EU Retained Law Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Exiting the European Union
Laurence Robertson
Main Page: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)Department Debates - View all Laurence Robertson's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
EU Retained Law
Laurence Robertson Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
Is it my right hon. Friend’s view that most of the bureaucracy placed on British businesses that are trying to export comes from the requirements made by other EU countries? They seem to be making it a lot harder for us to export to them than we are making it for them to export to us.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Yes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because that is a very important point. Free trade benefits the receiver of free trade. Just because the EU makes it harder for us to export to it is no reason to retaliate in kind. All that does is make things more expensive for our consumers and our businesses. That is why, on 1 July, we will not impose the full set of controls that the EU imposes on us. We are looking to a single trade window by the end of 2023, which will lower the barriers to trade from around the world and improve the fluidity of our borders. Why? Because that benefits our economy, even if we do it unilaterally, and that is fundamentally important. The EU has never understood that, and it is why it is such a high-cost area.