UK Trade with EU

(asked on 15th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the level of (1) exports from the UK to the EU, and (2) imports from the EU to the UK, since 1 January.


Answered by
Lord True Portrait
Lord True
Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
This question was answered on 24th March 2021

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have, therefore, asked the Authority to respond.

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

Dear Lady Ritchie,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what assessment has been made on the level of (1) exports from the UK to the EU, and (2) imports from the EU to the UK, since 1 January (HL14230).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publish monthly trade statistics[1]. The latest official estimates are for January 2021, the first month since the end of the UK’s transition period with the European Union (EU). It should be noted that monthly data are erratic and small movements in these series should be treated with caution. There were also a number of atypical economic and global factors[2] contributing to the falls seen in the January data, so it is too soon to draw conclusions from the data.

Data on exports of goods from the UK to the EU and imports of goods to the UK from the EU can be found in Table 1 below. Please note that data are in current prices and, as such, include the effect of inflation.

Services data for January 2021 are not currently available at a geographical level.

Table 1: UK Imports and exports of goods with EU excluding non-monetary gold and other precious metals, in £ billion, seasonally adjusted

Exports

Imports

December 2020 Value (£bn)

13.7

22.8

January 2021 Value (£bn)

8.1

16.2

Change (£bn)

-5.6

-6.6

% change

-40.7%

-28.8%

Source: ONS

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

[1]https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/uktrade/january2021

[2]https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/articles/impactofthecoronavirusandeuexitonthecollectionandcompilationofuktradestatistics/2021-03-08

Reticulating Splines