Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is correct: what we are doing, after all, is carrying out the judgment of the referendum, which was to take back control of borders, laws and money. During the referendum, both sides made it very plain that real removal from the EU means real removal from the customs union and the single market.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

They might be over-represented in the Secretary of State’s ministerial team, but supporters of the European Research Group constitute less than 10% of the membership of this House. Why are the Government putting their red lines before the interests of the country?

[Mr Davis]

I wish the hon. Gentleman a happy May Day this week, but he is basically putting—how can I express this in parliamentary language?—a non-fact in front of the House. The case is very simple: the Government are deciding on the future customs arrangements on the basis of the best interests of the United Kingdom.

[Paul Blomfield]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s May Day wishes, and I am sure that he will be celebrating as well. The Engineering Employers Federation says that being outside a customs union

“would condemn the manufacturing sector to a painful and costly Brexit.”

Does he really think that is a price worth paying to keep the ERG happy?

[Mr Davis]

I am not going to take lectures from a party that has had 11 different positions on this so far and whose own—[Interruption.] I am speaking through the Speaker, thank you very much. And a party whose own policy has been roundly criticised in singularly unparliamentary language by its own shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner).