Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what assessment he has made of the effect of negotiations on regulatory alignment for goods with the EU on the ability of the UK to agree new international trade deals.
Answered by Robin Walker
Each Free Trade Agreement negotiation entails a different balance of commitments, with less generous commitments in one area requiring more generous provisions elsewhere.
Under the proposal set out in our White Paper, the UK could make commitments to third country trading partners in a number of areas, while ensuring continued frictionless UK-EU trade: for example, on rules that set marketing and labelling requirements for agri-food products.
The UK could also agree mutual recognition of conformity assessments with third-countries, allowing the UK to recognise that a third country’s testing bodies can properly assess products against UK regulatory standards and vice versa. This is at the ambitious end of existing free trade agreements. We will also be an independent WTO member and able to set our own goods tariffs. Beyond goods, we will be able to negotiate in areas of real importance to our economy, such as services and digital.