John Whittingdale
Main Page: John Whittingdale (Conservative - Maldon)Department Debates - View all John Whittingdale's debates with the Cabinet Office
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe will be putting extra investment of £394 million a week into our national health service. The funding from that will come from a number of sources, but we will be able to use the Brexit dividend on priorities such as the NHS and other public services.
My right hon. Friend said that one of the benefits of leaving the EU is the ability to sign trade agreements with third countries, but what realistic prospect is there for that while we remain within the customs union and even after that, when we have pledged to maintain
“deep regulatory and customs cooperation”
covering goods—probably the very goods that people want to sell to us?
We will be able to sign free trade arrangements with the rest of the world, and we already have significant interest from various parts of the world. I take my right hon. Friend’s point about our proposal on frictionless trade with a commitment—subject to a parliamentary lock—in relation to the common rulebook on goods and agricultural products. Of course, many of those rules are international standards; they are not just EU-related standards, but standards that our manufacturers would abide by in any case. That is a key issue. We want to have good trade relations and agreements not only with countries in the rest of the world, but with the EU.