Brexit: Economic Analyses

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, we are not winding down our membership of these agencies. We are members of the European Union until March next year, and we will continue to meet all our obligations and commitments during that period. I was in Brussels all day yesterday, consulting with the European Parliament on these issues. The Norwegian deal is not a superior deal, in my view. We want a proper, bespoke arrangement that will benefit the United Kingdom and respect the Brexit result.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, if the Government were misguided enough to initiate an inquiry into the three questions posed by the noble Lord, would they add a fourth, which would be a study of whether they expect European trade with Britain as a percentage of our total trade to continue to decline in the next 10 years, as it has in the last 10 years? If the Government were misguided enough to initiate such a study, would they ensure that it was not done by the same officials who made such misguided and wrong forecasts about the immediate impact of a Brexit verdict in the referendum?