Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that in virtually everything he said in his response to my statement, he could not have been more wrong. Indeed, I did not believe that he had actually even read the political declaration that we have published today, as with the withdrawal agreement. He did quote one sentence, I think in an attempt to suggest that he had actually read the document. He said that it was an example of lack of detail. Perhaps if he had read some of the other aspects of the document, he would know that there is significant detail in it The declaration refers to "no tariffs, fees, charges or quantitative restrictions across all sectors" No other major economy has that. It refers to "liberalisation in trade in services well beyond the Parties’ …WTO…commitments and building on recent Union…FTAs" It refers to "equivalence decisions" on financial services. It refers to "a Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement", and to "reciprocal arrangements for timely, effective and efficient exchanges of Passenger Name Records…and of DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration data" It refers to enabling "the United Kingdom to participate on a case by case basis in" common security and defence policy "missions and operations" There is plenty more—I could go on—but I think the right hon. Gentleman is beginning to get the message about this The right hon. Gentleman also talked about where he thought that somehow we had not achieved any changes. Let me be clear about some of those changes. I referred to at least one of them in my statement. The EU said that the choice was binary: Norway or Canada. The political declaration concedes that there is a spectrum. It says that "the extent" of our "commitments…would be taken into account" in deciding the levels of "checks and controls". The EU said that we could not share security capabilities as a non-member state outside free movement and outside the Schengen area. The political declaration grants us direct access to some, and promises to enable many others. Those are further commitments than the EU has made to any non-member state. The EU said that we could not preserve the invisible customs border between Northern Ireland and Ireland without splitting our customs territory. The withdrawal agreement maintains the integrity of the UK’s customs territory. Again, I could go through some further points The right hon. Gentleman talked about the common fisheries policy. This is where I began to think that maybe he had read the document but not understood it, or what lies behind it. If we are to ensure that we are able to continue to have access to the waters of other European Union member states, as we do at the moment, we will need to negotiate, as other non-EU member states do, an annual agreement on access to waters between the UK and the European Union. The point at the moment is that we are not able to do that as an independent coastal state, and in the future we will be able to do that as an independent coastal state I must also say to the right hon. Gentleman that what I have been doing throughout this process is looking at what are the best interests of the United Kingdom. Let us just go through his other challenge to this: the six Labour tests on Brexit "Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU?"