Speeches by Jenkin.

“The House of Lords still has a European Affairs Committee, which held an inquiry in the run-up to the reset. There has been no inquiry into the reset by any Select Committee of the House of Commons, apart from the Business and Trade Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) and my hon. F…”

“We were told by the Office for Budget Responsibility that there might be a 4% reduction in what our GDP would otherwise have been. That has not occurred—the OBR was wrong. Our economy has continued to grow at roughly the same rate as the other EU economies. Of course, there have been adjustments because the economy has…”

“I will give way once more, because I need to be brief.”

“The Library does not say that Brexit is the cause of those declines. [Interruption.] It does not say that, and there are all sorts of factors. For example, we are closing down the North sea and exporting far less fuel. We used to import a lot of uncut diamonds and then export them to the EU, but we do not do that any m…”

“I am not giving way again. The basis for recalculating our trade statistics has changed. There is also what was known as the Rotterdam effect. The point is that our underlying economic growth is broadly the same. In Tuesday’s statement, the Prime Minister claimed: “The deal means that British goods that have long been …”

“There is another question. A truly bilateral youth exchange arrangement would be fine. It would be like the trade and co-operation agreement, with no reference to the European Court of Justice. Or is this going to be an extension of the withdrawal agreement arrangements involving EU citizenship, which is subject to the…”

“What about the extra costs of regulation?”

“May I, in all candour, suggest to the Government that having now introduced this new element—the UN convention on the law of the sea and, I presume, the associated International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea—as the decisive factor that might have created a binding ruling, it really is incumbent on the Government to s…”

“Where in the Labour manifesto did it say that we would start contributing to the EU budget once again? How much are we going to have to pay and when will we know?”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Can I just point out to the Prime Minister that nothing can undo the fact that 17.5 million people voted leave? They voted to take back control of our laws and stop paying money to the EU. That was a considerably larger number than the 9.7 million people who voted Labour at the last election, but now the Prime Minister…”

“What financial commitment will the UK have to make to participate in the fund?”

“May I point out that the Conservative motion says that the Conservatives stand by the result of the 2016 referendum, but the Labour amendment does not say the same of the Labour party? Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that a one-term mandate in one election trumps a referendum result, or does he respect the referendu…”

“I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has made that point, but the best thing for all European nations is not to try to build our own EU defence capability, but to strengthen NATO. There is an argument that we are somehow doing this through the EU so that it can strengthen NATO, but I do not think that is really the ambiti…”

“I agree with my right hon. Friend. The important point is that we do not have a written constitution, but we do have in our minds a hierarchy of legitimacy on which, in the end, the democratic credibility of the House depends. The fact is, a referendum represents a superior mandate on a single issue and, with a great s…”

“rose—”

“The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. What does he know about it? I would be interested in him challenging me.”

“Sadly, European Union defence has always promised far more than it delivers. It was meant to galvanise all the European states into spending more money; it failed and just did not do that. When any serious military operation was required, it was NATO. To the EU’s credit, some EU military operations are taking place, bu…”

“Yes. That promise of creating an EU defence capability has been on the table since the St Malo declaration of 1999, in the aftermath of the Maastricht treaty that first introduced the word “defence” into the EU. That was when France and the United Kingdom, under a Labour Government, declared that the EU would have auto…”

“I ask that he wait just a minute. What signal is it sending to Donald Trump by suggesting that we will have an EU defence policy that excludes the United States? It is exactly the wrong signal for this moment.”