Trade Remedy Measures: UK Interests

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

It is impossible to give a date. The right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues in the other place, who have been so holding up the Trade Bill, have more effect on the date than I do. He might want to have a word with them.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. Its value for both business and consumers is plain. Does he agree that it underpins the importance of ensuring that we do not have a forever customs union of the sort that has been highlighted as a very bad thing, inter alia, by the Leader of the Opposition?

[Dr Fox]

Were we to have a customs union, we would forever have to apply to the UK the trade remedies decided by the European Union, which might apply remedies to areas where there is no production in the United Kingdom, carrying a cost for our consumers but no benefit to our producers. That would seem to me to be one of the strongest arguments for leaving in the first place.