EU Exit Negotiations Debate
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John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
EU Exit Negotiations
John Bercow Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just gently point out to the House that colleagues who beetled into the Chamber after the statement started should not now be standing and expecting to be called? To put it mildly, that is bad form, and I would have thought that the person guilty of it would know it and desist.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
May I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and for the opportunity he gave Members of this House to spend many pleasurable hours during the recess reading position papers? The position paper on customs largely fails to mention financial services in any way. Given that the sector is our biggest tax raiser and represents 45% of our exports, will my right hon. Friend confirm to the House the Government’s ambitions for customs arrangements in financial services? Have they yet been raised in the negotiations, and does he intend to publish a position paper on those arrangements?
Mr Davis
One problem with not being able to get on to the ongoing arrangements is that we do not have a definitive answer to that, but we do know that we are capable of creating a parallel arrangement if need be. That is not technically difficult, but we would prefer to have a closer association than that, and that is what we will play for.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have just experienced what it is like to be the last Member called and to realise that nearly all the questions have already been asked. I will try to make this one slightly fresh.
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that exchange rates are seen across the world as the measure of confidence in a country and reinforce the decisions of businesses and others to invest there? Since the negotiations started, our currency has fallen against the euro and the dollar. What does that say about how well the negotiations are going?