Customs duties

Part of European Union (Withdrawal) Bill – in the House of Commons at 4:15 pm on 20 December 2017.

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Photo of Chris Leslie Chris Leslie Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham East 4:15, 20 December 2017

The hon. Lady deals with the point incredibly well.

If we end frictionless trade or introduce barriers, with potentially the return of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, very significant problems will arise. The Government are either deluding themselves by saying, “There’s some miraculous blue-skies technological solution to all these things”, or deluding others because of the fudging and obfuscation that is going on, when, in moving from the phase 1 to the phase 2 process, they put in a form of words that seems to be interpreted in almost as many different ways as there are people reading them. They have kicked the issue into the long grass for now, but we are not going to be able to get to a decent deal without this unravelling.