The government today announced that it is planning to create up to 10 “freeports” across the UK after Brexit.
However, Green Party MEP, Catherine Rowett, warned that this “could be harmful to all, except tax dodgers and big, multinational conglomerates.”
Freeports are areas where businesses have to pay little or no tax and are meant to promote economic activity.
The UK had such zones from the 1980s to 2012. They included Birmingham, Belfast, Cardiff, Liverpool, Prestwick and Southampton. In 2012 the government decided not renew their licenses.
It is envisaged that seaports and airports will be able to apply for the new freeport status, after the UK is due to leave the EU on 31 October.
Such zones are already allowed under EU law and currently 82 exist across the bloc, although the EU commission has recently raised concerns about the threat of counterfeiting in these areas.
Catherine Rowett, Green Party MEP for the East of England, however, said:
“The idea that these freeports are going to solve the social and economic ills caused by crashing out of the EU is just fantasy. I also have significant concerns about the implications these free ports would have on both the wider economy and the ability of the government to meet its commitments to tackle climate change”.
She continued:
“These free zones are based on outdated laissez-faire economics. Rather than promoting business and helping provide jobs in our deprived coastal towns, they will result in a race to the bottom that will be harmful to all except tax dodgers and big, multinational conglomerates.”
“Here in the East we have one of the biggest ports in Europe at Felixstowe and if we were to create a freeport in the region, it could simply draw business away from the current port, or, if felixstowe were itself to gain free port status, it would massively reduce revenue to the public purse – money which we desperately need for our schools, hospitals and public transport across the East of England”.
Situated in Suffolk, the Port of Felixstowe is Britain’s biggest and busiest container port and one of the largest in Europe. The port handles the equivalent of 3.5 million twenty-foot containers each year and provides some of the deepest water close to the open sea of any European port. Felixstowe runs services to and from 365 ports around the world.
Catherine Rowett MEP also highlighted her opposition to creating free ports at airports.
“We need to take urgent action to tackle climate change. That can only be done by reducing the use of air travel and air freight. Promoting airports is utterly inconsistent with reducing greenhouse gases and would be a reprehensible act of environmental sabotage by this government.”