With permission, Mr Speaker, I will update the House on the enhanced free trade agreement that was concluded yesterday between the United Kingdom and Switzerland. This is the sixth trade deal that the Government have secured over the last two years. We already had an FTA with Switzerland, which was based on the 1972 EU-Switzerland agreement, but in keeping with many FTAs of that era, it was primarily focused on trade in goods. By contrast, this is the most significant trade agreement for services that the UK has concluded so far, and it includes the UK’s most ambitious digital chapter and most comprehensive business travel commitments in an FTA, along with high-ambition outcomes across services and investment. It especially plays to our strengths as a pre-eminent services superpower. It includes some of the strongest services commitments that we have ever secured, while creating opportunities in the eight core growth-driving sectors of our industrial strategy, including financial and professional services, life sciences and digital technologies. Our trade strategy, published one year ago, underscored what everyone with an eye on trade already knew: that our “services sectors are the most powerful engine of our growth and prosperity”, and that it was high time to pull services trade out of the margins of trade discussions. Some 83% of UK workers are employed in services, including through regional employers such as Capital Law in Cardiff and the Edinburgh-founded Skyscanner; large firms with multiple offices across the UK, such as Julius Baer, which has a regional office in Newcastle, and KPMG, which has offices in Leeds and elsewhere; and thousands of smaller firms across the country. We have worked hard to ensure that this deal really works for them. Switzerland is already the UK’s sixth largest services export market, and bilateral services trade was worth more than £30 billion last year. This agreement is estimated to increase UK services exports to Switzerland by £5.2 billion annually in the long run, while supporting jobs across the UK, including the 171,400 already supported by exports to Switzerland. On top of this, we know that Swiss-owned businesses employed around 150,000 people in the UK in 2024, and bilateral foreign direct investment stood at £87 billion at the end of 2024. The agreement we have reached ensures that job creation and investment will continue to grow as our bilateral trade grows. The UK and Switzerland have agreed that future improvements to access in certain sectors are locked in—the first time that Switzerland has agreed to adopt this approach. It gives UK firms a more stable business environment, and greater confidence to plan and invest. The agreement permanently protects the rights of UK lawyers to advise on foreign and international law in Switzerland without requalifying. Additionally, it includes the most comprehensive digital chapter that Switzerland has agreed to in an FTA. Over 70% of UK-Swiss services trade is delivered digitally, so it was absolutely critical to us that we laid out provisions that supported the free flow of data while ensuring that privacy remained protected, and I am glad to say that we have been successful. Our digital chapter modernises the digital trading environment through commitments on electronic contracts, signatures and invoicing, prevents customs duties on electronic transmissions, and restricts unjustified data localisation requirements, all of which will make digital trade easier and more appealing for businesses, whether they are based in Birmingham or Berne. This FTA locks in the commitments of the UK-Swiss services mobility agreement, which was due to expire in 2029. That will protect an estimated £700 million in UK services exports, and allow British professionals to supply services in Switzerland for up to 90 days each year without a work permit. I should add that this is the first UK FTA to cover Gibraltar from day one, ensuring that Gibraltar’s businesspeople will continue to be able to supply services to Switzerland for up to 90 days a year without a permit. Perhaps the real power in this agreement is the statement of intent for future co-operation between our two nations. For example, we know that the UK and Switzerland are global leaders in life sciences. It is in both our nations’ interests for our best and brightest to be able to work together, which is why we have included iron-clad intellectual property and data protection provisions. The outcomes of the deal will support the discovery and development of new medicines, and it does not change UK legislation or practice, maintaining the existing balance between supporting pharmaceutical innovation and the NHS’s access to lower-cost generic medicines. The generics and biosimilar industry supports this deal, saying that it safeguards the NHS’s access to affordable generic medicines. The agreement establishes an innovation working group to bring together business, academia and the Government, with the goal of finding the biggest opportunities and challenges facing our generation. The group is designed to keep pace with emerging technologies and global conditions, which keeps our agreement focused on the future and helps both the UK and Switzerland to stay on the front foot in an ever-changing world. To that end, the agreement also strengthens our co-operation on climate change, development and gender equality. This FTA is designed to evolve, survive and thrive over the long term. One of the key asks of UK businesses was to improve business mobility. Alongside the FTA, Switzerland has announced that UK nationals will soon be able to use e-gates at Swiss borders, in line with Schengen requirements, and they will be able to exit via e-gates at Zurich airport from as soon as the end of this year. Switzerland is also working towards allowing entry via e-gates, particularly at Zurich, Geneva and Basel airports, and will set out a timetable very shortly. The agreement will benefit all nations and regions of the UK. It will support services firms—from major financial and professional services employers in London and Leeds, to specialist small and medium-sized enterprises in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. My Department’s focus now is preparing the treaty for signature and implementation, and we will of course update the House as soon as this can happen. I am immensely grateful to my counterpart, Frau Budliger, with