European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that reassurance. As I have said before, the point about the implementation period is to give that reassurance to businesses in particular that they will know the basis on which they can carry on trading. That is why we would expect the arrangements for the trading relationship during the implementation period to be much as they are now. Although we will be outside the customs union, the single market, the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy, as I said earlier, we need to be able to continue to operate during the implementation period as we prepare for whatever the new arrangements are going to be at the end of that period.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the Prime Minister’s answers to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), will she confirm that the implementation or transition phase will be exactly the same for Gibraltar as it will be for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

I thought I had made it clear that as we negotiate these matters we will be negotiating for the UK, but that includes negotiating to ensure that the relationships are there for Gibraltar as well. We are not going to exclude Gibraltar from our negotiations for either the implementation period or the future agreement.