EU Exit Negotiations

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is quite right. It is a foolish proposition that is only deployed by the Opposition.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will wish to join me in congratulating his friends the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the rekindling of their bromance. I wonder, though, whether they understand that the European Parliament has stated clearly that a transition deal

“can only happen on the basis of the existing European Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures”.

Does the Secretary of State believe that Conservative Members understand that that will be the basis of the transitional arrangements?

[Mr Davis]

First, let me say to the hon. Gentleman a milder version of what I said to our Scottish nationalist colleague, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry): he should not take just what the European Parliament says as the end of the exercise. However, he is of course right in one respect: a transitional arrangement will look very like what we have now, but it will not be membership, and it will allow us freedoms that we do not have now. It is critical to remember that as well.