Brexit: Negotiations

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course we do not want no deal, if that was the implication of the question put by the noble Baroness, but that is the legal default option both under the Article 50 process in European law and now under British law, so we are preparing for that eventuality.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, any no-deal departure would put in jeopardy the people of Gibraltar, their right to self-determination and their 300 year-old relationship with the Crown. However, we read yesterday that the Spanish Government want to use the EU’s no-deal plans to push for the “decolonisation” of Gibraltar. This is the sort of risk that no deal brings. Can the Minister reassure us that Gibraltar is uppermost in the Government’s negotiations and that we will make sure that we do not depart without a deal?

[Lord Callanan]

Let me say to the noble Baroness that of course I can give her a reassurance that we are negotiating hard alongside Gibraltar. Gibraltar will leave the EU at the same time as the UK does. However, asking me to rule out no deal, as the Labour Party continues to do, is an impossible job. There are essentially three solutions to our current predicament: we can have a deal; we can have no deal; or we can have various forms of remain. The Labour Party tells us that it is against this deal, that it is against no deal and yet it says that it wants to respect the result of the referendum. The party really needs to decide what it is actually in favour of rather than what it is against.