whom I had several assertive conversations—that is an understatement—and to my officials, especially Rob Whiteway, James Clarke, and Georgia Taylor from my private office. When it comes to trade, the primary role of Government is to pave the way for UK businesses by taking down barriers that prevent them from exporting their goods and services around the world. Of course, we also have to protect key sectors, and we will never compromise on animal welfare or food standards just to get a deal. This last year, this Government have made good on that responsibility. We secured the best deal with the USA of any country in the world. We took the India deal from signature to entry into force tomorrow—in record time. We secured a significant upgrade to our deal with the Republic of Korea. We concluded an agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council worth £3.7 billion. We started discussions with China about a services agreement. We secured ratification of our membership of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership with Canada and Mexico, and started accession talks with Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines and Indonesia. We are pursuing a new strategic partnership with the European Union. These deals are all about building a stronger and more resilient UK economy. They will be felt up and down the land in enhanced job prospects and better pay. I was delighted to mark the conclusion of negotiations at KPMG with some of the graduates and apprentices there. Our decisive actions are helping to make a difference to young people’s lives as they build their careers. They also prove that free trade can deliver the goods for British jobs and livelihoods, that the rules-based order is still in fine fettle, and that free and fair trade can enhance our lives. In the end, an FTA is just a piece of paper unless businesses seize the opportunities it affords them. We will play our part in informing and supporting businesses to do that, but it is British entrepreneurs, risk takers, innovators and deal makers who will be the real heroes of this era of UK trade. For all those reasons, I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. We Conservatives warmly welcome this excellent agreement and congratulate the Ministers and officials who delivered it. I was pleased, when I was the City Minister, to have been part of the team behind the forerunner, the Berne—[Interruption.] Would the Minister listen for a moment? The Berne financial services agreement with Switzerland was signed by the then Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt). That was one of our first ever post-Brexit agreements based on mutual recognition of each country’s regimes, and Conservative Ministers, including my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) and my hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich and Evesham (Nigel Huddleston), were involved in the commencement of the planning for the negotiation that we are discussing today. The benefits of this deal are what taking back control looks like in practice: British lawyers advising in Zurich without requalifying, British firms winning contracts that an EU customs union would have blocked, and British travellers enjoying e-gate access and lower roaming tariffs. As the Minister said, this joins a growing number of such deals, including our accession to the CPTPP and agreements with Australia, New Zealand, the Gulf, India and the United States. This is Britain once again charting its way in the world, engaging directly with the leading or fastest-growing economies on the planet. Britain could strike this deal only because of our independent trade policy. Without that, the Government could never have launched the consultation this morning on deepening our trade relationships with Indonesia, the Philippines, the UAE and Uruguay—all countries with whom the UK should seek closer ties. The next Conservative Government will go further and faster on trade. We support deeper trade agreements with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, following the recent agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council, and we will seek a trade agreement with Mercosur. We will boost rather than cut the number of Department for Business and Trade boots on the ground in Asia, Africa and Latin America. We will reintroduce a revised investment visa for those seeking to create wealth and jobs here in the UK. As part of a “trade first” culture change in the Foreign Office, the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and I have agreed to make ambassador appointments among leaders in business, the City and former Lord Mayors of London. I gently point out one glaring omission in the Minister’s otherwise very positive statement about this excellent enhanced Swiss free trade agreement. In nearly 1,400 words, he did not mention the words “Brexit benefit” once. That is a curious insight, since this deal exists only since and because we left the European Union. A nation inside the customs union cannot cut its tariffs on sparkling wine, win tariff-free access for British lamb, gain mutual recognition of professional qualifications, or secure better access to Swiss public procurement. Finally, I look forward to hearing an unabashed welcome for the benefits that will flow to his Maidenhead constituents from the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds). Had his party’s policy been in force, this agreement could not have been struck at all. The Liberal Democrats’ settled ambition is to march Britain straight back into a customs union, turning it back into a rule-taking vassal state, with none of the freedoms that, for example, the Canadian Parliament enjoys. The hon. Gentleman’s cheerleaders on the Liberal Democrat Benches would have legislated away every benefit that the Minister has described to this House. We warmly welcome this deal—no ifs, no buts. It is a win for Britain, a win for growth and a win for friendship between our two great nations. I have been very generous in praising the Government today, and on what I hope is not, but may be, the Minister’s final outing, I hope he will reciprocate by being honest with the country about why the deal was possible. I have just one question, and the interests of time a yes or no answer will suffice: does the Minister agree that, as a point of fact, it was only Brexit that made this agreement achievable?

