I want to write to Lord Razzall
Lord Razzall: My Lords, will the Minister acknowledge that there has been a significant reduction in export sales by SMEs and small businesses since Brexit? Will he also acknowledge that, to take advantage of the limited number of trade deals that his department has managed to sign since Brexit, it is necessary to give significant help to SMEs and small businesses, if the gap is going to be closed?
Lord Razzall: ...Bill, but all the previous speakers have clearly taken the opportunity to make more general comments before getting to the detail of the Bill. We were told in 2016 that a major advantage of Brexit would be our ability to make trade deals ourselves, outside the ambit of the European Union. Liz Truss, when she was the relevant Minister, used to boast that more than 50 to 60 trade deals had...
Lord Razzall: ...for services which should be funded by central government—the same old con trick. Of course, your Lordships would not expect me to pass on this speech without indicating the elephant in the room: Brexit. The Government say that the major reasons for our disastrous recent economic performance are the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but our European neighbours have been affected by those...
Lord Razzall: ..., could it be because of the damage to the economy that the previous Prime Minister did in her 44 days? Thirdly, could this be—whatever the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, might think—a result of Brexit, as the Times said today? Or does she agree that it is all three?
Lord Razzall: ...G7 country whose economy has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Thirdly, our productivity is significantly worse than that of our major competitors. Fourthly, we have the damaging effects of Brexit. What are the Government doing about it? We have learned a number of things from their recent announcements and comments from government hangers-on. First, apparently it is all Putin’s...
Lord Razzall: ...clearly in difficulties. In economic terms, growth in GDP is stagnant. GDP even reduced in March. Inflation is forecast by the Bank of England to reach 10% and, notwithstanding recent gloating by Brexiters, it is now clear that our growth rate will be lower than in all other G7 countries. In personal terms, the increase in the cost of living has driven millions into food and fuel poverty...
Lord Razzall: ...point in promising a gain of £2.5 trillion, as the Government have done with levelling up to the economy, if they do not provide the resources to achieve it. I fear that the Government hope that a Brexit dividend will save them, but this is a chimera. The £350 million paid to the NHS from Europe, promised on the side of a bus during the Brexit referendum, was a lie then and is a lie now,...
Lord Razzall: ...is it? Is it that he is frightened by the reaction to Theresa May’s proposals in the 2017 election campaign? Thirdly, there is no reference to what steps will be taken to ameliorate the effect of Brexit. Where are the sunlit uplands promised in the referendum campaign? Both the Bank of England and the OBR expect negative long-term effects on the UK economy from the trade deal signed with...
Lord Razzall: .... This deal is bad for jobs, bad for security and bad for our environment. The stark reality is that this is a much better deal for Europe than it is for us, for one fundamental reason which the Brexiteers have never really understood. As the noble Lord, Lord Horam, said, Europe benefits far more than we do from tariff-free trade in manufactured goods and farm products simply because they...
Lord Razzall: ...take on the billions of pounds of toxic loans that will remain after the virus, as was done after the previous crisis and as is recommended by the leaders of all our major banks. Thirdly, there is Brexit. The government policy is clearly to crash out and blame Covid, but that will not work. In the current climate, will we really replace the European Union with China as a major trading...
Lord Razzall: ..., more lost income and the familiar consequences of unemployment and poverty—poorer health, a crumbling infrastructure, and rising crime and xenophobia. And for heaven’s sake, let us extend the Brexit transition period while all this is being sorted out.
Lord Razzall: ...we have from these Benches. Clearly, the Chancellor had an extremely difficult hand, as growth rates have been revised down very significantly; we would say quite often that that was as a result of Brexit. Although that might be disputed, that was so even before the effects of the virus. I will make three brief criticisms before moving on to the wider issues. First, there was no real...
Lord Razzall: ...report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, suggesting that gross domestic product is between 2.5% and 3%—between £55 billion and £66 billion below where it would have been without the vote on Brexit. If Brexit is to happen, it is vital that we learn the lesson of where our growth might come from in a post-Brexit world. Clearly, the future for manufacturing is poor. The whole...
Lord Razzall: ...in tower blocks will no longer provide any threat of further fires? My second question, which is not surprising coming from these Benches, is: will the Minister confirm that, whatever the terms of Brexit—whether it is with no deal or a new deal—the health and safety issues regarding tumble dryers will be as strong as they are today with regard to imported dryers?
Lord Razzall: ...outside Britain. As always in international negotiations, the devil is in the detail. My noble friend Lord Newby mentioned more than 60 European bodies in which we would like to participate after Brexit. In the time available, I want to highlight a few of the 62. The first is Euratom. Last year Theresa May notified the EU of the UK’s intention to leave the EU nuclear safety and research...
Lord Razzall: ...the position of Airbus, which, after all, provides at the moment one-third of all UK defence helicopters. Bearing in mind the likely pressures on Airbus to shift production to France or Germany if Brexit happens, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that Airbus’s helicopter capability remains in the UK?
Lord Razzall: ...related issues since she ceased to be a Minister. Does he accept that there is a suspicion that the failure to take proper action over this and related issues is an indication that, as a result of Brexit, government decision-making elsewhere is paralysed?
Lord Razzall: My Lords, I suspect that I am not alone in your Lordships’ House in having spent the last year being asked what I was going to do about Brexit. People who would be described as leavers have been asking why we are not getting on with it; remainers like me have been asking what I am going to do to stop it. With more than 180 speakers—as the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding, has...
Lord Razzall: ...priority state its negotiating intentions with respect to the Country of Origin rules framework and”, more particularly, “set out its contingency plan, should the rules cease to apply after Brexit”.
Lord Razzall: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to negotiate continued membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency after Brexit.