Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Peter Bone

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State has ever reflected on the fact that if David Cameron had kept his promise of staying in office, implementing the views of the British people and triggering article 50 immediately after the referendum, we would nearly be coming out of the EU now, and I would probably be arranging having a statue of David Cameron in my constituency. Does the Secretary of State get the feeling that the public are fed up with how long this process is taking and wish we could just get on with it a bit quicker?

[Mr David Davis]

I have been asked today to give careers advice to myself and now to past Prime Ministers, from which I will demur. Had we triggered article 50 immediately after the referendum, we would have had to absorb 40 years of European Union law into British law almost in a geological nanosecond—a very, very short time. It would not have been easy to do. Although my hon. Friend is right about the departure date, it might have been a lot more uncomfortable than it is going to be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Peter Bone

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We have had the Hollo; let’s have the Bone.

[Mr Bone]

Thank you for saving me up, Mr Speaker.

Hon. Members know that we will leave this dreadful European Union superstate in 379 days, but they might not know that that will also mark the end of the Secretary of State’s grand tour of Europe. He is in a unique position to advise the British people about which countries like us and which do not so that we will know which countries to go to after we leave. Will the Secretary of State tell us the answer?

[Mr Davis]

I am very tempted to give my hon. Friend the list from the last three weeks, which would take about five minutes. Two things have struck me while talking to all my European opposite numbers: all of them are sad that we are going; and they all want a strong future relationship. They all want to stay our friends and allies, and that is what we will deliver.

Royal Assent

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Peter Bone

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Did you notice, Mr Speaker, that the shadow Minister, just at the end of his question, committed the Labour party to dropping 29 March 2019 as the date on which we come out of the European Union? Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is the Government’s policy that we are definitely coming out by 29 March 2019?

[Mr Davis]

It is not just the Government’s policy; it is the law of the European Union.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Peter Bone

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The Bill cannot be brought before Parliament before the withdrawal deal is struck, but I remind the hon. Lady that the Government have undertaken to provide a vote on the whole deal before we even come to that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

In June 2016, the people of this country voted to come out of the EU, to end free movement, to stop paying the EU billions of pounds, to make our own laws in our own country and to be judged by our own judges. Are the Government going to deliver that by March 2019?

[Mr Davis]

Yes.

Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote

Debate between David Davis and Peter Bone

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I am afraid that I have lost count of the questions. As the hon. Lady is challenging the status of statements from this Dispatch Box, I will repeat this to her. The choice will be meaningful: whether to accept that deal or to move ahead without a deal. Full stop. That was the promise that was made.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I listened to the Chair of the Select Committee, and I want the House to know that he was expressing his view, and not the view of everyone on the Committee.

[Mr Bone]

Well, in the past, Sir, Select Committee Chairmen have come to this House to represent the Committee, not their own personal views. [Interruption.] I am diverging and wasting the House’s time. [Interruption.] Sorry, let me get to the point. I would like the Secretary of State to agree with Labour Members that, if we do not have agreement by October 2018, it will be impossible to do a deal. Will he go back to Brussels and say, “If we do not have a deal by 26 October 2018, there will not be a deal and we will be coming out without one”?

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is trying to tempt me. No, it is my job to get the best deal possible, and if that means keeping going until November, then so be it; that is what we will do.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Peter Bone

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman makes, if I may say so, a very civilised point, and he is exactly right.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Following on from that, it seems to me that it is the European elite’s desire to protect the institution of the European Union and not to worry about the peoples of Europe, and therefore they will delay and delay, hoping that this country will somehow change its view. Will the Secretary of State give this House an absolute undertaking that on 31 March 2019 we will leave the EU, whether a deal has been reached or not, and that there will be no case whatsoever of considering an extension to the negotiations?

[Mr Davis]

One point that I think is sometimes confused is the idea that a transitional or implementation period means an extension of the negotiations. We need, essentially, to have arrived at a decision by the end of March 2019, but the simple truth is that the article 50 process stops it there. That is it; that is where it goes to. So even if I did not give the promise, it would happen.