Brexit Negotiations

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Brexit Secretary and I—indeed, the whole Cabinet and the whole Government—are behind the agreement, the deal and the progress report that we have negotiated in relation to moving on to phase 2. We are of one accord on that. The only party that is not of one accord is the Labour party.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Across the Government Benches, there is complete unanimity about congratulating the Prime Minister on securing the agreement. If I may say so, it was a pitiful performance from the Leader of the Opposition, and I still do not know whether he actually welcomes the agreement, but he should support this major step forward. Looking to the future, around this time next year we should have begun to conclude the trade negotiations towards the trade deal, so does the Prime Minister anticipate that we will have details of our new trading relationship with the EU, or will there be a set of heads of agreement?

[The Prime Minister]

We have always said that we will be working to negotiate our full agreement on the future relationship that we have with the EU. Of course, it will not legally be possible for the EU to sign up to that agreement until after we have left and become a third country, because it is not possible for such an agreement to be signed while we are in the EU. The pieces of work that will now go forward will include the details of the implementation period, the details of the withdrawal agreement, which will have to go through certain parliamentary processes in European member states and will also be put to Parliament here in the UK, and our future relationship with the EU on trade, security and other areas.