Leaving the EU

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I reassure my right hon. and learned Friend that the responses I have received so far from other European Union leaders have been positive about the proposals we have put forward. Indeed, at the June European Council, the European Council at 27 agreed that we needed to increase the pace of the negotiations in the future.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

On 18 December, the Prime Minister told the House:

“We will be going in and negotiating for services and for goods.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2017; Vol. 633, c. 761.]

We trade at an annual surplus of £28 billion in services with the European Union. Why, other than for reasons of internal politics and ideology within the Conservative party, has she taken the profit-making trade aspect of the UK economy and thrown it under the Brexit bus?

[The Prime Minister]

May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that that is not correct? We are ensuring that we have flexibility in relation to services. As we look around the rest of the world, it is services that will be a significant element of our trade agreements with the rest of the world, and it is in services that we will be able to benefit. We want that flexibility, and that is precisely what we are negotiating for.