Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential additional bureaucratic requirements that will be imposed on British businesses in the event that the UK leaves the Customs Union.

One of the government’s key objectives for the UK’s future customs regime is to ensure that trade including that with the EU remains as frictionless as possible. At this stage the level of future facilitation at the border between the UK and the EU is unknown and subject to the outcome of negotiations. It is therefore not possible to weigh up the costs and benefits to business.

The government is undertaking a comprehensive programme of analytical work to assess, across a range of scenarios on a sector by sector basis, the economic impacts of exiting the European Union, but this analysis is sensitive in the context of negotiations with the EU. As Parliament has agreed, it would not be appropriate to publish any such information that could damage our negotiating position.