European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Is it not clear, from what has been said in Europe and by business, that they want the transition deal to be the same as what we have now, with all the same obligations, so that they do not have to go through two sets of changes?

[Mr Leslie]

That is absolutely the preference of most sensible observers. We need a transition, of course, because the trade deal arrangements cannot possibly be made adequately by the time of exit day, unless the Secretary of State for International Trade pulls a rabbit out of the hat—perhaps he has been known to do that in the past, but I doubt it will happen this time. The transition period is therefore vital if the UK is to salvage and stitch together a trade arrangement.

We must not forget, moreover, that the 57 existing free trade arrangements with non-EU countries from which the UK benefits by virtue of our EU membership will have to be grandfathered—copied and pasted into UK arrangements. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) talked about the 759 different international treaties. We do not know quite how those will apply. We have to think about the legal framework not just after but during the transition. We have a massively complex set of legal steps to take, yet we have no clarity from Ministers, apart from this concession yesterday that there might be a Bill at some point, possibly after exit day, perhaps with a vacuum—