The Government's Plan for Brexit

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Steve Baker

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am grateful to follow the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). I rise to give the Government my complete support.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

First time.

[Mr Baker]

No, it is not the first time—I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

I want to pick up on what the Secretary of State said—that there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. I will go on to talk about what else might be said, but, first, what has the Prime Minister said? In particular, she has said:

“Our laws made not in Brussels but in Westminster.

Our judges sitting not in Luxembourg but in courts across the land.

The authority of EU law in this country ended forever.”

Of the deal, she has said:

“I want it to include cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism work.

I want it to involve free trade, in goods and services.

I want it to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within the Single Market—and let European businesses do the same here.

But let’s state one thing loud and clear: we are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration all over again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That’s not going to happen.”

So the Prime Minister has said a great deal, and it has been supplemented elsewhere.

One thing I particularly welcome is my right hon. Friend’s work to secure reciprocal rights for those EU citizens currently resident in the UK and for those British citizens currently resident in the EU. What we have learned through the press is that 20 member states seem to have agreed to her framework arrangements, but that the Chancellor of Germany and EU officials at the most senior levels are obstructing that—indifferently and intransigently—when they could actually put people’s minds at ease by agreeing with our Prime Minister.