European Council

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. We want to ensure reciprocal arrangements for EU citizens living here and for UK citizens living in the EU in terms of their future status, and I want to see that discussion taking place at an early stage in the negotiations. I recognise his point about some of the things that are being said, but I will simply say that, following my conversations with other European leaders, I believe that there is an extent of goodwill to deal with this issue at an early stage.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister lectures nationalists on the importance of staying in unions, but all the while she is advocating leaving one. She lectures our European partners on the importance of the single market, but all the while she is hellbent on our leaving it. Does she think that this incoherence in her position might be dealt with—and make her life easier—if she thought again about our staying within the single market?

[The Prime Minister]

I have said this on a number of occasions in the House, and I will repeat it here today: we want to negotiate the best possible trading arrangements. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has talked about a tariff-free, frictionless and seamless movement of goods and services. It is wrong to think of the single market as a binary issue, in which we are either in it or have no access to it. We want to ensure that we have good access to the single market and the best possible trade deal, which will allow frictionless and, as far as possible, tariff-free access.