Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason the Government (a) is asking for grace periods from the EU and (b) did not ask in June 2020 for an extension to the transition period.

I refer the Honourable Member to the letters my Right Honourable Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster sent to Vice-President Maros Sefcovic on 2 February 2021, and to Mike Russell MSP on 14 June 2020.

The Government was elected in 2019 on a manifesto which was clear that we would leave the EU in January 2020 and that the transition period would end on 31 December 2020.