Leaving the EU: Airbus Risk Assessment

David Jones Excerpts
Monday 25th June 2018

(5 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Greg Clark Portrait Greg Clark
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I have said very clearly, as I hope the hon. Gentleman would acknowledge, that it is entirely reasonable for any firm that employs people and pays taxes in this country to contribute its expertise and experience to the discussions that we are having.

David Jones Portrait Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
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Article 50 provides that the withdrawal negotiations should take into account the framework for the future relationship between the departing member state and the continuing EU. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the lack of clarity, about which Airbus is quite reasonably complaining, is a consequence, at least in part, of the flat refusal by the European Union to discuss that future relationship?

Greg Clark Portrait Greg Clark
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One of the things that Airbus has set out is what it regards, correctly in my view, as the serious consequences for it of a Brexit without an agreement. It is in all our interests, on both sides of the channel, to have an agreement that avoids that. My right hon. Friend is right that Airbus and the various trade associations, some of them international, to which it belongs, have made the same points to other member states and to the European Commission. I hope that it will be heard in Brussels as well as in every other part of the European Union.