EU Exit: Future Relationship White Paper

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. These judicial areas are complicated, so perhaps I should briefly set out our position for the House. Where we have a common rule book and there is a dispute between the UK and the EU, the Joint Committee, by mutual consent, or an independent arbitration panel will be able to ask the CJEU to give a binding interpretation of a common rule. If we are allowed to participate in EU agencies, the Prime Minister has already said that we will accept the remit of the ECJ in the application of the rules of those agencies, but that is far from the overreaching impact that the ECJ has at the moment.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the White Paper and look forward to reading it. I am afraid I have got to only page 14 so far, but my noble friend Lord Kerr was always ahead of the game. When the former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union appeared before the EU Committee of your Lordships’ House, he talked about the negotiations on economic, security and foreign policy issues taking place at a different rhythm and pace over the next few months. Could the Minister say more about how he sees the negotiations taking place now, based on the White Paper that we have just received?

[Lord Callanan]

The Prime Minister has been clear that we want the negotiations to proceed at pace. They are all important issues—on security and external affairs as well as the economic partnership—so they are all going on in parallel. The new Secretary of State will be meeting Michel Barnier shortly and the negotiating teams are ready and willing to work over the summer, which is unusual in Brussels. Nevertheless, there is willingness on both sides to address these issues and to push forward at pace, in the hope of reaching an agreement by October, as we have targeted.