Prime Minister’s Statement

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady will know that the provisions on workers’ rights and environmental protections in the political decision are very ambitious. We want to maintain the highest possible standards. She should understand that whenever the EU introduces a new provision on workers’ rights, even if it is in some way inferior to our own by then, Parliament will have an opportunity to consider that new provision from the EU and put it into UK law.

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

The Prime Minister said at the outset of his statement that the debate about our membership of the European Union has not just paralysed our politics but profoundly divided our society. The longer we have that debate, the more difficult it will be to reunite our country. Is it not incumbent on all of us in this place today to act in a way that seeks to settle that debate, not perpetuate it—and not to reject a good deal in the fruitless and impractical pursuit of a perfect deal?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend is perfectly right. I think that this deal is about as perfect as you could get under the circumstances, if I say so myself, but yes, of course there are difficulties with it. I accept that people have objections to the current arrangements; all I can say is that those arrangements are there expressly by consent and are time-limited. We will go forward with a new deep and special partnership with our European friends that will supersede those arrangements. I think we should be very proud of the deal that we have today. Let us knock it through, if we possibly can, tonight.