I welcome the new Opposition spokesperson, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), to his role. We very much look forward to working with him during these crucial few months. I thank him for bringing this motion to the House. The Secretary of
State has shown that he still has a long way to go to meet the doubts and questions that the hon. and learned Gentleman raised, but securing such a debate is a step in the right direction.
The talks and negotiations during this crucial period will have an impact across every policy area in every part of the country, but we are seeing very little in the way of detail. I fear that this lack of detail has more to do with a Cabinet who cannot agree among themselves than with any ideas about the negotiating strategy. I am a new Member of Parliament, but other hon. Members may be able to tell me whether it is normal for a Secretary of State—we welcome him—to spend so much time at the Dispatch Box without actually telling us anything. He spent a lot of time at the Dispatch Box, and I am none the wiser about where we are at the moment, which seems remarkable.
I wonder whether the Government can tell us something else about the negotiations. They tell us they will have the negotiations, but when my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) brought up the issue of the single market—other hon. Members have asked other key questions—they have shown that they cannot answer a simple question. That is striking. When they sit down with our European partners and start the negotiations, what will they say? What can they possibly tell our European partners? We do not even have a starting point.