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Beyond Brexit

Beyond Brexit S1E8 - Destination will be in the detail

Beyond Brexit

PwC UK

Government, News

4.836 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2017

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Head of political relations Anna Wallace discusses what business can take away from the Prime Minister's speech in Florence.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the latest episode in our series of Beyond Brexit Podcasts.

0:07.0

Today, we're talking about the likely time scale for future negotiations following Theresa May's Florence speech.

0:14.0

I'm Gayna Bagley, PWC's Head of Corporate Purpose, and I also chair our EU Steering Committee.

0:20.0

I'm joined today by Anna Wallace, our Director of Political Relations.

0:24.6

Anna, first question for you, what do you think were the key messages for business in Theresa May's speech?

0:30.6

Hello, yes. So I guess the most significant thing in last week's speech was that the government formally asked for transitions and

0:38.8

this was we know is very important to businesses up until now we've sort of spent the summer hearing a lot

0:43.9

about sort of speculation about discussions around the cabinet table but this was the first time that

0:48.3

she formally requested a two-year transition period which would be a status quo type arrangement with perhaps some small

0:57.5

changes around the outside for the UK. I guess the biggest thing as well, another big thing for

1:02.6

businesses, it was the change in tone, actually far more constructive and in terms of things

1:09.8

like making it off around citizens rights and the bill.

1:12.6

So clearly she was trying to unblock the negotiations, which I think is not an unimportant thing for businesses too.

1:18.6

But that transition issue is probably the key one.

1:21.6

Yes, and of course it is only our side of the negotiation.

1:25.6

So what did you think about the reaction from Brussels, the immediate reaction we've heard so far?

1:30.3

I think the reaction was probably as we expected, which certainly at the beginning of the next round of negotiations, was quite muted.

1:38.3

And the problem with the speech last week was although the tone was much better,

1:42.3

we still didn't get the level of detail

1:45.4

that we need to really unblock the stage of negotiations. So yes, there was some offers

1:50.6

around EU citizens, there was some offer around the bill. But as Brussels has said, this

1:56.3

is a starting point in negotiation. It's not a big enough offer to really unblock us and move us forwards.

...

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