Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) officials in his Department have had discussions with representatives from the European Union on the Pan-Euro-Mediterranian Convention on Rules of Origin.

We welcome the positive, constructive tone from Commissioner Šefčovič last week on this issue. We are resetting the relationship with our European friends to tackle barriers to help drive investment and growth and are open to looking at PEM if that reflects business and partner sentiment, but at this time we do not currently have plans to join.