Lord Bowness
Main Page: Lord Bowness (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bowness's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s target is to seek friendly agreements with the widest possible range of nations, including the European Union, and I am confident that the figure that the noble Lord cites will be greatly exceeded by the end of the year.
Lord Bowness (Con) [V]
There are 120 days until 31 December. We know what has not been agreed, because that is in the newspapers, and we know what the Government have chosen not to pursue in the agreement—namely, security and defence—but we do not know what has been raised and what has been agreed, subject of course to “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”. Will my noble friend undertake to provide a Statement to Parliament setting out exactly what has been agreed, which aspirations we have put forward and which have been completely rejected? This is not interfering with the negotiations; it is informing Parliament and the public.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the Government are not giving a running commentary on the negotiations. We remain in close contact with our EU counterparts. There were discussions yesterday and we look forward to the next round of talks in London next week. I can promise my noble friend that we will publish the agenda for that next round towards the end of the week as usual.