European Council

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The deal is the issue that is on the table at the moment: the question is how we leave the European Union, whether we do so with a deal, and whether we do so with the deal that was previously negotiated. Any of those options actually delivers on what people voted for in 2016, and we should be doing just that.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that a no-deal Brexit would mean that we would not be part of Europol or of the overarching institutions that manage internet safety, thereby negating the aspirations that she rightly made in her statement to the House? What steps is she taking, and what advice will she give to her successor, on ensuring that those matters are firmly fixed down before 31 October?

[The Prime Minister]

It is not the case that the only way in which we can ensure internet safety and work on it is through the institutions of the European Union. The global forum to which I referred earlier was largely set up as a result of an initiative by the United Kingdom. It does not come under a European Union banner; it has other EU member states in it, but it is something that we look to do worldwide and we will continue to work on internet safety worldwide.