European Council

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble and learned Lord is absolutely right that during the implementation period there will continue to be a role for the ECJ. We will be leaving the jurisdiction once we leave the EU, although of course EU law and the decisions of the ECJ will continue to affect us; for instance, it determines whether agreements the EU has struck are legal under the EU’s own law. But we will be leaving the jurisdiction.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Leader recognise that in one respect and for key sectors of British industry, the Statement on Brexit negotiations is seriously misleading? It talks about the details of the so-called implementation period being settled when they are not fully settled, and about continuing to trade on current terms. But key sectors of industry will be excluded from the agencies of the EU that deal with the way in which they trade. That includes sectors that the Prime Minister herself has recognised, such as aviation, medicines and chemicals, where the EU’s position is that we will be excluded from March next year. Will the Leader please ask her colleagues to issue an additional, revised statement explaining to those sectors and others, such as food and the nuclear industry, how the implementation period will actually mean that they will continue to trade on current terms—because in my view it will not?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The implementation period will be based on the existing structure of EU rules and regulations. But, as was made clear in the previous Statement I repeated, we are working in the negotiations with the EU to look at the agencies that we would like still to be involved in, and those will be part of the discussions we have going forward.