EU: Future Relationship White Paper

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to crack on with these negotiations. I will be going to Brussels next week. The idea of a second referendum, as I think the leader of the Liberal Democrats acknowledged before he ascended to his elevated position, would be not only unprincipled but totally counter-productive to public trust in practice.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

People across the country who work in our universities will want to know that any Brexit deal continues to give them access to European research funding and networks. These networks are really important for business development for medicine and innovation across the piece. While the White Paper says that

“the UK wishes to explore association in research and innovation programmes”,

that prompts the question what the Government have been doing for the past two years. Do people who work in higher education not deserve more certainty than a wish list?

[Dominic Raab]

I gently say to the hon. Lady that the insistence on trying to sequence the negotiations was on the EU’s behalf. We have been consistently saying that we need to get on to the wider post-withdrawal relationship as soon as possible, but we are keen to do that and I hope that the White Paper gives the hon. Lady a sense that this will be a priority for the Government.