European Council

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, the hon. Lady is slightly misinterpreting the speech I gave at Lancaster House, in which I said that there are certain elements of the customs union that we would not wish to be part of because they prevent us from negotiating trade deals on our own, as the United Kingdom, with other countries across the world. I said that the relationship we want with the customs union is to have

“as seamless and as frictionless a border as possible”.

I indicated that that might be called “associate membership” or it might be something else, but we need to do that as part of the negotiations. Our relationship with the customs union will be part of the negotiations that will start when we trigger article 50.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. Paragraph 9 of the conclusions on security refers to the EU working together to fight terrorism. One of the biggest challenges facing Europe and the UK in the next five to 10 years, according to experts such as Peter Neumann, is terrorist fighters returning to their host countries from Syria and Iraq as Daesh is defeated. Was that discussed at European level, and is there an agreed strategy across Europe to deal with it?

[The Prime Minister]

That was not one of the issues that we discussed within the business of the European Council last week. However, it is an issue that I have discussed with other member states on a number of occasions in the past, and we are all well apprised of the need to ensure that we have a means of identifying those who are returning. We are working to deal in the most appropriate way with those individuals who are returning. Of course, so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, individuals will be looked at on a case-by-case basis.