G8

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think we should certainly engage with the fact that Iran has elected a relative moderate. I think that is a positive sign and we should look for opportunities; but as I said, really, if we are going to put so much weight on the Geneva process and the Geneva principles, it is important that everybody, Iran included, signs up to them.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

The Prime Minister’s attempts on the world trade agreement will be warmly welcomed by many, and rightly so, but does he agree that the prize could be even bigger if we could genuinely open up the EU single market to services? Some 71% of EU GDP is in services, yet only 3.2% is intra-EU trade, so much more could be done to help our economy.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This requires action by Governments and countries across the board, including traditionally quite free trade countries such as Germany that have sometimes had quite a lot of restrictions around particular professions. We therefore need action in the EU and then between the EU and the US in order to capture the full benefits of these changes.