Mr. Philip Kelly:

I do not think so. The UK Government, along with the Governments of the other 27 member states, approved the provisional application of CETA at Council level. I would guess that it is anxious to see the provisional application in place. As the Deputy is aware, the UK Government has spoken about transitional arrangements. It is probably anxious to avail of all the benefits of all the trade agreements, including on a transitional basis, pending the conclusion of its own agreements with third countries. The UK Government is already a party to the provisional application. The national ratification process, for which there is no time limit and which normally takes three or four years, is the reason the application is provisional. If the agreement is approved by the European Parliament in a plenary vote in February, we will move almost immediately to provisional application, immediate entry into force and the imposition of a 0% rate of tariffs on 99% of industrial goods. The clock will begin to run in the agriculture area, where there will be special phasings over a long number of years. For the next two years, at least, the UK will have the full benefit of provisional application, obviously minus the investment protection or the investment court system, which will not come into effect until the agreement has been ratified by all 36 or 38 member states. It is difficult to know whether the absence of the UK from the final ratification of the agreement would be material. Countries on the other side, such as Canada, might regret the concessions they made when they reached agreement on the basis of being able to access a market of 500 million people when the market is no longer of that size. Our instinct is that the UK will be delighted to benefit from the provisional application for as long as possible.