UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. and learned Friend is asking me to comment on a hypothetical whipping decision on a hypothetical vote that the Government do not wish or intend us to confront. We will be voting as a House in favour of the revised deal, which will reflect elements that this House, on 29 January, said it wanted to see changed in order to be able to support the withdrawal agreement wholeheartedly. Exactly the same challenge that my right hon. and learned Friend has posed would be posed in respect of any hypothetical event on the Bill tabled by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). At this stage, it is too early to make those assertions on a hypothetical situation. What we are focused on, and where our energies lie, is negotiating an agreement with our partners in the European Union that delivers on the conditions that this House set when it passed the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady).

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

I will give way one last time to my hon. Friend, and then I will make some progress, otherwise I will never get on to the amendments.

[Mr Fysh]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. Just before he moves on, I would like to ask one question about the no-deal advice paper. When was it prepared, and why did it not mention the use of the transit system, which means that goods can be delivered into Europe without having to be stopped and checked at Calais?

[Mr Lidington]

Instructions were given to draft that paper following the previous debate during which the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) agreed to withdraw the amendment in her name calling for the publication of Cabinet papers, following an assurance given from the Dispatch Box by the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). I then spoke to the right hon. Lady to ascertain the information that she wanted. What we have produced is a thorough document, which I am satisfied can be traced in all details to documents that have gone before Cabinet or Cabinet Committees. Internally, I have been able to footnote every assertion made in that paper. We took the words of the right hon. Lady’s amendment in seeking material that had been given to Cabinet and to Cabinet Committees, and the content of the document was determined by that categorisation.