Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:38 pm on 8th October 2019.
No, I do not accept that at all. I think that it is perfectly clear that the Government remain very fixed on securing a deal. That is what these negotiations and discussions are about. At the same time, it is important to prepare for the possibility of no deal—no responsible negotiator would fail to have a walk-away position—and this quantifies those. As I have indicated, there are mitigations and dynamic effects that may well reduce their actual effect. In that context, this is wise planning and provisioning—plans that I hope we will never have to invoke.