Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :

To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, pursuant to the Answer of 1 November 2017 to Question 110712, on EU law, what representations he has received from businesses on differences to rules and regulations between the UK and the EU after the UK leaves the EU.

The UK Government is committed to making the UK the best place in the world to do business and ministers from across Government have carried out extensive engagement on EU exit - with businesses and industry bodies from all sectors of the economy and all regions of the UK.

To make the UK the best place to do business means fostering a high quality, stable and predictable regulatory environment. This means the Withdrawal Bill will, so far as possible, maintain the status quo in this regard and provide a good starting point for a deep and special partnership with the EU. Through the Withdrawal Agreement and Implementation Bill we will legislate for the Implementation Period. As the PM said in her Florence speech, the framework for this strictly time-limited period, which can be agreed under Article 50, would be the existing structure of EU rules and regulations.

With regards to the future regulatory relationship this is subject to negotiations, but as the PM set out this should be straightforward in areas where regulation is outside the scope of our trade and economic relations. But there will be areas which do affect our economic relations where we and our European friends may have different goals; or where we share the same goals but want to achieve them through different means. This is where we recognise that the single market is built on a balance of rights and obligations, and so our task is to find a new framework that allows for a close economic partnership but holds those rights and obligations in a new and different balance.

As negotiations progress, we will continue to seek the input of businesses across a range of issues, including on the subject of rules and regulatory differences between the EU and UK.