Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps the Government is taking to ensure small and micro businesses can continue to trade seamlessly with countries outside of the EU from 1 January 2021.
Answered by Ranil Jayawardena
HM Government has now signed, or agreed in principle, trade agreements with 53 countries – accounting for £164 billion of the United Kingdom’s bilateral trade in 2019. We are working to make further progress before the end of the Transition Period, and beyond.
We will continue to seek to include specific small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) chapters in all of our future Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to make sure that SMEs are provided with the information necessary to take informed commercial decisions – and seize the great new opportunities created by these agreements.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what progress she has made in agreeing trade deals with the UK's Commonwealth partners.
Answered by Ranil Jayawardena
We are committed to working with our friends and allies in the Commonwealth to remove barriers and liberalise the global trading environment. The Commonwealth has a large and diverse membership, with countries at all stages of development, and this is reflected in the trade relationship we have with them.
Through the Taxation (Cross-Border Trade) Act, the United Kingdom has provided for duty-free quota free access for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and put in place a trade preference scheme for other developing countries. In addition, we have agreed four Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the Southern African Customs Union and Mozambique; Eastern and other Southern African (ESA) states; Pacific states; and CARIFORUM states.
My Hon. Friend will know that we are committed to negotiating and securing ambitious free trade deals with Australia and New Zealand as soon as possible too, harnessing the opportunity to negotiate a high-quality agreement with like-minded, liberal trading nations. Similarly, both the United Kingdom and Canada agree on the importance of protecting and strengthening our trading relationship and we are engaging constructively with HM Government of Canada on a seamless transition of our trading relationship beyond 1st January 2020.