Exiting the EU: New Partnership

Debate between David Davis and Glyn Davies

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Lady worked hard to get her soundbite out. The White Paper contains a whole section on justice and home affairs, and we have made it very plain, over and over again—I even said this in my statement at the beginning—that we intend to maintain closer co-operation with Europe, not have less co-operation, on security, crime and intelligence matters. We must understand that Europe has a great deal to gain from this, because we are the intelligence superpower in Europe—we have the most powerful intelligence agencies—and therefore on things such as tackling crime and terrorism we are very important to them, as we think they are to us, too.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Significant discussion has already taken place between the Prime Minister and the Welsh Government following last June’s referendum, and there has been discussion in the Welsh Parliament, and I very much welcome that. In the interests of UK unity, Wales’s interests must be taken into account, including through discussion of this White Paper. Will the Secretary of State guarantee Wales’s involvement and that it will continue to feature in all our discussions? We accept, of course, that there can be no veto.

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says, and this has been our approach. We have had a number of meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee, two of them chaired by the Prime Minister and three of them chaired by me. We have been to Wales to see the Welsh Government to talk about some of these issues. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State is appearing before the Welsh Parliament—