Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As we have said, we do not want to see the backstop used at all. We anticipate that we will be able to move seamlessly from the implementation period through to our future partnership but, to have this insurance policy, we need a backstop. We have been very clear about what that backstop must not do. We have put forward proposals to make sure that we can offer a solution to that and we will continue to discuss with the EU how to ensure that we achieve that outcome.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

I am relieved to hear that the Cabinet is behind the Prime Minister, but I have to say that some of them look and sound remarkably like Brutus, so she should be advised to take caution. The Minister and the Prime Minister have both used the word “gap”. Is that a gap of months or years? Is there some indication of how long it will take?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I say again: we do not intend there to be a gap.