The Government's Plan for Brexit

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:27 pm on 7 December 2016.

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Photo of David Davis David Davis The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union 1:27, 7 December 2016

I will give way in a moment.

As the Prime Minister said in October, although we will not be giving a running commentary—Opposition Members love that phrase—we will give clarity whenever possible and as quickly as possible. As she told the House earlier this month:

“Our plan is to deliver control of the movement of people from the European Union into the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 16 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 230.]

That was the first point made by my hon. Friend Sir Gerald Howarth. I have also been clear about what this involves. Free movement of people cannot continue as it is now, but this will not mean pulling up the drawbridge. We will operate the immigration system in our national interest, with a view to winning the global battle for talent. Labour Members do not like this, partly because they cannot agree on their own policy. In the past few weeks, we have heard at least three different positions on the future of free movement from shadow Front Benchers—[Interruption.] The Opposition spokesman probably thinks there are more, as he is challenging me. It is therefore no surprise that they do not want to talk about it, but this is an important, substantive decision that reflects the will of the British people.

Similarly, the Prime Minister has said that we intend to remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That is part of the promise to recover control of our own laws. Some Labour Members do not like this because they suggest that the ECJ is the principal guarantor of basic British rights and freedoms. I have to say that that shows an astonishing lack of knowledge of our own history, in which British people fought to create and preserve those freedoms. I suppose it is unsurprising that the party that attempted to impose on Britain the most draconian piece of law in modern times—90 days’ detention without charge—has little understanding of the proper origins of freedom and the rule of law.