Leaving the EU

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is exactly what this deal does. By ensuring that we have frictionless trade across the border with the European Union and in the facilitated customs arrangement we have put forward, we are ensuring that those businesses that currently only trade with the European Union will have no extra requirements in terms of customs, and therefore that we are not increasing the burdens on those businesses.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

In the Prime Minister’s initial letter to Donald Tusk notifying the European Commission that she wanted to trigger article 50, she said that if there was no deal, there would be no deal on security. I do not think she was making a threat—she was simply stating the truth and the facts—but since then, the European Union has made it clear that it is not sure that it wants precisely the same version of security co-operation that we have talked about. It now says that we will not be able to be a member of the European arrest warrant. Is not this issue of national security as important as it was on the day that she wrote that letter, and is it not therefore most important that we get a deal?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course the issue of national security is important. We want to maintain operational capabilities. As the hon. Gentleman will see when the White Paper comes out, in the security partnership that I outlined in my Munich speech and that we are putting further details on, we want to ensure that operational capabilities through instruments, programmes and agencies are still available to the United Kingdom. That will be part of the negotiations that we take forward, and a security partnership is an important element of our future relationship.