It is an enormous delight to put a smile on the hon. Gentleman’s face. It is such a rare outing to see a smile on his face that I feel my job is done—my work is done.

Your legacy!

My legacy will be a smile on the hon. Gentleman’s face. It was nice that he actually congratulated us. I think that is what he was doing. He said that was without any condition, but then he said it was really the Conservatives who started all of this business. It is exactly what he said about the GCC deal earlier this year, when he said that really all the work was done by them. But to be honest, it is not about where you start; it is about where you finish, and it is actually getting a deal over the line that is the difficult bit. I was standing in Hyde Park at a Duran Duran concert, I think 10 days ago, when—[Interruption.] Wild boys, calm down! Frau Budliger rang me, and she wondered what was going on in the background. It was actually the Scissor Sisters, the act on beforehand. I was just thinking, “I don’t know whether we want to dance or not,” because we had not been able to get all of this deal over the line yet. The truth of the matter is that the last two weeks are nearly always the most difficult bit. Sometimes it is a degree of negotiating between different Departments, and I am enormously grateful to all my other colleagues in the Government who have made it possible to get this to the place where we are now. Indeed, I do not want to exaggerate, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Really? [Laughter.]

I do not think you are meant to take part in the conversation, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Or deviate!

Or deviate. Or repeat! I do not want to exaggerate, but this may be the most significant iconic moment for the UK and Switzerland since Sean Connery and Ursula Andress met one another in “Dr. No” back in 1962. [Interruption]—no exaggeration at all, of any kind. I am worried about one thing the shadow Minister said, which is about how he would appoint ambassadors. I would just say that appointing ambassadors in unusual circumstances has not gone very well for this Government, and I would not urge him to do it himself. I did not use the term “Brexit dividend.” It is factually accurate that we would not have been able to have had these negotiations if we were still in the European Union. Of course I am 100% up for exploiting every opportunity we have, and that is precisely what we are doing and we have a pretty good record. Most of the FTAs agreed by the previous Government were basically cut and paste from EU FTAs into UK legislation, whereas we are making agreements that are a bit more bespoke. It is great to see the European Union following suit—for instance, in India. The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point about Mercosur. I would like us to be able to start that process fairly soon. I think that will be a matter for the new team, whoever they may be, in a week’s time. But I would just say to the hon. Gentleman that the losses we have incurred by virtue of leaving the European Union are very, very dramatic. The single most important trade deal we could do at the moment would be with the European Union, not just to sort out a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement but to provide what he used to promise day in, day out: frictionless trade with the EU, our single biggest trading partner. That is precisely what we have to secure.

I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.

I congratulate the Minister on deal No. 6. A very warm thanks, on behalf of the Committee, to the hard-working officials in the Department for Business and Trade and to James Squire and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office team on the ground in Berne. We very much look forward to scrutinising the deal on behalf of Parliament, with a debate that will no doubt be triggered in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act period. The Minister will know, though, that there has already been some controversy this morning, about which he could perhaps inform the House. This is, I think, the first free trade agreement to lock in exclusivity arrangements around intellectual property for pharmaceuticals. That is a precedent that the House should debate. Will he take this opportunity to put our minds at rest that the deal that he is commending to us today will not lead to higher NHS prices in future, and will not impair access to generic medicines?

