European Council: December 2016

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s reassertion that we will trigger Article 50 before the end of March. That is of the first importance. I also suggest that the Leader of the Opposition, whom I greatly respect, as she knows, was talking complete nonsense when she spoke about somehow being half in the customs union and half out of it. You are either wholly in or wholly out.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but I was quoting Liam Fox, who suggested that at the weekend. It was not my suggestion.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

I suspect that that was completely out of order.

I personally would like to see a free trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union with no strings attached. However, I fear that that is unattainable; even if the EU were to agree with it at government level, the European Parliament certainly would not. However, we have nothing to fear about a World Trade Organization fallback. Is my noble friend aware that we do the bulk of our trade with the rest of the world on WTO terms, far more than we do with the EU, and that that amount of trade with the rest of the world is growing faster than our trade with the EU?

Lastly, speaking as a British citizen living in France, I urge the Government to reconsider the matter of the EU citizens legally resident here and to give an unconditional guarantee that they will stay, seize the moral high ground and not try to make them some kind of bargaining counter.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend for his questions. As the Prime Minister made clear, her objective remains that we indeed give early reassurance in negotiations to EU citizens who live in the UK, and to UK citizens living in EU countries. She has made it very clear that we would like that to be discussed very early on. Our intention is clear, but we will need other European leaders to match our commitment. In terms of the negotiation itself, what we want is a strong Britain working with a strong EU. We want a deal that works both for Britain and for the EU.