EU Exit Negotiations

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are very clear that we will be an independent coastal state. There have been attempts to link fisheries and access to fishing waters to the trade aspect of the negotiation. We have been very clear that we will not accept that. We will be an independent coastal state so that it is the United Kingdom that determines access to UK waters.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Uncertainty about our future trading relationships with the EU is undermining British business and having a chilling effect on our economic growth. There is absolutely nothing in this so-called deal that dispels or resolves those issues. Will the Prime Minister recognise that, instead of negotiating with the economic kamikaze tendency in her own party, she needs to reach out to this side of the House and build a consensus, or take the issue again to the public?

[The Prime Minister]

The decision taken yesterday gives that certainty to business, which is why business has been welcoming the deal. Richard Walker of Iceland says:

“it delivers a clear path ahead that business so desperately needs”.

As I mentioned earlier, the FSB says it

“brings with it some certainty that our small businesses have craved.”

There are other quotes from business welcoming the fact that we have recognised the needs of manufacturing industry in putting forward our proposals for the future relationship.