My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 136, which is in my name alone. Clause 1 is the crux of the Bill. It calls for the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 but is silent on the question of our membership of the European Economic Area and what the status of our membership of the EEA will be on leaving the European Union—or indeed what the status of instruments or amendments agreed under the European Economic Area will be, either as we leave at 11 pm on 29 March 2019 or in the future if we are in a position to negotiate remaining in the European economic area.
I will speak to a number of issues that flow from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about leaving the customs union. The Prime Minister has been quite clear about wishing to leave the single market and the customs union. However, at no stage has anyone in the Government explained to the great British public or indeed to Parliament what leaving the customs union will mean or what the consequences will be of negotiating a free trade area either with our existing European Union partners or with third countries. The first point to make is that we immediately become a third country at 11.01 pm on 29 March 2019.
I forgot to mention my interests as listed in the register. I am a non-practising Scottish advocate; I practised for a short time—for two and a half or
three years—as a European lawyer in Brussels; and I was a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years and a Member of the other place for 18 years, so I will indeed be in receipt of a European pension.
I should like to consider the position of perishable goods. An example that is very much in the news at the moment is medical isotopes, but I am more familiar with the free movement of perishable foodstuffs from the time that I was a Member of the European Parliament, particularly between 1989, when I was elected, and 1992, when the United Kingdom joined the European Union single market. In leaving the customs union, we face the consequences of leaving the customs union. At Prime Minister’s Questions today, the Prime Minister repeated that we want to take back control of our own borders.
There is a conundrum here. I support enthusiastically what the Government and the Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, are trying to do—we are trying to increase the high standards of animal welfare that we already enjoy and to raise the standards of animal health, the safety of animal production and animal hygiene. However, particularly on the border between Northern Ireland the Republic of Ireland, there will have to be physical checks of animals and presumably of foodstuffs. I remember that as a newly elected MEP I got panic phone calls from companies in Essex, where I had been elected. People phoned or emailed and asked what I, as the local MEP, was going to do to move these goods along as they were time-barred. At the moment we seem to be going along on a wing and a prayer, hoping that everything will be all right on the night. I would like to hear from the Minister, when he responds on this group of amendments, what thought has been given to exactly what controls will be expected, particularly on the movement of perishable goods and the movement of animals, at borders such as the one between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
I am also looking particularly at the fact that we are seeking to arrange new free trade agreements with countries such as Brazil and Argentina. It is no secret that they raise and rear their animals, and produce other products, to a standard that is considerably inferior to those in this country. I know that there is great concern in the Food Standards Agency about whether we will have time to put all the provisions in place governing how these imports will be considered.
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The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, touched on other issues, and I shall not repeat them, but I question the size of the market that we are giving up—505 million existing consumers—for these so-called new markets, which are as yet unidentified. Vietnam, for example, is a market to which we could export more meat and other foodstuffs, but Vietnam is not of a size commensurate with the market of 505 million consumers that we are wilfully giving up.
This is clearly a probing amendment. I seek clarification of the future status of our existing membership of the European Economic Area. Does it cease automatically with our leaving the European Union, or do we need a separate Bill to consider how to extricate ourselves from it? I think something that all of us—in the Committee, in the House and across Parliament—can
unite around is the idea that an alternative to leaving the single market and the customs union could be either our continuing membership of the European Economic Area or applying to join EFTA.
I am seeking reassurance that either we will confirm today what our future relationship with the EEA will be, and whether we will remain members of it, or whether we intend to adopt the instruments that have currently been adopted through our existing membership of the EEA and through the EU, with other EFTA countries. Perhaps the most difficult unresolved issue of leaving the customs union is, as I have already identified and set out in speaking to the amendment, the fact that we will not be in the customs union—as the Government have clearly stated that we shall take back control of our customs borders—and that will intrinsically lead to potential disputes with our existing European partners and other third countries, of which we will be one. Can the Minister tell us, in replying to the debate, precisely what dispute resolution mechanism the Government have in mind in these circumstances?