Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, and I am very conscious of it in the East Anglia region. The border delivery group is working with Departments to ensure that plans are in place to engage fully with traders in advance of exit and indeed, it has visited each of the 135 port and airport locations. My right hon. Friend brings considerable experience to the subject and I am happy to meet her to discuss it further.

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his place and genuinely wish him well in his role.

On 15 October, the Prime Minister made an important point from the Dispatch Box to reassure MPs who were worried about the backstop arrangement. She said that

“if the EU were not to co-operate on our future relationship, we must be able to ensure that we cannot be kept in this backstop arrangement indefinitely.”—[Official Report, 15 October 2018; Vol. 647, c. 410.]

Does the Secretary of State agree?

[Stephen Barclay]

I thank the right hon. and learned Member for his generous welcome. I also take the opportunity, as I did on Monday night—although technically it was Tuesday morning—to pay tribute to him for serving as shadow Secretary of State throughout this period. On the core of his question about the UK’s ability to exit from the backstop, he will know, as a former lawyer, that the legal process is clear in terms of the role of the Joint Committee and the arbitration, and that there is legal wiring in the withdrawal agreement that requires the EU to act in good faith. Those issues were explored in much more detail with the Attorney General on Monday, but in short I very much agree with the Prime Minister because there is a legal connectivity between the withdrawal agreement and the backstop arrangement.

[Keir Starmer]

That is a very sensible position. The Secretary of State suggests that he agrees with the Prime Minister that, if the EU does not co-operate, we cannot be kept in the backstop indefinitely. The problem is that the Attorney General’s legal advice, which was published yesterday states, in terms,

“in international law, the”

backstop

“would endure indefinitely.”

He went on to say:

“This remains the case even if parties are still negotiating many years later, and even if the parties believe that the talks have clearly broken down”.

That is the complete opposite of what the Prime Minister said she intended to achieve.

[Stephen Barclay]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes the same point in essence as my very distinguished predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), about where the balance of risk sits. The right hon. and learned Gentleman quoted the Attorney General, so it is worth drawing the House’s attention to exactly what the Attorney General said on that point. [Interruption.] Well, he quoted part of what the Attorney General said, but my right hon. and learned Friend said more than what has been quoted in isolation, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be the first to accept that when considering these issues, one looks at the whole, not selective comments. The Attorney General said:

“I do not believe that we are likely to be entrapped in the backstop permanently”.—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650; c. 552.]

However, he also said that

“the matters of law affecting the withdrawal can only inform what is essentially a political decision”.—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 546.]

It is a question of where one assesses the balance of risk to be. I looked at that very issue when I considered the matter. The Attorney General has addressed that, as is reflected in his comments to the House on Monday.