EU Exit Negotiations

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said to other Members, we are very clear that this should be temporary. As I said earlier, when we published the proposals for a UK-wide customs backstop, we included the expectation that it should end by December 2021, because the future economic relationship should be in place at that point. We are also clear about the fact that we cannot be in a position in which we would be potentially trapped in a permanent backstop, for a number of reasons, one of which is that we want to negotiate trade deals around the rest of the world and gain the economic advantage for this country of doing so.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I will ask this question again because I have not had an answer from the four different Ministers to whom I have asked it: after 29 March, which queue will British passport holders use when they land in Spain, France, Germany or Greece, and which queue will EU citizens use when they arrive in the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

The Home Office is looking at the arrangements that will take place at the border after 29 March 2019. As to those arrangements for UK citizens entering other countries within the EU, of course they are a matter for those countries. One of the issues that we have put forward in the White Paper, which we will discuss with the European Union, is precisely about ensuring that those who wish to travel as tourists, for example, between the United Kingdom and the 27 member states of the European Union will be able to continue to do that as easily as possible in the future.