My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate but since it seems that no one else is going to speak up for the option of leaving the customs union, I thought that in the interests of attempted balance, at least, I should make a brief contribution.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, spoke with great passion—not, to me, entirely persuasively—and his sincerity was palpable. But some of the phrases he used do not really correspond with the reality of the situation as I see it. He talked about breaking our ties. It is not the Government’s intention that we should break our economic ties with the single market. He talked about this being an absolutist solution. No one is pursuing something out of dogma. We are trying to make an assessment of what we think is in the best interests of the country. I agree with the words that my noble friend Lord Hailsham used: we ought to be considering what is in the national interest. Noble Lords opposite may find it difficult to believe but that is actually what the Government are trying to do and what people on this side of the Committee are trying to do: come to a set of arrangements, once this decision has been made, that will maximise the welfare and interests of the country.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, was not comparing leaving the customs union with what the Government are trying to achieve. The Government are trying to achieve a free trade agreement with Europe. That is what you ought to compare the customs union with. In what respect would having a free trade agreement leave the country worse off than it is now? He was talking about a customs union. He did not make it clear but he said he was not disputing the decision to leave so he must have been talking about a customs union while being outside the EU. That is very different from being inside the customs union as a member of the EU. That is putting yourself precisely in the position of Turkey, which is inside the customs union and suffers all sorts of disadvantages, as I shall try to demonstrate.