Article 50

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

In our trade negotiations with the European Union and others around the world, we will be very conscious of the need to ensure that we respect the requirements for our environment, and for our agriculture, food and farming industry here in the United Kingdom. I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to maintain our commitment to both those issues.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister on her stamina, as she has been at the Dispatch Box for two and a half hours and we are only halfway through. At the Home Affairs Committee, we at least gave her a chair to sit on throughout our sessions.

I congratulate the Prime Minister on her appointment of Mark Sedwill as the new national security adviser. He will be a loss to the Home Office, but an asset to her. May I press her on policing and security? We have seen the headlines in the letter to Donald Tusk, but will we remain a full member of Europol throughout the negotiations? Will we have full access to the criminal databases of the EU, and is one of her ambitions that we retain that access when we leave the EU?

[The Prime Minister]

While we remain a member of the European Union, we will continue to have the access and membership arrangements on those various issues that we currently have. It is certainly my expectation that we will look to negotiate continued access to the various ways in which we share information with EU member states today. That is in not just our interest, but the interest of the EU.