Brexit Negotiations

Lord Bridges of Headley Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The implementation period will ensure that the changes necessary for the new relationship will be put in place, as well, as I have said, as a framework based on the existing structure of EU rules and regulations.

[Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)]

My Lords, I obviously applaud the Prime Minister for getting us to the base camp of the negotiations. It is much to her credit that she showed such persistence last week. Following on from the last question, however, I urge my noble friend to urge her colleagues to bring as much honesty and clarity as possible to the next phase of the negotiations. There is still talk of the implementation period being one in which we implement the final treaty. With due regard to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I struggle to find within Article 50 any reference that gives the European Union the remit to negotiate a full new treaty between now and the end of March 2019. Therefore my understanding is that at best the British Government would be able to negotiate a heads of terms with the European Union, but nothing more. Would my noble friend care to clarify whether that is or is not the case?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My noble friend is correct that there will be many elements during the implementation period. We will now start to discuss that with the EU—hopefully come Friday, once we have made sufficient progress. We are extremely pleased that Donald Tusk has indicated that he wishes to get on with discussions on the implementation period as quickly as possible, because we need to clarify all these issues so that we can move on.