My Lords, I will speak very briefly. Like others, I will declare whether I spoke at Second Reading—the answer is that I did. I entirely agree with the Minister’s earlier remarks that we should learn something new every day. When I was a member of the International Agreements Committee, I learned a great deal from some of its members who are present today and I continue to learn from them—not least the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Kerr, and my noble friend Lord Purvis.
I will pick up a very small point, which has not quite been covered, on rules of origin. As everyone is well aware, the rules of origin chapters in all our free trade agreements are incredibly complicated, as is the way in which different bodies will have to check whether they have been complied with. I notice with great interest that a report was carried out into whether the UK was suitable for membership of the CPTPP, in which CPTPP countries checked out, through a round of questions and discussions, for example, our ability to comply with its rules of origin requirements. Bearing in mind that we already have trade agreements with a number of CPTPP members—Australia, New Zealand and so on—we know that there are details in the agreement on how rules of origin will be checked out. As part of that procedure, there will be a working party on rules of origin between, for instance, New Zealand and us for its trade deal and one between Australia and us for its trade deal. I have been unable to locate details of whether there is to be a similar committee, ad hoc group or working party that will look at compliance with rules of origin. Can the Minister tell us whether that is the case?
The ultimate arbiter of whether rules of origin have been complied with will be the customs organisations in the relevant member countries. They include our customs services, which will be required to make decisions about whether to investigate particular cases in relation to compliance with rules of origin. Given the possibility that there can be goods coming from, say, Australia to the UK using the Australia free trade agreement or the CPTPP arrangements, with a slightly different rules of origin arrangement, as my noble friend pointed out, this is clearly a very complex issue for the customs authorities. Can the Minister give us an absolute assurance that appropriate support, finances, additional personnel and training are being provided to our customs services to enable them to carry out this difficult task, particularly when other member countries have had time to interrogate whether we are up to scratch but we have not yet had an opportunity to check whether the other member countries are up to scratch?