October European Council

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord will be aware that alongside the withdrawal and implementation Act and treaty there will be a future partnership or future framework document setting out where discussions have got to about the future relationship. That will be the first time the noble Lord will see where we have got to in that discussion. That will then be the basis of the negotiation discussions, once we have agreed the withdrawal agreement and implementation period, to take forward that relationship. On the structure and scope of the documents, some of the things we have mentioned that we have started to make good progress on will be obvious from that document. That will then be worked on and will be the basis of the future partnership that we will look to have by 2021.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Does the Leader recognise that a prolonged period of uncertainty in which many of the complex details have not been decided will be disastrous for the private and public sectors across this country? I have been briefed in the past week by people from two of Britain’s leading universities on the desperate uncertainty they have over future access to European research networks and research funding and visas for foreign academics and their wives and husbands who come to this country, and the likelihood that the Home Office visa system, which is presently close to breaking down, will break down unless this is clarified fairly quickly. If we have an agreement now which is loose and short, these details will remain uncertain. Can we be guaranteed that, before a lot of these things are swept away as we formally leave, there is much more certainty on the detail across different sectors than the Government have yet begun to talk about?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Of course we are mindful of uncertainty, which is why we are working flat out to ensure that we come up with a suitable solution to the Northern Ireland issue, which is the one issue that is still outstanding in relation to the withdrawal agreement and implementation period. The very reason we agreed an implementation period was to give that certainty over two years and to give time for us to ensure that we have the future agreement in place and that we can begin our new relationship in January 2021. That has been at the heart of our approach throughout these negotiations.