Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote Debate
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Jeremy Lefroy
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Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for the tremendous amount of work that he and his team are doing to achieve the best possible outcome for the United Kingdom. I know that he, as a true parliamentarian, would expect us to vote on this matter before we leave the EU and not after. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said, there are three issues: withdrawal; the transition, or implementation; and the final agreement. It should be quite possible to achieve the first two by sometime in the middle of next year, or hopefully earlier. On the third, a heads of agreement could perhaps be agreed on the European system of qualified majority voting so that it can come to this House and we know exactly what we are talking about even if all the details are not sorted out.
Mr Davis
As the Chairman of the Select Committee said, there are three components to this, but they are not unrelated, with article 50 itself taking into account the framework of the future relationship. We intend that they are broadly agreed at the same time and that they are conditional upon one another. That is because it would have a material impact on the negotiation to separate them completely. That is why we will bring the whole thing to the House. That was the undertaking given. Indeed, that was what was asked for during the passage of the article 50 Bill. With regard to the future relationship, of course, as the Prime Minister said in Florence, article 218 says that that agreement cannot be signed until we are a third country, in effect. It is also the case that there could well be more than one treaty, for reasons of interest and benefit to ourselves. The House will therefore have multiple occasions to look at that separately from the overall decision. That, I think, is in the interests of democracy.