Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the European Council’s draft guidelines for the negotiation of the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

The European Council guidelines are a draft text that has not been formally published, but has been circulated to the EU27 for comment. We look forward to seeing the final guidelines when published, and hope they will provide the flexibility to allow the EU to think creatively and imaginatively about our future economic partnership.

We have repeatedly set out our vision for our future relationship with the EU which will see us remain the closest of friends and allies. The Prime Minister outlined the UK government’s vision for the broadest and deepest possible future economic partnership in her Mansion House speech, having provided detail on our vision for the future security partnership in Munich last month. These are in addition to a speech by the Secretary of State of Exiting the EU and speeches by a number of other cabinet ministers on the ‘road to Brexit’.