Exiting the EU: New Partnership

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

And we fully intend to do so, as we think it is in the interests of both ourselves and the European Union, because we do not want anything that causes instability in the eurozone, any more than we want anything that damages the City.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Remarkably, the White Paper does not contain a single reference to Eurojust or any real indication of our future co-operation with the EU on criminal justice matters. That raises the question: if something so significant has been omitted, what else is missing? Never mind a White Paper, this is a lightweight paper.

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Lady worked hard to get her soundbite out. The White Paper contains a whole section on justice and home affairs, and we have made it very plain, over and over again—I even said this in my statement at the beginning—that we intend to maintain closer co-operation with Europe, not have less co-operation, on security, crime and intelligence matters. We must understand that Europe has a great deal to gain from this, because we are the intelligence superpower in Europe—we have the most powerful intelligence agencies—and therefore on things such as tackling crime and terrorism we are very important to them, as we think they are to us, too.