Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what recent discussions he has had with his EU counterpart on extending Article 50.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
As the Prime Minister said in her statement to the House on Monday 21st January, the Government is opposed to extending Article 50 and we are committed to leaving the EU on 29 March 2019. In any case, the EU are very unlikely simply to agree to extend Article 50 without a plan for how we are going to approve a deal.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on contingency planning for the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
The Government continues to plan for all eventualities. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State remain in regular contact and, along with the rest of Cabinet, agreed to progress with the next phase of our no deal plans. The Chancellor remains committed, allocating £1.5billion for EU Exit preparations in all scenarios in 2018/19 and 2019/20; this was subsequently increased by £0.5bn for 2019/20 in the 2018 Budget, meaning the government will have invested over £4 billion in preparing for EU exit since 2016.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of the UK negotiating a permanent UK-EU customs union.
Answered by Robin Walker
We will not enter a Customs Union because it would not respect the result of the referendum and would not allow for an independent trade policy. The partnership we are seeking with the EU will include an ambitious customs arrangement between the UK and EU, and the trading relationship on goods will be as ambitious as possible. There will be no tariffs, fees, charges, or quotas.
Both the EU and UK have been clear that our future partnership will respect the development of an independent UK trade policy beyond the economic partnership with the EU.
This would not be possible in the customs union.