Extract from Commons
Opposition day debate on Leaving the EU:
Negotiations
Sir (Twickenham)
(LD):...It is a lot more than ironic, because this goes
back a long way. There has been consensus among successive
Governments, starting with Mrs Thatcher and Lord Cockburn through
the Blair Government and the coalition Government, on accepting
that services exports to the European Union were a major
objective of British Government policy. I recall being sent to
Berlin and elsewhere to denounce the Germans for their failure to
open up their market for services trade and the mutual
recognition of qualifications. For example, European countries
currently decline to accept British ski instructors, as they do
not have mutual recognition of qualifications. A great deal has,
however, been achieved, and the Government are now inclined to
turn their back on it.
The reasons the Prime Minister advanced for doing so yesterday
are partly simply foolish and partly bogus. The folly lies in
saying that any services transaction that involves people
crossing the border, however valuable, is adding to our net
immigration target and is therefore unacceptable, regardless of
the economic merit. The bogus argument is to say that this is a
problem within the European Union, but it is not going to be a
problem if we have trade deals with other countries, because we
will be able to proceed with services agreements with them.
However, we already know from the two failed attempts so far to
negotiate an outline agreement with India that services trade
wherever it is—within the European Union or outside it—involves
the free movement of people, and the Indians are insisting that
if we are to have a bilateral trade agreement with them, part of
the package will be importing Indian services in the form of IT
consultants and much else. If we look around the other big
emerging markets—Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria—we can see
that what they have to export is people. This is going to be an
enormous obstacle to the Government reaching any kind of
agreement with any country outside the European Union.
Sir (Kingston and Surbiton)
(LD): My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving
way yet again. Does he remember that when he and I served on a
Cabinet Committee looking at trade, we pushed just the arguments
that he is now making, and the one person getting in the way of
those arguments was the then Home Secretary—now the Prime
Minister—who stopped a major trade deal that would be in this
country’s interests?
Sir : My right hon. Friend
is absolutely right. We could of course have had a trade deal
with India already under the auspices of the European Union, as
we do with South Korea, Canada and various other countries. The
country that blocked the deal was the UK, because increased
services trade would involve increasing numbers of people
crossing over to the UK...
To read the whole debate, CLICK
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Extract from
Westminster Hall debate on Air Passenger Duty
(Oxford East)
(Lab/Co-op):...Another concern is the impact of APD on
Britons who have family living outside the British Isles. The
previous four-banding system meant that such individuals could
end up paying more APD than those travelling to the US, for
example. None the less, the division in the calculation between
short and long-haul travel continues to be criticised by some who
feel that that disadvantages Brits with families in, for example,
the Caribbean, India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, who need to fly
long haul to visit them. One could argue that other, lower carbon
alternatives are available to flying for short-haul journeys,
which do not apply for travelling long distances. An indication
of the Government’s thinking on that would be helpful.
To read the whole debate, CLICK
HERE
