Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

While talking about Northern Ireland, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes), made the significant statement that the report by Mr Lars Karlsson did not meet the Government’s test of there being no physical border infrastructure. Will the Secretary of State repeat that statement and say that, in his view, the report does not meet that test?

[Mr David Davis]

That is an important question. I will certainly say to the right hon. Gentleman that it does not meet all our criteria. We want to maintain no physical structures at the border and no visible border—a very light-touch border. I remind him, however, that the border does exist as a financial border. There are different fiscal and excise policies north and south of the border, and we have to manage that now. We do so without the border being visible, and we will do that in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman is right that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, but in the joint report that we concluded and got agreement on in December the EU agreed that the transition date, or end date for ongoing permanent residence rights—not possibilities, but rights—will be March 2019.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

17. What recent discussions he has had with Commissioner Barnier on the transition arrangements for the UK after March 2019.

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)]

At the General Affairs Council on Monday the European Council agreed its negotiating directives on the implementation period. Now that the Commission has a clear negotiating mandate we hope to move quickly to begin detailed discussions on the implementation period. Given the alignment in our positions we are confident we can reach political agreement by March. There remain a number of areas that we now need to discuss with the EU to ensure the period operates smoothly. We look forward to progressing substantive discussions.

[Mr McFadden]

When it came to the divorce bill, after a lot of huffing and puffing and wasted time the Government simply signed on the dotted line. What will be different in the transition period we are negotiating compared with the EU guidelines issued this week?

[Mr Davis]

As to the right hon. Gentleman’s opening remark, as he is an intelligent and well-informed person it is amazing that he does not differentiate between a £100 billion demand and a £35 billion outcome; that seems to have been a somewhat useful exercise by the Government.

As for the next stage, there is a negotiation to be undertaken. There is a variety of important areas, but the primary area for me is the question of our right to sign trade deals during the implementation period so we can bring them into force immediately after we leave. That is a massive advantage for the United Kingdom to have.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

No, the Prime Minister has made it clear that we are not going to take any off-the-shelf model. We are a very large country in European terms, and we have very great trade reach—and very great reach in other respects—so we will choose a model that is appropriate to us.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister’s humiliation yesterday, when she was forced to disagree with herself, shows that this is less a negotiation and more a set of decisions, and those decisions are being framed by the contradictory red lines that the Government have thrown out, without regard to the consequences, on a hard border, the single market and the customs union. The Secretary of State’s colleague Ruth Davidson said this morning:

“If regulatory alignment in a number of specific areas is the requirement for a frictionless border, then the Prime Minister should conclude this must be on a UK-wide basis.”

She is right, is she not?

[Mr Davis]

What I will say to the right hon. Gentleman, given that he is a Labour party member, is that he must have much greater experience than I have of disagreeing with himself. Look at his own Front Benchers and the 11 different positions they have taken.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes his point clearly. The simple fact is that everybody has known March 2019 is departure date ever since the article 50 Bill was passed.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s retreat today in the face of impending votes on the withdrawal Bill, but why is he intent on holding a gun to this House’s head by presenting us with a choice only between the deal he negotiates and no deal at all? Surely, a meaningful vote and meaningful legislation would give this House the possibility of asking the Government to go back and amend the deal, including, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said, by extending the timetable, if that is what is required?

[Mr Davis]

Nobody is holding a gun to the House’s head. What I will say to the right hon. Gentleman is that the decision being put before the House was put there by 17.5 million voters.

Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I will not pre-empt the discussions on the Bill, but those reports are not true.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

With the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), saying one thing from the Dispatch Box on 7 February and the Secretary of State saying not one but two things in the space of 24 hours yesterday, it is clear that ministerial assurances on this matter are not enough. Does the Secretary of State not agree that after the shambles of the last 24 hours, when he had to be rebutted by his own departmental spokesman, the only way to guarantee Parliament a meaningful say on and input into these most vital negotiations is to amend the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill accordingly?

[Mr Davis]

No, I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that. His description of events is also wrong. It is one thing to give an undertaking, which is binding, and another to say that these are the probabilities and the difficulties that we face together, which is what I said yesterday. I treated the Exiting the EU Committee chaired by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) with absolute respect in outlining what had happened previously—not what we expect, not what we intend, not what the Union intends, but what had happened previously and the risks that we have to take on board. We intend to meet all our undertakings, and I do not take it very well that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) suggests that we will not.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is right to say it is difficult to come up with a solution to create an invisible border if we do not know what the border around the rest of the United Kingdom will be. I think that, over time, the European Union has come to a similar view, although it may never have said so explicitly. I do not want to predict what the conclusions will say when they come out on Friday, but I suspect they will pay proper attention to the fact that we have made quite a lot of progress on Northern Ireland, possibly as much as we can.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I have sympathy with the Secretary of State because he has to come here every month to report on negotiations that resemble the holding pattern at Heathrow airport, where the planes go round and round but never actually move forward. May I return him to this crucial issue of no deal? Members of his party have spent the past two or three days touring TV studios saying that they are relaxed about that outcome, yet the Resolution Foundation and the International Trade Policy Observatory have today published a report saying that it would mean added costs for families of between £250 and £500 per year, with the burden falling most heavily on families in the midlands and the north. Is he relaxed about that kind of additional burden on hard-working families?

[Mr Davis]

If I thought it reflected the reality, I would not be relaxed about it, but the simple truth is that it does not. It does not reflect the effect of free trade and the free trade deals, and it does not reflect what we would have to do in those circumstances. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), from a sedentary position—he has not been here very long and obviously thinks this is the way to do it—shouts that I am talking up no deal. No, I am not. I am dealing with scaremongering and I am knocking down scaremongering, so I think the answer there is no.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The purpose of any transitional arrangement is, as the Secretary of State said, to avoid a cliff edge, and to give continuity and certainty to the UK economy. But the Chancellor and the Trade Secretary published an article last month saying that during any such period the UK would not be in the single market or the customs union. What is the purpose of a transitional arrangement that undermines the very stability and continuity it is supposed to achieve?

[Mr Davis]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point and I suspect it would have been in his question earlier if he had had the chance to ask it. The simple truth is, as I have said, that we are starting from the aim of maintaining as much continuity as is necessary to anything that might change in the final settlement. So we will do that. Because we are not in the European Union at that point—legally, we will not be—we will not be formally members of the single market and the customs union. We may well seek a customs agreement for that period and a similar arrangement on the single market provisions, but we cannot make that decision ourselves; there is a negotiation to be carried out with the EU.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Pat McFadden

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

First, on customs borders and frictionless trade, there was a lot of attention on my visit to Washington last week, but I went straight from there to Detroit to look at the American-Canadian border. That has always been a very open border. I have traded across it myself, so I know it well. The average clearance time for a vehicle going through that border—there is a choke point—is 53 seconds. When we clear containers from outside the European Union area, we can clear 98% of them in four to five seconds. Technology can accelerate these things enormously well, and that is what we are aiming to do.

With respect to the negotiating round, we stand ready to do anything to accelerate the process. This process was asked for by the Commission. We must bear in mind that it has a very stiff, rigid, structured mandate process: it draws up its lines, negotiates, goes back to report to the other 27, and starts the cycle again. I do not know whether it is possible to get continuous negotiation that way. If it is, we would be happy to go along with it.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

On the financial settlement, does the Secretary of State believe that the European Union is blackmailing the UK?

[Mr Davis]

With the best will in the world, I choose my own words. In a negotiation there are pressure points, but that is to be expected. Anyone who imagines that 28 nations effectively negotiating together will not come to a point of pressure is living in another world—a fantasy world, someone said.