Brexit: Green Paper

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, as the Prime Minister made clear in her interview yesterday, we are intent on achieving the widest and best possible access to the single market, and that remains our aim. I am sure that she will say more about this matter in the weeks ahead.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, given that new global value chains and a completely transformed global pattern of trade have utterly changed old notions of the single market and the customs union, is it not rather pointless now frantically to debate whether we should be in or out of the single market until we know what we are dealing with and with whom we have to negotiate about what?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point—he has written and spoken extensively on this. I have had the good fortune to meet a number of businesses large and small, ranging from very high-tech manufacturers to much smaller businesses, to discuss supply chains. He is absolutely right: this is a very important issue. It is complex and, as my noble friend implies, it suggests that the rather bland terms that we use about the Brexit debate need to be treated with great caution.