Brexit: Free Trade Agreement

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The premise of the noble Lord’s question is wrong. The Government want to leave the EU. We are doing our best to deliver a deal that will enable us to leave the EU in a smooth and orderly fashion.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, given the letter that all those Tory leadership hopefuls have just written, saying that they would never countenance what this House would like—a permanent customs union—and as the Prime Minister seems to concur with that view, in what way were the Government willing to compromise in the talks that they offered to the Opposition?

[Lord Callanan]

We took the view that both sides would have had to compromise. The noble Baroness cited Conservative leader hopefuls so I will tell her what her leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said at the launch of his European election campaign: that a commitment to leave the EU was confirmed in the Labour Party manifesto and at the party conference. We seek to explore whether that really is the position of the Labour Party.