October European Council

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The protocols in relation to Gibraltar and the sovereign base areas will be part of the international treaty which we will sign with the withdrawal agreement and the implementation period. The long-term future relationship will supersede that once we have that partnership, so we will obviously continue those discussions, but it is excellent that we have progressed to this point.

On the noble Lord’s first point, I am afraid that I cannot give any further information about the negotiations that are going on. We have been very clear that we are working with the EU to come up with a solution to the Northern Ireland issue and the Prime Minister is clearly in this Statement setting out two options that we are pursuing.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the progress that has been made in the talks. I will ask my noble friend about the two options relating to Northern Ireland, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. On the question of the temporary UK-EU customs union, how could this be made temporary? Do the Government have in mind an end date which, I understand, was ruled out by Monsieur Barnier? Without an end date, how on earth could this be made temporary? Secondly, on the other option of extending the implementation period, will she say something about the cost? How much would that mean we would have to pay to the EU budget for each year that it was extended? If we are in for a few months only—as I know the Prime Minister hopes we will be—will we pay a full year’s subscription or just a proportion?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

On my noble friend’s second point, the length and cost of any extension will be subject to the negotiations that are going on now on the drawing up of this option. On his first question about the temporary nature of the backstop, the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear: this cannot be a permanent situation. Obviously, a date is one option, but there are other ways in which this may be triggered in order to ensure it is temporary. Again, as we are getting down to the fine detail of these two options, those are the kind of issues that will be discussed and negotiated between ourselves and our EU partners.