Newington's Katie Gleeson looks at key events over the next fortnight.
Members of Parliament will be returning from Recess on Monday (9 October), perhaps still a bit hazy from the long Conference weekends. Business as usual is set to resume, kicking off with Work and Pensions Oral Questions in the Commons, and Lords Questions on the UK’s prospects for reaching a Brexit agreement by March 2019.
The Scottish Nationalists will descend on Glasgow from 8-10 October, as the SNP holds its 83rd annual Conference. The agenda is yet to be published, but is said to include a resolution from Scotland’s Brexit Minister Mike Russell on “protecting EU safeguards” such as single market membership and employment rights, as well as motion debates on both drug reform and the possibility of Scotland’s formal representation in the Bank of England as Brexit approaches.
Elsewhere, the 5th round of Brexit negotiations is looming, due to commence on Monday. The discussions are set to pick up where September’s 4th round left off, continuing to negotiate the finer details of citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and the Northern Irish border. Chief EU Negotiator Michel Barnier has cited issues around family reunification, social security benefits and administrative procedures as remaining matters to be negotiated, and signalled that the technical details of Theresa May’s Florence speech claims remain to be seen – with the Prime Minister having announced that the UK will honour financial commitments made during the course of its EU membership, the British negotiating team is said to have explained that the UK is not yet in a position to identify such commitments.
Barnier has repeatedly warned that “sufficient progress” to move onto the next phase of negotiations has not yet been reached, but ultimately it will be up to the European Council to decide when it meets in Brussels later this month.
