European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Anna McMorrin

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

No, not at the moment.

My worry about amendment 7 is what the EU has done before with countries that have voted against something that they did not want. As we get nearer the end, if we do not have an agreement, it will of course be in the EU’s interests to delay if it knows that this Parliament is just waiting to allow more time, and we will therefore just be paying in more and more money. I have a problem even—

[Anna McMorrin]

This is absolute nonsense.

[Kate Hoey]

My hon. Friend may think that I am talking absolute nonsense, but 17.5 million people out there do not.

Let me get back to my reason for speaking today: I oppose new clause 13, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), and I want to explain why we must leave the customs union. I am very pleased that our Front Benchers have made no remarks about us supporting the new clause, and I certainly will vote against it tonight.

[Kate Hoey]

People voted to leave for all sorts of reasons, but—

[Anna McMorrin]

Take the intervention!

[Kate Hoey]

I can see. I do not need to be told what to do by my hon. Friend; I have been here quite a long time.

It is very clear that if we stay in the customs union, we cannot cut the kind of free trade deals that we want with the over 80% of the world’s economy that will be outside the EU once we have left. That is not what the British people voted for. They voted to leave for different reasons, but underlying everything for all of them was our getting back the ability to make decisions about what we want to do and who we want to trade with.