It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke). I think we have already seen and heard enough to know that she will be a credit to her constituents and to her party. I am also pleased that she paid such a kind tribute to her predecessor. However, I say to her as someone who does regular surgeries in four or five of my larger villages that if she does a surgery in every one of the villages she read out, and the ones she did not, she will be extremely busy indeed.
Before I turn to the debate proper, I want to make an observation about the speech by the hon. and gallant Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). It was a good speech, but I have two observations. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that we would work with the European Union and the 27 countries, but have we not noticed that over the past two or three years the European Union has operated as an extremely disciplined single bloc? I think that trying to pair one or two countries off would be a fool’s errand. My second observation is that in the past week or so we have heard comments from Michel Barnier that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to complete a comprehensive trade deal in 11 months. We also heard Ursula von der Leyen saying last week that the UK would have to compromise and prioritise, so I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman agrees that we should suggest to the Government that putting the setting of objectives first and silly timetables second might be a really good way to proceed.