Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

2. What estimate he has made of the volume of new legislation required in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

9. What estimate he has made of the volume of new legislation required in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Stephen Barclay)]

We continue to put the legislative building blocks in place to deliver our exit, and we have made good progress in passing the required primary legislation, including on nuclear safeguards and sanctions. As I said earlier, we are laying exit-related statutory instruments before Parliament.

[Mr Cunningham]

Will the UK be ready for a no-deal Brexit by 30 March 2019 if the withdrawal agreement is voted down next week?

[Stephen Barclay]

Given that in politics one is sometimes asked for short answers, I feel that I should stop my answer with the word “yes”. Yes, we will be ready. This is an opportunity to pay tribute to the work that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), is doing on no-deal planning; a significant amount of work has been done. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the situation will also be very challenging: there is a huge amount to do as part of that no-deal planning. So yes, we will be ready, but significant work will be required.