Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth George Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

Both sides have agreed that we wish to have tariff-free access to each other’s markets. The hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) referred to the tiny proportion of our imports that need to be physically checked. With a degree of mutual recognition, which has been outlined by the Prime Minister, these things can be delivered through the terms of our future economic partnership, and I am confident that it is in both sides’ interest to ensure that supply chains can continue uninterrupted.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

Businesses in my constituency tell me that they need the preferential trade rates with 88% of countries in the rest of the world that they currently enjoy as part of the EU. How do the Government propose to equal or exceed those preferential rates before our businesses lose contracts to EU competitors?

[Suella Braverman]

The EU currently has many international agreements with third countries, and it is the policy, agreed in the withdrawal agreement, that we will adopt a continuity approach, so that all those international agreements to which we are party by virtue of our membership of the EU will continue to apply after we leave the EU.