Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the distributional effect per income decile of the population of food price inflation in (a) 2019-2020, (b) 2020-2021 and (c) 2021-2022 in the event that (i) the UK leaves the EU customs territory on 29 March 2019 and (ii) the UK leaves the EU customs territory on 29 March 2019 and levies most-favoured nation tariffs on foodstuffs imported from the EU after that date.

Currently the most important drivers of change in the cost of food are commodity prices, exchange rate and oil prices. This will not change when we leave the EU. The UK Government does not directly control these factors. However, leaving the EU gives us the chance to decide our trade policies, enabling us to take control of more levers to help facilitate competitive and frictionless trade.

We are seeking to negotiate a unique and ambitious economic partnership with the EU, as well as future trade deals with the rest of the world.