Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :

To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on food prices in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

Leaving the EU presents a major opportunity for UK agricultural and fisheries sectors. There will be opportunities to build on our world-leading reputation of quality and standards. We are focused on making sure all of our policies deliver for the UK, grow our world-leading food and farming industry, and improve our environment. In 2016, 60 per cent of UK food, feed and drink exports were to countries in the EU, whilst 70 per cent of UK imports of food, feed and drink during the same period were from the EU. This underlines the UK’s and EU’s mutual interest in continuing high levels of market access in future.

The Department for Exiting the European Union, working with officials across Government, is in the process of carrying out a programme of rigorous and extensive analytical work that will contribute to our exit negotiations with the EU, to define our future partnership with the EU, and to inform our understanding of how EU exit will affect the UK’s domestic policies and frameworks.

We want our future relationship with the EU to be a deep and special partnership, taking in both economic and security cooperation. We are confident that a future partnership between the UK and EU is in the interests of both sides, so we approach these negotiations anticipating success. We think that is by far and away the highest probability. We do not want or expect a no deal outcome, but we have a duty to plan for an alternative to the unlikely scenario in which no mutually satisfactory agreement can be reached. That is exactly what we are doing across the whole of Government.