Future Relationship with the EU: Negotiations

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make a statement on the third round of the negotiations on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

I am grateful for this opportunity to update the House on the progress of our negotiations with the European Union. I have today laid a written ministerial statement before the House, which provides a comprehensive update on the third round of our negotiations with the EU on our future relationship. We have also today made public the UK’s draft legal texts. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade has also published the new tariff schedule that we will operate at the end of the transition period for those countries with which we do not have a free trade agreement.

Negotiators from the UK and the EU held full and constructive discussions last week via video conference. The talks covered trading goods and services, fisheries, law enforcement and criminal justice, and other issues, with both sides discussing full legal texts. The discussion underlined that a standard comprehensive free trade agreement, alongside other key agreements on issues such as law enforcement, civil nuclear and aviation, all in line with the political declaration, could be agreed without major difficulties in the time available. There remain, however, some areas where we have significant difference of principle, notably on fisheries, governance arrangements and the so-called level playing field. The EU, essentially, wants us to obey the rules of its club, even though we are no longer members, and it wants the same access to our fishing grounds as it currently enjoys while restricting our access to its markets.

It remains difficult to reach a mutually beneficial agreement while the EU maintains such an ideological approach, but we believe that agreement is possible if flexibility is shown. The agreements that we seek are, of course, built on the precedents of the agreements that the EU has reached with other sovereign nations. To help facilitate discussions in the fourth round and beyond, the Government have today published the full draft legal text that we have already shared with the Commission and which, together with the EU’s draft agreement, has formed the basis of all discussions. The UK texts are fully in line with the Government’s document entitled, “The Future Relationship with the EU: The UK’s Approach to Negotiations” which was published on 27 February. Copies of the legal text have been placed in the House of Commons Library and are also available online at gov.uk.

The Government remain committed to a deal with a free trade agreement at its core and we look forward to the fourth round of negotiations beginning on 1 June, but success depends on the EU recognising that the UK is a sovereign equal.

We left the European Union at the end of January and we now have seven months to agree new arrangements with our nearest neighbours. It was always a tight timetable, but the Government have made it clear that they are sticking to it and we need them to get it right. The Government have promised an ambitious, broad, deep and flexible partnership with no tariffs, fees or charges; the safeguarding of workers’ rights; consumer and environmental protections; and a comprehensive security partnership. Let me push the Minister on those issues.

First, on the economy, will the Minister tell the House what concrete progress was made last week on ensuring that British businesses will face no tariffs, fees or quotas on any goods exported to the EU? What assurances can he give to workers with regards to maintaining and improving existing labour standards?

Secondly, on our regulatory framework, leaving the European Medicines Agency, the Chemicals Agency and the Aviation Safety Agency means new regulatory bodies will need to take on this work. Can the Minister guarantee that they will be up and running by the start of January?

Thirdly, on research, international collaboration on scientific research has never been as important as it is today. What assurances can the Minister give on our future participation in the Horizon research programme?

Fourthly, peace in Northern Ireland was hard won. We must not jeopardise it. In January, the Prime Minister guaranteed unfettered access for goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland. Last week, it was revealed that the Government would implement checks on some products crossing the Irish sea and that there would be new infrastructure at ports coming from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland. Can the Minister confirm whether those additional checks are being planned for when the road map for implementing the protocol will be published?

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions, which touch on critical issues in these negotiations. We believe that a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal is available; indeed, that is the explicit aim of the political declaration to which the EU has said it will apply its best endeavours.

On working standards, we are confident that we will continue to remain a leader, in not just Europe but the world, in workplace protection and the support we give to all our citizens. It has been the case all the time we have been in the EU that we have maintained higher standards than other European countries. Indeed, countries outside the EU, such as Norway, also lead the world in this way.

New regulatory bodies are in the process of being set out to ensure that all businesses have the certainty they need. When it comes to scientific research, we are committed to collaborating with European and other partners. As the hon. Lady knows, there are countries outside the EU that take part in the Horizon programme, including, of course, our friends in Israel.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that peace in Northern Ireland is critical, and we will shortly publish a framework document on how we intend to implement the protocol to ensure that we have unfettered access for goods from Northern Ireland into Great Britain and that we preserve the gains of the peace process.

The final point the hon. Lady asked about was certainty. She said uncertainty was a problem, and indeed it is—uncertainty over Labour’s position. On 2 January, the leader of the Labour party called for a two-year extension to our transition period. In April, he said once again that we should extend if necessary. But, then, earlier this month, he turned turtle and said:

“I’ve not called for a pause”.

Then, on Sunday, the hon. Lady said we “mustn’t rush this” and that, if the Government need to, they should come back and expand the timetable. So which is it? Is the Labour party committed to making sure that we leave the transition period on the 31st?

