UK-EU Summit

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)]

This deal is good for business and good for Britain. I congratulate the Prime Minister on embracing a good half of the Select Committee’s recommendations, which—if I might say so—were agreed on a cross-party basis. While some in this House are proposing trade barriers, the Prime Minister is building trade bridges, and that is in the national interest.

We have a deal, but we do not have a date. The Office for Budget Responsibility cannot score the gains, businesses cannot plan for the benefits, and we cannot suspend customs checks in Northern Ireland until we know when the new SPS checks will come into force. What timetable has the Prime Minister given his negotiators for when that SPS deal will come into effect? Business needs certainty, and for that, we need clarity.

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me pick up on my right hon. Friend’s point about the cross-party support of the Select Committee. There are Conservative Members who I think are ashamed by the response of the Leader of the Opposition, and know very well that these are good deals that should be supported. A number of her Back-Bench MPs are already coming out and saying that these deals are good and in the national interest. [Hon. Members: “Who?”] You know who they are.

I assure my right hon. Friend that we have moved at pace to get the deals, and our instruction to our teams now is to move at pace to implement them. That is what we will do. We negotiated these deals in a short number of months, and we will keep moving at the same pace.