Lords EU committee to hear from Sir Ivan Rogers on Brexit preparations
The House of Lords EU Committee will this week take evidence from Sir Ivan Rogers, the UK's former Permanent Representative to the EU.
The Committee will question Sir Ivan on the short-term prospects for the withdrawal negotiations and the longer-term future relationship between the UK and EU.
The evidence session will start at 4pm on Wednesday 20 February in Committee Room 3 of the House of Lords.
Areas the session will cover include:
- How the next five weeks in the Brexit negotiations will play out and the likelihood of no-deal exit on 29 March.
- The likelihood of the EU agreeing to changes to the backstop and other options to resolve the impasse over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
- The possibility of an extension to Article 50 and the political, legal and procedural challenges this would entail, including the forthcoming European Parliament elections.
- The lessons the Government should learn from negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement as it enters into negotiations over the future relationship with the EU.
- The implications of the provision in the Political Declaration that a future customs relationship would ‘build and improve on the single customs territory', as set out in the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (the ‘backstop').
