Extracts from second
reading debate (Lords) (day 2) of the European Union
(Notification of Withdrawal) Bill
(LD):...We wish
to maintain our lead in science and the universities, but we
already see EU students looking to Canada rather than the UK. We
hear that Oxford and Warwick are considering campuses in Paris so
that they can access EU funds...
(Lab):...I am particularly concerned about the economic
effects. We are a small island, unable to feed ourselves, and we
live by trading, as we always have. I share the concerns of my
noble friend about our abilities to
do all this. This sounds like history now but I started my Civil
Service career in the Board of Trade—even before we joined the
European Union—and I was concerned with the annual negotiations
on how much butter, bacon and lamb the Australians, New
Zealanders and Danes were to be allowed to sell in the UK. This
took weeks every year and burnt up senior time. It would be as
nothing to the negotiations we will have to undertake, sector by
sector with the European Union or severally with the USA or
Canada, on the full range of goods...
(Lab):...The results of a recent study carried out
by a non-partisan body, the National Institute of Economic and
Social Research, on this issue are both revealing and
disconcerting. The author calculates that quitting the single
market will reduce UK total trade in the long term by 22%, even
if Britain manages to set up a free trade agreement with the rest
of the EU, an outcome that is itself far from certain. She
estimates that trade gains from the much-touted possible free
trade deals with the BRICS would amount to no more than 2%. Those
set up with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would
be only fractionally larger, at under 3%. The single market has
been very successful at reducing non-tariff barriers, so
important for trade in services, but crucially she concludes that
free trade deals reached with non-EU nations are by contrast
almost wholly ineffective in reducing such barriers. Services
free trade agreements tend to be limited in scope, especially as
regards financial services, and fall far short of the passporting
rights of the single market. These are troubling conclusions
indeed for the British economy, given that services make up the
bulk of our exports...
(LD):...As
Razzaque and Vickers point out, there are a number of policy
options that the Government could pursue for EPA countries. For
the least developed countries, or LDCs, the UK could devise its
own generalised system of preferences, or GSP, building on and
improving arrangements for the world’s poorest countries. The UK
could also reduce non-tariff barriers and introduce more relaxed
and more generous rules of origin. It could follow the Australian
and Canadian models, which require
recipient countries to add only 25% to the local value for goods
to qualify for duty-free access. A UK offer of trade preferences
could extend to services in line with the agreed least developed
countries waiver under the World Trade Organization, or
WTO...
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Extract
from Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs questions
Mr (Warley) (Lab): Will
the Minister join me in welcoming the cross-party majority in the
vote on the EU-Canada trade deal? What priority is the Minister
giving to completing that deal and ensuring that similar
arrangements are made with our Commonwealth Canadian friends and
cousins post-Brexit?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood): The right
hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We are contained until
article 50 has gone through, but Canada is another example—along
with the United States, of which the Foreign Secretary made
mention—of where we can push forward trade deals to the benefit
of the United Kingdom.
Extract from remaining
stages (Commons) of the Criminal Finances Bill
(Swansea East)
(Lab):...Spain, Canada and Australia each have a single
agency responsible for supervising and enforcing anti-money
laundering regulations—Britain has 22. Worse still, according to
Transparency International UK, 15 of these 22 supervisors also
lobby on behalf of the interests of their sector, creating clear
conflicts of interest and a system inefficient to its core. The
Government raised this problem in their action plan that preceded
the Bill, but they were not concerned enough to convert this into
proposed legislation. The system needs reform and the Bill needs
to reflect this. Unless the Government accept all these concerns
and indeed all the changes suggested in the Opposition
amendments, the Bill is likely to fail on the intention to clean
up money laundering and tax evasion...
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Extract from
Commons motion on Social Security and Pensions
(Banff and Buchan)
(SNP): ...There are thought to be more than half a
million people with frozen pensions, mostly in Commonwealth
countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa,
but also in countries with strong family and historical links to
the UK such as India, Pakistan, parts of the Caribbean and
Africa. The issue will only become more acute in the months ahead
as the UK leaves the European Union and European economic area.
UK pensioners who retire to sunnier parts of the continent—there
are thought to be 400,000—currently get their pensions uprated
throughout the EEA as normal, but reciprocal arrangements will
need to be put in place when we leave the EU if those pensioners
are not to find themselves in the same difficult situation as
those living in Canada and Australia. I hope that
the Minister will be able to share the Government’s thinking on
that issue, and tell us what steps they are taking to protect UK
pensioners who live in other parts of Europe...
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes):...The hon. Member for
Banff and Buchan will be aware that the current policy regarding
overseas pensions is a longstanding one of successive Governments
that has been in place for almost 70 years. Many Commonwealth
countries, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, have
pension systems that take account of overseas pensions as part of
their means test. That means that a significant proportion of any
increases in the UK state pension would go to the respective
Treasuries of those countries. The hon. Lady is, of course, right
to point out the issue of British overseas pensioners in other EU
member states. Let me reassure her that their rights are part of
the negotiation process. The Government are committed to getting
the best deal for those pensioners...
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Extract from Draft
Nuclear Industries Security (Amendment) Regulations 2017
(Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
(SNP):...What impact will the Government’s negotiations
with other countries such as the US, Canada and Japan have on the
regulations and the Government’s wider thinking on nuclear
safety? That is also why the Scottish National party called for a
White Paper to be published before the triggering of article 50,
and why we want an impact assessment on EU withdrawal to be
produced. Although we welcome the initial measures that tidy up
the legislation, we are looking for some comfort on wider nuclear
safety and how the Government will proceed with regard to
Brexit...
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