She said: “There is widespread concern about the possibility of the UK leaving without a deal. And there are those on both sides of the House who want the government to rule this out.

“But we need to be honest with the British people about what that means. The right way to rule out no deal is for this House to approve a deal with the European Union. That is what this government is seeking to achieve.”

She continued: “The only other guaranteed way to avoid a no-deal Brexit is to revoke Article 50, which would mean staying in the EU.

“There are others who think that what we need is more time, so they say we should extend Article 50 to give longer for parliament to debate how we should leave and what a deal should look like. This is not ruling out no deal, but simply deferring the point of decision. And the EU are very unlikely simply to agree to extend Article 50 without a plan for how we are going approve a deal.

“So when people say ‘rule out no deal’ the consequences of what they are actually saying are that if we in parliament can’t approve a deal we should revoke Article 50. I believe this would go against the referendum result and I do not believe that is a course of action that we should take, or which this House should support.”