global Britain brand. The International Trade Secretary’s speech was, sadly, not quite so encouraging. She and the rest of the Cabinet spent 2020 putting up barriers to trade. She unsuccessfully chased Donald Trump for a trade deal—indeed, it was striking that not once in her speech did she mention President-elect Biden. Vital markets in Asia and important allies in Africa were neglected or treated poorly last year.”
“I welcome the chance to wind up this first debate of 2021 for the official Opposition. We have heard powerful speeches from the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), and from my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), for Newport West (Ruth Jones), for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). Also notable were the speeches from the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe).”
“After almost 50 years, we have left a trade alliance with our closest geographical and economic partners—a decision that was not taken lightly. It certainly was not taken without debate, so before the Government plunge us into another trade grouping, perhaps a little more discussion might be worthwhile: maybe an impact assessment, and certainly serious and meaningful consultation.”
“Will it mean having to accept the CPTPP’s “list it or lose it” approach to private competition in the public sector? Will it mean being obliged to accept palm oil from Malaysia and other producers, regardless of the public pressure in this country for a ban? Will we really be able to renegotiate the provisions of the CPTPP in our own interests before we sign up to it, or will we just have to accept the provisions that are already there? Of course, that might ultimately be the right thing to do. The benefits may well outweigh the costs, but the Government have not yet made that case. They have not yet answered the most basic questions. It is not just the other members of the CPTPP that they need to convince, but Parliament and the British public as well.”
“When it comes to future negotiations, the Secretary of State has once again spoken in this debate as if the UK’s membership of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership—the CPTPP—should be seen as a no-brainer and a done deal. Membership of the CPTPP may indeed be a very welcome and positive step for our country to take, but I think the Government owe it to the House—we certainly owe it to our constituents—at least to ask some basic questions about that membership and what it will really mean. Will it, for example, mean signing up to secretive investor-state dispute settlement processes, with all the risks that that poses for our ability to protect public services, consumers and the environment from corporate profiteers?”
“India’s market is set to be the world’s fifth largest within five years, and given that Britain is bottom of the G7 for growth in our trade with India, a little more effort to open those markets would, I say gently, be timely. Trade deals involve give as well as take, so it would be good to hear a little more openness from the Minister of State tonight and ultimately from the Secretary of State about what we will have to give in the trade deals she wants to sign this year. Australia and New Zealand, for example, are both great allies, but with a considerable interest in our agricultural markets. Japan, too, is a great ally, but we must remember that the Japan trade deal signed with great fanfare appears, according to the Government’s own analysis, set to benefit Japanese exporters five times as much as British exporters.”
“I hope that a deal with Ghana can be completed soon and, when the Secretary of State finally signs that long overdue and much needed deal, it should come with a much needed apology. It is also striking that, in the year when the UK will be hosting the world’s climate change summit, not one of the trade agreements that the Secretary of State signed last year saw any progress on the environment and climate change. Also, as other hon. Friends have mentioned, many of the deals that the Secretary of State signed did not include even the most basic provisions on human rights. It was good to hear the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) briefly require the Secretary of State to mention India. The Secretary of State has been astonishingly quiet on trade with the Indian subcontinent.”
“As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West pointed out, the House has received no formal explanation as to why 11 continuity agreements could not be concluded in time. So it certainly would be helpful if the Minister of State took a bit of time in his winding-up speech to go through the reasons why deals could not be done with, for example, Algeria, Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia. The Government’s dismal treatment of Ghana—a key Commonwealth ally—is particularly surprising. We know that UK negotiators turned up for meetings late and badly briefed and then left early with nothing resolved. What hung over all those negotiations was the threat of very heavy tariffs on cocoa, tuna and bananas if a deal could not be completed in time. That, sadly, is what has happened—twice already now, including today.”
“Indeed, the total inadequacy of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act process as a means to guarantee proper parliamentary scrutiny of new trade deals signed by the Government has been exposed. Look at the eight continuity agreements that took effect on 1 January before they had been formally ratified: not a single one with a word of debate in Parliament. Continuity agreements with Canada and Mexico have not yet taken effect because ratification is taken more seriously in those countries than it is here, and one more agreement, with Cameroon, came into effect on 1 January without even being laid before Parliament. Think about that—it became law before any of us even saw it. If ever a process merited amendments from the other place being accepted to improve scrutiny of trade agreements, it is surely the events of the past month.”
“Only 31 of the 63 countries listed on the Department for International Trade’s website have fully ratified agreements with the UK. Twenty-one have provisional agreements pending ratification, eight have bridging mechanisms pending the signing of deals, and in three cases deals have been signed but are not yet in effect. Clearly, not all of it is the Government’s fault, but leaving it so late to secure these agreements has caused completely unnecessary headaches and costs for many businesses trading with those countries. Prime Minister Trudeau’s suggestion that Britain did not have the “bandwidth” for a deal with his country hinted at a rather different reality from the one that the Secretary of State and her cheerleaders have implied today.”
“Since the Government’s new trade agreement with the EU came into effect, we have also seen rising numbers of export consignments from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and the EU turned away because they do not have the right customs documentation, we have seen EU businesses stop selling their products to the UK by mail because of new VAT rules, and we have seen thousands of companies grappling with the new rules of origin to determine whether their exports to the EU now face tariffs. So businesses—never mind the House—might have expected to hear a little more from the Secretary of State on what she was going to do about those problems. As the shadow Secretary of State made clear, on rollover agreements, the truth is that the process has been a bit of a mess.”
“My right hon. Friend makes a good point, but, sadly, we are seeing lots of new jobs being created in this very area: customs clearance agents, import customs agents, international customs agents, import customs brokerage agents and customs clearance clerks—all these new jobs being created because Ministers appear to want dynamic export-oriented British firms to fill in more forms.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging at the outset the error that the Joint Committee has identified. The noble Lord Grimstone, when commenting on its report, said: “Nothing is weakened by this error; indeed, the situation is strengthened for this particular category of software that might be used for weapons of mass destruction.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 2 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. GC202.] Given the significance of the issue—we are talking about potential items that could be used to do huge damage—why not just leave the strengthened provision, albeit that it was originally conceived in error, on the statute book?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation, but I genuinely say to him that he has not yet explained why we do not just leave the provision as it is. Will he get to that point?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. He will be aware that under the German presidency of the European Union, new rules have been provisionally agreed, allowing for “more accountable, competitive and transparent trade of dual-use items.” Presumably, if the process of application continues, what has been agreed under the German presidency will apply to the rules in Northern Ireland very shortly. There will be one set of export control rules for the rest of the UK under domestic law and a slightly different set very quickly for Northern Ireland. Will the Minister comment on that point?”