Outcome of the EU Referendum

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No, I do not think that will be possible. The new unit has to get up and running and go through all of the complex issues that need to be sorted out, whether they be agriculture payments, borders, the situation in Northern Ireland or which British laws need to be rewritten because they mention a lot of EU law and all the rest of it. What I envisage happening is a series of papers being worked through, being discussed by the Cabinet and being prepared for the new Government as they come in.

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

Given the enormity of this decision and the repercussions of the negotiation process, the arrangements that the Prime Minister has described sound extremely weak. He is effectively saying that Members of Parliament should just go and have an informal chat with the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin). The Prime Minister is leaving a dangerous political vacuum. I urge him to consider much broader arrangements to build a wider consensus, including setting up a cross-party Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament to look at wider arrangements to involve voices from all across the country in what the negotiations about our future Britain, alongside the EU, should be. Britain feels very divided now and all of us have a responsibility to build a new consensus for the future.

[The Prime Minister]

I do not disagree with a lot of what the right hon. Lady is saying. Obviously, Parliament and Select Committees will want to consider how they can best produce evidence and take research and interviews to add to this process. I see the role of the Government as this. It is clear that we are moving from one situation—membership of the EU—to leaving the EU. We need to describe in a dispassionate, neutral and objective way what all the different outcomes look like and what are the advantages and disadvantages of all the different outcomes—the trade deal like Canada, the situation like Norway, and the pros and cons of being in the single market or out of the single market—so that our constituents can see the disadvantages and advantages in each case. That is what the Government should do, but Parliament—the House of Commons—can also play its part.