European Council

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The question of onward movement is one that will be looked at further in the second stage of the talks. This is reciprocal in terms of EU citizens’ rights here in the UK and UK citizens’ rights in the country in which they live in the European Union. There are further elements of that that we will be discussing in the later stages.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

One of the most frequent criticisms of this place is that politicians are unable to give straight answers to straight questions, so can I give the Prime Minister another opportunity to answer the questions from Streatham and from Penistone and Stocksbridge? Can she guarantee that, after we leave the European Union, there will be no attempt to water down the 48-hour limit on the working week, provided for by the working time directive? It is a very simple yes or no question.

[The Prime Minister]

I have said on a number of occasions this afternoon that we will be bringing those workers’ rights that are in European Union law into UK law, so those rights will continue to exist. The party in this House that has voted against bringing those rights into UK law is the Labour party.