Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Coleman Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

I, and I suspect the whole House, share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration. There were many opportunities to stop the Post Office scandal, and compensation should have been paid out to all the victims a long time ago. We have quadrupled the amount of compensation paid out in the past 12 months, and 5,000 victims who had not received compensation 12 months ago have now done so. Is that good enough? Of course not; there is a lot more to do, and the recommendations that Sir Wyn Williams made last week are helpful in that regard.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

7. What progress his Department has made on implementing recent trade agreements.

[The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)]

The UK continues to make progress across its trade agreements programme to bring prosperity to communities across the country. On 30 June, for the US, we implemented legislation creating two new quotas for imports of beef and ethanol, and the US removed tariffs on UK civilian aerospace goods and reduced tariffs on UK auto as agreed in the UK-US economic deal that we announced back in May.

[Ben Coleman]

One of the businesses that stands to benefit from the EU trade agreement is a butcher and deli in my constituency that imports a lot of its products from Spain. At the moment, its shelves are unfortunately half-empty because its small Spanish supplier—effectively a man with a van—says he simply cannot cope with all the Brexit form filling. However, he has said that he expects things to get better from later this year thanks to the Government’s deal with the EU, which is great news. Will the Minister set out what steps are being taken to implement the removal of the Brexit red tape of sanitary and phytosanitary checks, including the likely timetable?

[Mr Alexander]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I express my regret that that business, like so many across the country, finds itself buried in red tape as a consequence of the implementation of Brexit by the Conservative party. There are technical aspects of our agreement with the European Union that need to be worked through, but businesses across the country, such as the butchers and deli he described, will be willing us on in that endeavour.