UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations and Transition Period Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateCaroline Lucas
Main Page: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)Department Debates - View all Caroline Lucas's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Does the Minister see the irony of UK negotiators trying to persuade our EU counterparts of our good faith when it comes to compliance with the rules of any new trade deal at exactly the time that the Prime Minister is today asking Parliament to vote to break international law by ripping up rules that were agreed barely a year ago? Can she tell us why the Government are apparently yet to agree to non-regression over current standards, when Ministers have repeatedly assured us that they intend to maintain and even enhance our own environmental standards?
I think that the trust for which the United Kingdom is renowned is deep. I think it is very well understood that the moves the Government have taken with regard to the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill have had to be taken as an insurance policy to preserve the integrity of our country. The Prime Minister and the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) have been very clear, as has been the Secretary of State Justice, on why we are taking this particular course of action. I still think that the United Kingdom is held in very high esteem in that respect.