Priorities for Government

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend. Valiant for truth in these matters, as he has been for so long, he is, of course, quite right that we have a fantastic opportunity now to take back control of our fisheries, and that is exactly what we will do. We will become an independent coastal state again, and we will, under no circumstances, make the mistake of the Government in the 1970s, who traded our fisheries away at the last moment in the talks. That was a reprehensible thing to do. We will take back our fisheries, and we will boost that extraordinary industry.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister said in his statement that he had alternative arrangements for the border. I asked the Chancellor, the former Home Secretary, what those arrangements were and what the technology would be 17 times and he could not tell me. Can the Prime Minister tell me what the technology is and what the arrangements are, or is this just more bluster and guff?

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Lady knows very well, it is common ground between the UK and indeed Dublin and the EU Commission that there are abundant facilitations already available, trusted trader schemes, electronic pre-registering, and all manner of ways of checking whether goods are contraband and checking for rules of origin, and they can take place away from the border. I want to make one point on which I think we are all agreed: under no circumstances will there be physical infrastructure or checks at the Northern Irish border. That is absolutely unthinkable.