Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The House gave a clear mandate, 6:1, to give the people the decision on whether to stay in the European Union. All sorts of threats and all sorts of blandishments were made to the people of this country to persuade them to vote to stay in. Those threats and those warnings have proved to be fallacious, and I think that all future such threats will be taken with a pinch of salt.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

T10. Many sectors in my constituency rely on foreign workers, from highly skilled workers in pharma to seasonal workers in agriculture, and including 12% of workers at Addenbrooke’s, my local hospital. I know that the Foreign Secretary values the important contribution to the economy made by foreign workers such as EU nationals, but will he also acknowledge that it is important to give them some certainty about their future as soon as possible?

[Boris Johnson]

I fully accept that we need to give all the 3.2 million EU nationals in this country the maximum possible certainty, and that we should do it as fast as we possibly can. Unfortunately, however, I do not think it is reasonable to do it before giving certainty to UK nationals in other EU countries. We would like to get on with that as fast as possible, and it is up to our friends and colleagues abroad to join us.