Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has plans for Regulation (EC) No 768/2005 to form part of the common rule book envisaged in the White Paper, The Future Relationship Between the United Kingdom and the European Union, published in July 2018, Cm 9593.

This regulation refers to the European Fisheries Control Agency, an EU body that organises the operational co-ordination of fisheries control and inspection activities. After exit, the UK will continue to cooperate with the EU in shared enforcement action but under terms determined by bilateral agreement rather than under the terms of a common rule book and existing EU regulation.

Our proposal is for a free trade area for goods between the UK and the EU. This would be underpinned by a common rulebook, which would cover only those rules necessary to provide for frictionless trade at the border.