Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. Further to the question of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), we are now halfway through the time period set by the German Chancellor to produce alternatives to the backstop. In the light of the Government’s decision to prorogue Parliament, perhaps from next Monday, will the Secretary of State ensure that their proposals come to this House so that they can be scrutinised by this House, including the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union?

[Stephen Barclay]

I think the Chair of the Select Committee would concede that, of the holders of my role—I know there has been more than one—I have probably been the most frequent in appearing before his Committee and others. Actually, that is not the case when compared with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), but it is when compared with my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), who is now Foreign Secretary.

On the substance of the question, there has been a huge amount of work. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) asked about the different working groups, for example, and I chair the technical working group. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union chairs the business group, and he was in Northern Ireland with that group over the summer.

Again, it goes to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow. Work has been going on throughout the summer on alternative arrangements, but if it is simply published against an all-weather, all-insurance test, it will be dismissed, as it was under the last Government, as magical thinking. That is what the last Government experienced. We need to get into the detail, and that work is going on, but it needs to be discussed in the appropriate way.