European Council

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, because all too often people act as if somehow we are just a supplicant in this relationship and that anything that is decided will have an impact only on the United Kingdom. Of course a trade deal will have an impact on companies within the remaining 27 member states, as they want to trade with and operate within the United Kingdom. That is why I am confident that, when we come to the negotiations, people will see the benefit to both sides of getting a good trade deal.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister has said that, in the deal she wants with the European Union, she would like associate membership of the customs union—a membership that does not as yet exist.

On 6 February, after the last European Council, I asked the Prime Minister whether she had raised that idea with her European counterparts, and she overlooked the question—I am sure it was an oversight—so I ask her the question again. Has she raised the idea, and what was the response? Or should we take her evasiveness as meaning that there is no deal?

[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.