Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Cabinet Office
(8 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend expresses his surprise—I think there was surprise on this side of the House—when the Leader of the Opposition showed his hand in saying that he was not in favour of free trade. Indeed, I suspect many right hon. and hon. Members on the Labour Benches were surprised to hear that that was the policy of the Labour party. We will be advocates—strong advocates—of free trade, as my right hon. Friend suggested, and we will ensure that we send out that message. As he says, free trade underpins our prosperity.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Like the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), we all understand that this is an early stage of the negotiations, but it would be helpful to know more about what the Prime Minister values in the negotiations and about her aims. She talked a lot about free trade, but she is still resisting saying what she actually thinks about the ultimate expression of free trade in Europe, which is the single market. Please will she tell us and clear up the confusion from yesterday? Does she value membership of the single market? Does she think it should be an aim or an objective of the negotiations, and that we should be trying to stay in it if we can?
The Prime Minister
I have to say to the right hon. Lady that I have answered this question on a number of occasions already today. She will find that if people ask me a question, I will give an answer, and if they ask me the same question, they will get the same answer. I think that that is perfectly reasonable and perfectly normal.
Our aim is to get the right deal for trade in goods and services with the EU, but this will be a new relationship. We will be looking to develop a new model of the relationship between the UK and the European Union. As I said earlier, we will not be setting out every bit of our negotiating hand in advance of entering those negotiations, because that would be the best way to come out with the worst deal.