Absolutely. If we waited until every question that has been posed today could be answered—if, indeed, they can all be answered—before we introduced legislation, we could end up with no time for scrutiny or debate, or to implement the legislation in the first place. We can enter into the negotiations on our future trading relationship with any sort of purpose only if it is clear that we have in place the legal frameworks to implement whatever we agree and only if the EU negotiators can see that the UK has the legal basis to implement its own regime and requirements, whatever the trade deal or scenario is.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) presented a compelling amount of detail in her speech. It is tempting to lay out all the difficulties and say that there is no point in introducing legislation until we have an answer to all the problems that seem insurmountable, but that would be entirely the wrong way to go about it. We need to make sure that the enabling legislation is in place. It can also be tempting—I say this as someone who campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU—to rerun all the arguments that were made during the referendum, as if the referendum had not happened, but it did happen and the country voted to leave the EU. It is now our responsibility to put in place the legal framework that enables the Government to negotiate so that we can put in place the best possible deal. It is far better that we do that now than in a year’s time.