Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

No, we have not. The future declaration is to be negotiated, and many of the same arguments will apply.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Further to the comments of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) regarding the customs union, will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the future declaration guarantees that the UK will have an independent trade policy, and consequently that our future relationship will not be in the customs union?

[The Attorney General]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that, because it is an important consideration. There are two things of real significance—certainly of real prominence—in the political declaration. First, the European Union has accepted that the final arrangement will involve an independent trade policy. One cannot have an independent trade policy and belong to a conventional customs union. Secondly, there will not be free movement; one cannot belong to the single market without subscribing to the four freedoms, so those set the outer boundaries of any deal that will be done.