Brexit: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, there is a huge amount of work going on across government on all these matters to inform our negotiating position. As I said earlier, it is interesting that the EU negotiators have decided not to publish similar documents on their side. I assume that they have done similar work to inform their negotiating position.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

The Minister is no doubt aware that over the past weeks Members of both Houses have felt frustrated that they have been unable to discover what advice the Government have received as to whether or not they would be entitled to withdraw the notice under Article 50. I will ask a question which I think is within the bounds of correctitude: do the Government consider that they have an option to withdraw lawfully should they wish to take that course?

[Lord Callanan]

I am not going to comment on any legal advice we may have received. We had a referendum on this subject. People voted to leave the European Union. We are going to leave and we are not going to withdraw the notification issued under Article 50, which was approved by both Houses.