Trade Bill

I am sorry, but I must repeat a point that has been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and others. There are companies doing business that need to be signing contracts today, or fulfilling contracts on their books: they need to make financial provision, to put loans in place if suddenly they face unexpected costs, or to find alternative suppliers. There is a whole range of actions that those companies need to take. We cannot wait until we have gone over the precipice and then start to think about what we are going to do. We will have to have a regime in place at one second past Brexit. I do not understand the thinking behind all this. I do not know whether the Government have made a decision to keep this information from Parliament, for reasons that I do not understand but which may reflect some internal attitude towards secrecy and the way they want to handle Parliament, or whether they actually have not done the work and got any of the elements in place. Either is awful.