Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether UK firms that import components under the new tariff suspension scheme would be eligible for tariff preferences on their exports under UK trade deals that contain prohibitions on duty drawback and exemption.
The UK’s tariff suspension regime applies to UK imports and is a reduction in the ‘Most Favoured Nation’ rate, the UK Global Tariff, for all businesses. Restrictions on duty drawback in preferential agreements do not apply to tariff suspensions because tariff suspensions apply to all imports, whether or not they are then used as inputs for subsequent exports to the Free Trade Agreement partner. Duty drawback restrictions that exist in free trade agreements may only apply to drawback mechanisms for which the drawback is contingent on subsequent export. As such, any business based in the UK or Crown Dependencies that makes use of a suspension will also be able to take advantage of the benefits of trade deals that the UK is party to.