European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between David Davis and Helen Goodman

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

Yes, that is also true, but the general point is that the overall timetable is not in our control; it is in the other side’s control. As we have seen throughout this entire negotiation, the moment we gave away sequencing at the beginning, we gave an advantage to the other side. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), the former Minister of State, is nodding: he remembers it.

There are essentially three emblematic conclusions to this. The first is the World Trade Organisation, which we have talked about already—I doubt whether it will be a deliberate conclusion, but it is a possible one—the second is Norway, which a number of Members on both sides of the House have suggested might be the best outcome, and the third is Canada plus, plus, plus. There are compromises between them; there are mixtures of them; but those three essentially capture the possible outcomes.

Let me start with the issue on which I disagree with pretty much everyone who has spoken so far: the World Trade Organisation deal, the so-called no deal. The Chancellor called it a strict no deal, because he knows full well all the preparations that have been made in the Government to create a basic no deal, or basic negotiated outcome. There is a whole stratum, a whole spectrum, of possible types of no deal. Some of them deal with the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) raised earlier—aviation, data and so on. If this deal goes down, as I think it will in a few days, there will be a scramble in London and Brussels to start putting those one-on-one, unilateral negotiations together. So there is a range of possibilities.

[Helen Goodman]

I am slightly puzzled why the right hon. Gentleman is so critical of the backstop arrangement, given that he himself signed off the original draft in December last year.

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Lady clearly has not read my resignation letter, in which I made clear what I had said to the Prime Minister about that backstop arrangement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Helen Goodman

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Government’s own analysis shows that if we leave the customs union, unemployment in the north-east will go up to 200,000, so why did the Secretary of State argue against a customs partnership yesterday afternoon and what is he going to say to the 160,000 people who lose their jobs?

[Mr David Davis]

I have two points in response to that. First, the hon. Lady is presuming what my arguments were yesterday at the Cabinet Committee. As far as I am aware, the minutes are not published. Secondly, what she refers to is not Government policy or indeed Government estimates.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

As the House can see, it is a complete cinch.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Of course the British people voted to leave the European Union, but the common market is extremely popular with the public. We joined the customs union in 1973. Not only would staying in it help to resolve the Irish issues, it would boost British exporters across the country.

[Mr Davis]

I say to the hon. Lady that if it was still just the common market I suspect the vote might have been different.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

Mr Falconer works at the Department for International Trade, of course, but we are in constant communication with him. With respect to the sequencing of decisions on the implementation phase and the ongoing relationship, my hon. Friend is correct in theory, but in practice we need the implementation phase to be decided early for it to be beneficial to a large number of companies. In his response to the statement, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) pointed out that some companies will have to make decisions at the end of this year or in the first quarter of next year so that they are able to carry out any necessary changes, so we want to get things under way as quickly as possible.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), some representatives from the pharmaceutical industry came to see me last Thursday, and they are desperate for some clarification on future trading relations and regulation. If they do not get some certainty, investment is going to be put back or spent in other countries. Nobody thinks that we should give the EU a blank cheque, but can the Secretary of State not see that if arguing about every £5 billion takes so long that we lose more in GDP, it is not worth it?

[Mr Davis]

First, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), had a meeting with the industry this morning, and not for the first time. I have met industry representatives a couple of times as well. Secondly, part of the point of the implementation phase is that it gives them an extra two years of decision making, and that is well within their decision cycle. Thirdly, as for giving a blank cheque, that is Labour’s policy.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

Politically, my hon. Friend is quite right: that is the case. It is a point of view that is resisted heavily by the Commission, but he is right.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows perfectly well that to keep the lights on in this country, we need the electricity interconnectors with the continent to operate—

[Mr Davis]

indicated assent.

[Helen Goodman]

He is nodding, so he does know. The Secretary of State also knows that the legal base for the energy market is separate from that for the single market, so when he says in his statement that “the key issues in relation to cross-border economic co-operation and energy will need to form an integral part of discussions on the UK’s future relationship”, is he softening up his colleagues sitting behind him for the reality that we will have to stay in the European energy market?

[Mr Davis]

No, but a country does not have to be a member of that to sell and buy from it, just as many other countries do.