UK Parliament / Open data

Duties of Customs

Proceeding contribution from Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat) in the House of Commons on Monday, 20 November 2017. It occurred during Debate on bills on Duties of Customs.

Absolutely, and that is why I believe that the question of Ireland and Northern Ireland is the most challenging of the three. The Government could and should have resolved the question of EU citizens 15 months ago by simply saying to them, “You have the right to remain.” The settlement bill is clearly very difficult politically for the Conservative party, because many of its Members are on record as saying, “We won’t give the EU a single penny; in fact, they owe us loads

of money,” so they now have a difficult political position to adopt if they say that they support a payment. We do not know how much that will be, but one figure that has been mentioned is £40 billion, and an interesting article in The Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago, which seemed to be flying a kite, referred to £53 billion. Although that question could be resolved at the cost of some political pain, no one has put forward any solution to the issue of Ireland and Northern Ireland that does not involve some sort of control. That might be ad hoc control, and it might not be directly at the border, but some sort of control will be required.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

631 c791 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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