Order. Come, come, this is about your policy, not the Labour policy. You are much better than that. Mr Gove, you have a great future—don’t waste it here. Right, let us move on. We now call William Wragg.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Negotiations of this nature are always complex, but their resolution tends to be a matter of political will. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House how much of the apparent impasse is due to practical impediments and how much is due to a lack of political will? Is he satisfied that his good offices have the capacity, currently, to make a success of these negotiations?

Yes, absolutely. We believe that flexibility on the part of the European Union is in the interests of all, and provided that it moves away from its current ideological fastness, we can secure the progress we need.

What a petit déjeuner de chien! The Government are wilfully piling a second hammer blow on to an economy already shattered by covid, in their obsessive pursuit of a hard-Brexit agenda and the self-inflicted economic misery that that will bring on top of a pandemic. Is it not the case that the Government are doing nothing other than playing political games with the futures of millions of people by pursuing this anti-EU agenda at all costs? As countries in the rest of the world get round to putting in place their various recoveries, this Government will still be blaming Barnier as the good ship Britannia hits that Brexit iceberg. Even the Euro dogs on the street know that this Government are making a pig’s ear of the negotiations with their petulant demands and their rewriting of agreements, yet it is still all the EU’s fault. For goodness’ sake, for the good of all our constituents, will the Minister just stop, seek that extension and engage in these negotiations like a grown-up?

I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman read it beautifully; it could almost have been set to music. However, the point that both of us have to accept is that we are democrats: we voted democratically to have one United Kingdom, we voted democratically for that United Kingdom to leave the European Union and we are honouring both those referendum results. I am sure that, on reflection, he would wish to as well.

Over recent weeks, we have seen how the European Union’s response to the unprecedented covid-19 pandemic has been fraught with internal divisions, as the German Federal Court ruled that the European Central Bank had overstepped its legitimate competence with its £2 trillion rescue policy. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is now even more essential that we press ahead with negotiations and end the transition period by the end of this year, so that we can regain complete control over our money, our borders and our laws and therefore have the flexibility and the nimbleness in this country to chart our own path to recovery post covid-19?

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Were we to extend the transition period, as some have argued for, including the SNP and, in a previous incarnation, the Leader of the Opposition, we would find ourselves paying additional sums to be part of the EU, subject to new laws over which we have no say and without the freedom to regulate our economy in a way to ensure that our recovery works.

Under the single-use plastics directive, the EU is introducing a range of bands, labelling and extended producer responsibility on single-use plastics, as the Minister, who worked in this area, well knows, which will lead to increased recycling and producers covering the costs. In developing our own world-leading environment management system, what discussions are we having with the EU on its schemes, and when will we inform industry if we plan to align with the EU or to produce our own betterment plans, because they need to know soon?

Yes, during the happy years that I spent at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we made strides, as indeed did European nations, on improving recycling and reducing the use of single-use plastic. We pay close attention to what is happening in Europe and elsewhere as we develop our plans, but, in significant areas, our plans are ahead of where the EU is now. None the less, we want to work co-operatively because, even though we may be in different jurisdictions, we all share one planet.

I congratulate the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office Minister and everyone in the negotiating team for robustly resisting attempts by the EU to set our laws via its playing-field clauses. Those clauses are not present in any other comparable EU trade agreement and are not wanted by the people of Dudley and beyond. May I ask my right hon. Friend to be equally robust in ensuring that the Prime Minister’s commitment to allow goods to flow freely from Great Britain into Northern Ireland in any future trade agreement with the EU is fulfilled, and, above all, that we shall be ending the transition period without extension and on WTO rules if an acceptable agreement cannot be reached?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on both areas. We will not be extending the transition period and we will be outlining, very shortly, our approach towards a Northern Ireland protocol to make sure that the UK, as a single customs territory, can take advantage of its new freedoms.

The Minister will be aware that an earlier version of the European Union withdrawal Act contained provisions that ring-fenced workers’ rights, namely a lock on EU-derived workers’ rights. That would have meant that, before the Government changed workers’ rights, they would rightly have had to consult employer bodies and trade unions. Those measures were removed and we were told to expect them in an upcoming employment Bill, the details of which we are yet to see. Given that the decision made in the UK-EU trade talks will have a huge impact on UK workers, what is the Minister doing to ensure that there is no period of time during which workers are left without sufficient rights in law? Very importantly, what discussions is he having with trade unions and the TUC to ensure that workers are protected?

The hon. Lady raises a very important point. EU law will continue until we choose to alter it, but it has always been the case, as I mentioned briefly earlier, that we have had higher standards of worker protection than some other European countries. I enjoy my discussions with the TUC in order to ensure that this country can continue, as great socialists such as Tony Benn have always proclaimed that we should, leading the world, whether inside or outside the EU, in protecting workers’ rights.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and warmly welcome the stance that the Government are taking in these negotiations, but can he confirm that, whatever the outcome of these negotiations, we will have control of our own waters? It will be we who decides who has access to them, which will mean that fishermen of places such as Mevagissey and Newquay can look forward to a much fairer share of the fish available in UK waters?