Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the absence of a full mutual recognition agreement in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement on the profitability of UK exporters excluded from the agreement’s sectoral annexes.

The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement sets out wide-ranging provisions on Technical Barriers to Trade that will support exporters, including a core chapter and five sectoral annexes. These contain specific provisions which support the profitability of exporters.

Throughout negotiations, agreeing a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) across as many sectors as possible was a priority for the UK. MRAs remain a useful tool, and we will continue to seek them in negotiations with other partners where this would be beneficial.

The Government has already taken additional steps to reduce disruption to business. As set out in our guidance, to allow businesses time to adjust, relevant CE marked goods that meet EU requirements (where these continue to match UK requirements) can continue to be placed on the GB market until 1 January 2022 in most cases.