Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

1. What plans he has to publish a White Paper on trade.

[The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam Fox)]

Since he is a conscientious and committed Member of the House of Commons, the hon. Gentleman will know that the Government published a trade White Paper on Monday 9 October 2017. The trade White Paper establishes the principles that will guide future UK trade policy and sets out the preparatory steps that we are taking. The paper can be found in the Libraries of both Houses and on the gov.uk website.

[Mr Cunningham]

What transitional plans does the Secretary of State have for the transitional period if he cannot necessarily do the trade deals that he wants to do?

[Dr Fox]

If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the transitional adoption of existing EU agreements, I can tell him that we have had a very positive response from other Governments, who, like us, want to ensure that there is no disruption of trade at the point of departure from the European Union. We will want to get as many of those in place as we can. That depends partly on the willingness of partners to get that ready on time; there are obviously contingency measures available to us under the World Trade Organisation to ensure continued market access in any case.