UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Debate between Keir Starmer and Susan Elan Jones

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is a real cause for concern. In all my discussions with businesses in the past two years, but particularly in the past three to six months, I have detected that while some of the bigger businesses have had the resource to do some planning for no deal, most of the small and medium-sized businesses have not. They have said to me, “We simply do not have the resource to do it, and therefore we haven’t done it.” That is among the reasons why I have always said that a no-deal Brexit is not a viable option.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

My right hon. and learned Friend has said that he is not a gambling man, but it seems that the Secretary of State for Wales might be, because he is refusing to rule out supporting no deal. If one considers Wales’s agriculture, manufacturing industry and so much more, that is absolute madness, in my view. Does the Secretary of State—not quite the Secretary of State yet, but the shadow Secretary of State—agree?

[Keir Starmer]

I do, and it is a real cause for concern.