Exiting the European Union

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Yes! I call Mr Frank Field.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his return to the Front Bench and, on behalf of all those Labour constituencies that voted to leave, thank him for his statement and for making the control of our borders the cornerstone of any renegotiation? May I take him back to the question from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood)? Given Europe’s huge trade surplus with us, how does the Secretary of State think that power position will play out when we are talking about membership of or access to the single market?

[Mr Davis]

It is early days to forecast the negotiation, but the right hon. Gentleman is right—there is a large trade surplus. The one that was cited time and again during the referendum campaign, which I do not want to revisit, was the surplus in cars from Germany alone, for example. With countries of the European Union facing economic difficulties, I do not think they will want to create problems for themselves by creating bilateral arrangements that hurt them, so the way I think it will play out is that over the period concerned—probably a couple of years or so—people will start to focus on what their own national interest is. My experience of the European Union is that the Commission makes a great deal of public statements, but at the end of the day the national interest of individual countries decides the outcome.