Brexit: Revocability

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I was particularly fond of his “Spitting Image” puppet at the time, and I am delighted to see that he has lost none of his robustness.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, talks about this being a waste of time. This morning, the new negotiating mandate came out from the European Union and it talked about a much shorter transition period than I think the Government have been thinking about. Perhaps we could ask the Minister to make sure that the negotiations take place with a little more speed than they have been doing so that we are fit to end the transition period at the end of December 2020.

[Lord Callanan]

Of course, we are very keen to get on with the negotiations as quickly as possible. As I understand it, the European Commission this morning proposed an implementation period of around 21 months. The Government have stated that we would prefer a period of around 24 months, so it seems to me that the positions are not too far apart, and we shall have some interesting negotiations on the subject.