Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Institute of Chartered Accountants Business Confidence Monitor Q2 2019, published in May, which suggests a decline in confidence of UK businesses due to ongoing Brexit uncertainty.

The latest ICAEW Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) shows that business confidence has not fallen significantly this quarter.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK economy picked up in the first three months of the year - Growth was 0.5% in the quarter, up from 0.2% in the previous three months. The employment rate (16-64) remained at 76.1%– at a record high. Employment increased by 99,000 on the quarter, standing at 32.7m – remaining broadly unchanged on the last labour market statistics release.