Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Everitt Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I have set out the export strategy, which is bringing forward these tools, which goes exactly to the hon. Gentleman’s point. We are the opposite of complacent; we are here to support, through a dozen different routes, businesses to grow the export markets they already have or to discover exporting for the first time. One in seven businesses that could export does not yet, and we are keen to help those businesses find those markets across the globe, not only across the EU. Free trade deals such as the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, which we are negotiating this year, will give us the opportunity to open up nearly $8 trillion-worth of new markets. We want to ensure that businesses can access those through all the tools we are providing for them.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

6. What steps her Department has taken to reduce barriers to global trade for British businesses.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

Bulldozing trade barriers enables countless British businesses to export goods and services around the world with greater ease and at lower cost. We resolved more than 200 barriers in the year ending April 2021—a 20% increase on the previous year. From securing British access to Japan’s poultry market, estimated by industry to be worth up to £13 million per year, and lifting the decades-long ban on British lamb exports to the US, estimated to be worth £37 million over five years, to cutting costs in services trade, an export of £304 billion in 2021, by up to 7% annually, we are getting on with the job.

[Ben Everitt]

Getting on with the job indeed. Breaking down barriers to trade and providing businesses with the right tools and support to reach global markets is exactly what we should be doing. I welcome the Department’s regional trade advisers and the role they play in supporting companies such as Carlton Packaging in Milton Keynes. To build on that support, will my hon. Friend work with me to bring together business in Milton Keynes, the Department and those regional trade advisers to support those business opportunities now that we have left the European Union?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I am very pleased to know that businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency, including Carlton Packaging, are receiving support from this Department. Milton Keynes has not only exports worth over £3.4 billion, but a great champion of our trade deals in him. I shall be delighted to work with him to help businesses to use those deals to create jobs and boost wages while lowering prices for consumers.