European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

One has to be careful in the matter of language. We are at one with regard to the first part of what we want to do in the context of withdrawal, but we do not yet have an agreement that is binding in law with the other EU 27. For example, going forward, and during the subsequent negotiations, the EU may come and go as to the terms of the joint report. Indeed, we saw some indications of that when it came out with its draft recently, where issue was taken with the way in which it expressed some aspects of the joint report, particularly with regard to Northern Ireland. I appreciate that, if you want to construe the term “consensus” in that way, it involves “agreement”. The reason why I am trying to move away from “agreement” is that some see the word and infer that there is some legally binding concept. That is not yet what we have. We have a joint report and, therefore, we have consensus. We are moving on to the overall negotiations on what will ultimately be an international treaty.