Trade Bill
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood ExcerptsWednesday 13th March 2019
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Trade Bill 2017-19 View all Trade Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 127-R-II Second marshalled list for Report (PDF) - (11 Mar 2019)
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, not least because I confess that I am almost certainly behind the curve here and may well be about to ask a very inept question. But this amendment is directed solely to an international trade agreement between the UK and the European Union. In the event of a no-deal exit, I am unclear whether any future trade agreements that are going to be reached will be with the European Union as opposed to, for example, individual EU countries such as Germany and France. If that were to be the position—I may well be barking up a most irrelevant tree—and there were a future agreement with Germany, as I understand it, the proposed clause would not bite. Is that right?
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
It could be that the Germans are planning to leave the European Union, but while they remain their external trade will be conducted by the European Union.