Brexit Negotiations

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We recognise the importance of Dover as a border port and, indeed, that of other ports around the United Kingdom. The future customs relationship will be a key part of negotiating the trade deal. We have said that we want to be as tariff-free and frictionless as possible, and that is what we will be working to.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The issue of regulatory divergence is an ongoing matter of concern for many sectors of our economy. When the Prime Minister read the summary outcomes of the Brexit sectoral analyses, did she happen to read about the impact of Brexit on chemicals? The Chemical Industries Association has today written to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ask the Government

“to do all it can to remain within or as close as possible”

to the EU’s rule book for the sector, the exports of which are worth £50 billion a year. What reassurance will the Prime Minister give to the association?

[The Prime Minister]

We have been very clear that we were looking at a variety of areas in which the question will be asked as to whether we wish to retain the same arrangements, or arrangements that achieve the same outcomes but are not necessarily the same arrangements, or if we wish to diverge completely. We recognise the importance of the pharmaceutical industry to the United Kingdom—it is a key industry in the industrial strategy, which my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary published only a couple of weeks ago—but these will be matters for negotiation in the second phase.