Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes his point well. The idea is that we should turn a blind eye to the trading arrangements we have with our nearest neighbours—50% of our markets—in pursuit, as an alternative or substitute, of some deal with far-flung countries a lot further away, but Australia accounts for 2% or 3% of our current trade and a deal with Australia will not offset many of these problems. It is not just the 50% that we have directly with our nearest neighbours. All those free trade agreements that the European Union has worked up and signed, to which we have been a party, over the past 40 years add up to a further 14% of our trade. So going on for two thirds of our trade is tied into the customs union process—36 bilateral free trade agreements with 63 different countries. How shall we ensure that they continue the day after we exit?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Chris Leslie
(Labour)
in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 20 December 2017.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee of the Whole House (HC) on European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.
About this proceeding contribution
Reference
633 c1137 Session
2017-19Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamberSubjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2018-04-16 12:09:14 +0100
URI
http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-12-20/17122033000157
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-12-20/17122033000157
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-12-20/17122033000157