Brexit: EU Free Trade Agreements

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fairhead]

My Lords, the Government’s policy remains to have a deal and an implementation period. If that is pursued, there is confidence that those agreements can be continued. That is in the interests of our businesses and our consumers. My urge would be that we find a way to a deal, so that that process can happen in a clear way. As for no deal, I have been clear in this House that timing is extraordinarily tight and our confidence would be much greater if there was an implementation period.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend the Minister rightly said, participating in the withdrawal agreement in a treaty with the European Union will enable us to be treated as if we are continuing in the free trade agreements currently in place between the European Union and third countries. We will participate in those through the mechanism of the withdrawal agreement. However, does she agree that many of those third countries are not keen to publish what they regard as their arrangements with the United Kingdom in the event of no deal, not least because they do not know what our relationship with the European Union will look like immediately after a no-deal exit? Under the most favoured nation rules, they would expect in the short term to be able to benefit from whatever arrangements we arrived at with the European Union.

[Baroness Fairhead]

I thank my noble friend for that question. He is absolutely right. An example referred to in another place was Turkey. As your Lordships will know, Turkey does not have a normal free trade agreement; it is part of a customs union. Therefore, it is particularly difficult to agree continuity with Turkey until we know the exact terms of the relationship with the EU.