Britain may have to pay the EU to participate in a temporary customs union after leaving the bloc, the Brexit secretary has suggested.

In a round of broadcast interviews, David Davis confirmed the government would use a position paper published on Tuesday to propose for a “shortish” period a deal allowing the transit of goods across borders to continue under a temporary customs union.

Such an arrangement would be in the common interests of the UK and Europe, he said. “We sell them about €230bn of goods and services a year. They sell us €290bn,” Davis told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

But asked whether the UK would have to pay to stay in the customs union, he said: “What happens in that sort of interim period you will have to leave me to negotiate, I’m afraid. But the aim is to bring to an end these £10bn-a-year payments.

“We are still haggling with them on what we may owe them in the short term, but we are going to bring the overall thing to an end.”

Asked the same question about the cost of the temporary deal on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Davis said: “I’m not going to do the negotiation on air.”

But he did reveal that he he expected the interim arrangement to last for about two years. And he insisted the European court of justice would not be the arbiter of the arrangement. “There is no circumstance, that I’m aware of, where countries do a deal with other countries, or groups of states, and they hand over to the other group of states the arbitration arrangements,” he said.

Davis also appeared to rule out finalising the Brexit divorce bill this year. “There won’t be a number by October or November,” he told Today.

He insisted “a lot of progress” had been made in the negotiations over citizens’ rights. But he added: “We have made a very generous offer. It’s not perfect from either side, and we are going through the negotiation.”

The UK chief Brexit negotiator also tried to make a virtue of the government’s lack of clarity on what it wanted from the negotiations.

“You will find it difficult sometimes to read what we intend,” he told Today. “That’s deliberate. I’m afraid in negotiations you do have constructive ambiguity from time to time.”

He also claimed the EU’s desire to punish the UK for voting for Brexit had waned since the election in May of the new pro-European president of France, Emmanuel Macron.

“There was a terror early on that we would be the first of many countries breaking off. After the victory of Macron in France, that terror has reduced. They are no longer quite so afraid, so the punishment battalion side is now reducing,” Davis told ITV.

On BBC Breakfast he conceded there were differences in cabinet over what ministers wanted from the talks with the EU. He said: “Of course there are different views on elements of the deal, because departments have their own specific interests.

“Treasury is obviously concerned about the City; Business, Energy and Industry are concerned about things like research and manufacturing. [The international trade secretary] Liam [Fox] of course wants to do his trade deals. My job is to make sure we do all of those things in a practical way that works, but also in a way which is negotiable … that we are not pitching for the moon.

“Of course there are discussions, and of course there are interests, but we all want the best outcome for Britain.”

On ITV Davis said James Chapman, his former aide, had always been an effective adviser but his opposition to leaving the EU had never wavered. Chapman has called for a new centrist party, claiming Brexit signals the end of the Conservatives.

“Dear old James. James did a great job for me as my chief of staff but even the day he arrived he was a remainer,” Davis said.



Chapman, who had previously been special adviser to the chancellor George Osborne and the Daily Mail’s political editor, responded with a series of tweets criticising Davis.



He accused the Brexit secretary of working part-time, and said he had behaved in a “drunk, bullying and inappropriate” way towards the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott.

He also said Davis once accidentally called the EU Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, while trying to get through to a “far-right friend”, and had the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage on his speed dial.