John Redwood
(Wokingham) (Con): I rise particularly to support clause 33. I think it is
essential that we are finally out of the EU in every proper way by the end of
this year. Some three and a half years have passed since the British people
made their decision that they wished to leave. Many of us voted to leave
because we think the world is going to be better once we have left. We do not
regard it as some kind of disease or problem that has to be managed; we see it
as full of opportunities. We want to rebuild our fishing industry under British
regulations and British control. We wish to get all our money back and to spend
it on our priorities in health and education. We wish to make sure that we can
make the laws we wish, and which the people recommend to us in elections and in
the normal dialogue between constituents and Members of Parliament. We are
extremely optimistic about our opportunities as a leader of free trade
worldwide once we have regained our full vote and voice in the World Trade
Organisation and are able to do our own deals with all those parts of the world
that the EU has not got round to doing deals with all the time we have been a
member.
We are very optimistic. We think we are going to be
better off economically. I have always said that, and anyone who suggests
otherwise is deliberately misrepresenting my position. I share the frustration
of many leave voters that three and a half years on and with a new Parliament
with a very clear mandate we are still facing demands that we are going too
quickly and that three and a half years plus another year—four and a half
years—is still not long enough, and why not six and a half years?
Daniel Kawczynski
(Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend agree that, unlike
the Opposition spokesman, who seems to paint a very gloomy picture about our
moving away from European regulations, this Parliament and this country are
perfectly capable of regulating our own domestic affairs, and protecting the
environment and workers’ rights in the British way, without always acquiescing
in EU laws?
John Redwood: I,
in particular, think we can do a lot better on taxation. I do not want tax on
all these green products that the EU makes us tax. I would not have thought
that the Green party really wanted those. However, I suspect that if I or
others moved amendments to the forthcoming Budget this March to take out those
unnecessary taxes, we would be told we are still not allowed to because we are
in the implementation period and have to accept European law. It has also
interfered in our corporate taxes in a way that actually reduces the revenues
we gain from big business. I would have thought Labour and the Liberal
Democrats rather oppose that, but because it comes from the EU they are
completely quiet on the subject. They do not seem to mind that the EU
interferes with our revenue raising.
Michael Tomlinson
(Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con): Is my right hon. Friend as surprised as
I am that the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats, with their new
clauses, are seeking yet further delays? Despite what the hon. Member for
Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) says, that is the effect of new clause 4. It
would mean a lack of the certainty that the British people voted for at the
recent general election.
John Redwood: I
do think it is almost unbelievable that the Opposition are talking about adding
to four and a half years of delay, under the Government model now,
another two years—six and a half years. Six and a half years at £12 billion a
year is a huge sum, and I would like to tease this out a bit more with those on
our Front Bench because I think my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
misunderstood me. He thought I was talking about the cost to business, but I am
talking about the cost to British taxpayers. This extra implementation period
in itself—I really rather regret it, but I see it is a necessity from where we
currently are, given the forces in this House—must be costing £11 billion or
£12 billion, in tax revenue forgone, that we have to pay.
I would like some reassurance from the Front Bench that
once we are properly out at the end of December, under clause 33, there will
not be further bills. I want us to be able to say to the British people, “We
now do control our own money. We are not going to carry on paying for this
show.” I think it might be quite a good negotiating tactic to suggest to the EU
that perhaps there is not a strong legal basis for some of the claims it wishes
to make, because we need to put some countervailing pressure on the EU during
this remaining negotiation period on the free trade agreement. I do not think
we have to pay for a free trade agreement. I think it is massively in the
interests of the rest of the European Union, because it sells us more than we
sell it, but we have to be firm, otherwise it will walk all over us again and
demand more concessions.
Sir Desmond Swayne
(New Forest West) (Con): Is not the lesson of the prolonged, tortuous seven
years of negotiation on the Canadian deal the very fact that it was an
open-ended process that did not come to an end? The effect of new clause 4 is
basically to ensure, in providing for an extension, that it makes that
extension certain, because the knowledge that the extension can take place will
take away the very pressure to make an agreement within the time that is
available.
John Redwood: Those
of us who have had to study European Union affairs for all too long, because
they affect our own country so much, have learned from bitter experience that
deals nearly always happen at the last minute under artificial or genuine
deadlines that the EU has often imposed on itself. All we are trying to do, in
supporting a Government in doing this, is to say to the EU that there is a
deadline on this negotiation: “If you, O EU, really want a free trade deal with
us, as you have said you do in the partnership agreement, hurry now while
stocks last.” It is not all about us, it is about the EU as well. It needs this
free trade agreement, and we need to keep the pressure up. Let us tell it that
there needs to be significant progress by the middle of this year so that it is
realistic to finalise the text.
I do think it should be relatively straightforward, if
there is good will on the EU side as well as on our own side, because we have
been party to its international negotiations. If we take the best of the
Japanese deal and the best of the Canadian deal—it is already there in text—it
should be relatively easy to say that we can at least have that. The EU has already
offered that to non-members of the European Union, and we should be able to add
a bit more because by being a member we already have agreements to things that
are in our mutual interest to continue.
I would be very optimistic about the negotiations, but I
am quite conscious that if we negotiate as, unfortunately, the previous
Government did before the change of leadership and the general election, we
will end up making more concessions to get something that the EU has already
promised in the political declaration. I do not want the fish at risk, and I do
not want the money at risk. I do want to take full control of the money, the
fish, the law making and the taxes from the beginning of next year, as we are
promised by this Bill, and clause 33 is a very important part of trying to
deliver that.
I wish the Government every success. I am optimistic on
their behalf because of the promises the EU has made. My message to the EU is:
“Do not underestimate the British people. You may have been right to believe
that many of their political representatives in the last Parliament were on the
EU’s side, not on the UK’s side, but the British people are altogether a more
serious proposition, and the British people have spoken loud and clear.” The
British people have had enough of the delay, enough of the dither, enough of
the concessions and enough of the idea that Brexit is a problem. We believe in
Brexit, we want the freedoms, and we want to choose our own taxes, our own laws
and to spend our own money. Bring it on—the sooner, the better.