Michael Fallon
Main Page: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)Department Debates - View all Michael Fallon's debates with the Cabinet Office
(6 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
In relation to the timing of trade deals with America, or indeed with any other country, the right hon. Gentleman knows full well that we are not able to put those in place until we have fully left the European Union. We will be able to talk about these issues—to sign and negotiate those treaties—in advance of that.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about the backstop. The point of the backstop is that it is there if, as at 1 January 2021, the future customs arrangement between the United Kingdom and the European Union is not in place. As I said last week, it has always been the case that we believe that the best way to address the issue of the border in Northern Ireland is through that overall relationship between the UK and the EU. We want to ensure that that is in place as soon as possible after the end of December 2020, and we preferably do not want to see the backstop having to be used at all.
Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Given that it is nearly four years since 10 British citizens were murdered when flight MH17 was destroyed over Ukraine by a Russian missile launcher and the west is still trying to refute Russian denials of responsibility, can the Prime Minister tell the House how the very welcome rapid response mechanism agreed in Quebec will help us to better challenge Russian misinformation with much faster truth?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend raises a very important point. The point of the rapid response mechanism is that it will be able to do that in two ways. First, one of the key things is to have faster attribution when these events happen; of course, we have only relatively recently seen a final attribution in relation to the Russian role in MH17. It is about being able to work together to achieve faster attribution when incidents happen and then—this is the crucial point—to co-ordinate activity to counter exactly the propaganda that he mentions. Working collectively will have a much greater impact than individual states trying to work on their own.