UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

As the right hon. Lady knows, the Prime Minister said that an extension would be short and limited. It is clearly a fact of law that any extension to the article 50 period would have to be agreed with all the other 27 Governments; that just reflects the treaties. It logically follows that if the Prime Minister has committed the Government to bring forward legislation in those circumstances to comply with what would be the will of the House, the Government would therefore support such legislation.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

With the greatest respect, the Minister did not answer the other question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—what will the Government do if the EU does not want to agree to a short, time-limited extension? Will they come back to the House with a different proposal? [Interruption.] This is a serious matter. Government Members shake their heads, but we need to know. If the EU were to turn down the extension, what would happen? Would we crash out with no deal or would we have another chance perhaps to ask for a longer extension?

[Mr Lidington]

In the absence of either an agreement to extend article 50, to leave with a deal or to revoke article 50 all together, the default legal position under the treaties is that the exit date is two years after article 50 has been triggered; that is a matter of European law. The hon. Lady asks a perfectly serious question. I do not believe that the other Governments of the European Union have either an economic interest or a strategic interest in seeing a chaotic departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. My belief is that there would be a negotiated agreement in those circumstances. But as I said earlier, the new obligation that the Prime Minister announced yesterday is in addition to the ones that would already flow in those circumstances as a result of section 13 of the withdrawal Act—that is, section 13 as modified by the two amendments successfully moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). Therefore, the matter would come back to the House and there would be an opportunity for right hon. and hon. Members to table amendments to urge particular courses of action.