European Council

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The intention of the implementation period is, as far as possible, to ensure that there is not a cliff edge so that people are able to operate on the same basis as they do at the moment as they put in place the necessary changes leading up to the future partnership. Of course, that implementation period, which is now going to be looked at by the EU27, will be part of future negotiations.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with the Committee on Exiting the European Union that it would be in the best interests of both sides if we could conduct the negotiations on the divorce settlement in parallel with those on our new relationship? Does she therefore agree further that any flexibility on the size of our exit payment must be linked to flexibility in other areas to be negotiated?

[The Prime Minister]

I, and the Government, have been very clear that the whole question of the financial settlement cannot be finally settled until we know what the future partnership will be. It is not that we are going to sign up to a deal and then negotiate what that future partnership will be, so once the formal negotiations on the future of the trade relationship, and of course the security relationship, have started, there will continue to be negotiations on issues which were initially identified as being in phase 1.