EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Exiting the European Union
Richard Burden
Main Page: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)Department Debates - View all Richard Burden's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes
Richard Burden Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Barclay
I respect the 800-odd people who emailed the hon. Lady on this, but the reality is that 17.4 million voted in the referendum, and it is on their mandate that this Government are acting. Unlike some Members of the House, I do not think that no deal is a no-risk option and I am not supremely relaxed about it—I think there are risks to no deal. We are planning and preparing to mitigate those risks. The reality is that the best way to avoid the uncertainty and mitigate the risks of no deal is to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
May I put it to the Secretary of State that for a company that has no idea how long the delays due to a no-deal Brexit will be to trucks vital for its export and import business, it is not a lot of comfort to be told that the Government have issued a multi-million-pound contract to a ferry company with no ships, or to be told that it will have an airport to park its trucks in when they cannot get where they are meant to go? Will he not recognise that the growing demand from business and from Members of this House is that a no-deal scenario is not possible—that it has to be not mitigated but avoided and rejected? There are different ways of doing that, some multilateral and some unilateral, but why will he not join that growing chorus and say that he rules out no deal because that is in the interests of this country?
Stephen Barclay
The hon. Gentleman really goes to the heart of the issue, which is that I am seeking to rule out no deal by backing the Prime Minister’s deal, but the difference is that he is not. He stands on a manifesto that says he will honour the referendum result, then says that he does not want to support the Prime Minister’s deal, but then wants to complain about the consequences of no deal. I agree with him that there will be disruption from no deal; that is why he should be supporting the Prime Minister’s deal.