I am very grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee; I look forward to seeing my right hon. Friend later today and then again tomorrow, in two different sessions. He is absolutely right that this is a very important deal. Of course, it is not just done by the politicians involved. The teams in our embassy in Switzerland and in our respective Departments—I include other Departments such as the Home Office, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and so on—are all part of the team that get a deal over the line. My right hon. Friend makes an important point about intellectual property. Of course, that is frequently now a key part of any FTA, because we want to look at how we can ensure we are protecting UK IP. We are an IP superpower and that is a key part of any of our services negotiations, and certainly in digital trade as well. I can confirm that the deal will do no harm to the NHS—far from it. It will mean that our life sciences industry, working closely with the Swiss life sciences industry and pharmaceuticals, will be able to deliver groundbreaking new drugs and generics more quickly to NHS patients. I am not worried in any way, shape or form about the anxieties raised by some campaigning groups. I think they have abstracted from a couple of figures and ended up with the worst possible estimation of what might happen. That fear is misguided.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

The Liberal Democrats want a closer, more sensible relationship with our European friends and neighbours, so there is plenty to welcome here. I congratulate the Minister and his team on being able to secure some of the things we see today. Scrapping mobile roaming charges—charges that had to be changed when we left the European Union—will significantly boost support for consumers and the small businesses who trade across Europe. The Minister is aware that the European Union is our biggest single trading partner in services. Some 37% of our services trade is with the EU, so repairing our relationship with the EU is the biggest single thing we can do to boost trade in our financial and professional services. I know the Minister agrees: when he was in front of the Select Committee recently, he told colleagues that if he had the choice, he would rejoin the European Union. It is disappointing that the Government have not moved more on the European Union and followed the Liberal Democrats’ plan for a defence and growth partnership, cutting the red tape and barriers that British businesses face. According to TheCityUK, exports of financial services have declined by 5.9% since 2019, at least in part due to Brexit frictions. I would like to ask the Minister a specific question in relation to e-gates. We welcome the news about the changes to e-gates but, given the serious risk of disruption with the entry and exit systems, will he tell the House when our constituents can expect the same clarity and certainty for airports across the European Union, so that we can really make a positive change?

Now, you see, the hon. Gentleman always has a smile on his face—every single day of the week. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) has managed to keep it going for at least half an hour now, so that is a good thing. The honest truth is that we all want to achieve the same thing: to increase our trade in services and goods across the European Union. It is a shocking sadness, I think, that 16,000 businesses in the UK have stopped exporting to the European Union. The figures for last year are actually slightly different from the figures that the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) gave. Our services exports to the EU rose by 7%, but our goods exports to Europe fell. He, like many other Members, will have heard concerns expressed by people who export small goods and are suddenly facing an additional charge that they did not previously have to pay, because of the de minimis rules being changed. They are also being changed by the United States of America, of course. I want to achieve trade with the EU that is as frictionless as possible, and I will strive to do so as fast as we possibly can. I do not have personal responsibility for e-gates across the whole of Europe, so I am afraid the hon. Gentleman cannot hold me to account on that particular issue. On Switzerland, it is not as simple in Switzerland as it might be in some other countries, because some of these issues lie with cantonal Governments. I have worked very closely with Frau Budliger. She has made a lot of headway in trying to get us to a place where British business folk and others will be able to use e-gates, both in and out, in the very near future. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise the issue of roaming. It is another issue where we need to finalise the details over the next few months, because it requires some changes in Switzerland in particular, but we have a very strong commitment to achieve that. I think most British people who travel to Switzerland will be very happy to see that.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, but I want to ask about pharma in the light of the US-UK pharma deal. When I met academics yesterday, they expressed a concern that if we were to change the terms of the deal with the US, because of mounting costs and the cost to lives which are foreseen under that deal, it could have an impact on the deal that he has now signed. Can he give this House an assurance that we would not have to go back and renegotiate the deal with Switzerland, if we were to renegotiate the deal with the US?

No, there are no direct connections between the two. More importantly, I have read some of the commentary about our US deal on pharmaceuticals. I am really glad that we have a zero-tariff deal on pharmaceuticals. We were seeking to do two things that had not been addressed for a considerable period of time: first, to ensure that the big pharmaceutical companies based here in the UK remain here, because they provide jobs for lots of people in the UK; and secondly, to ensure that we did not end up with tariffs on our pharmaceuticals being sold into the United States. We have achieved both aims. Some of the commentary in the press suggests that lots more people are going to die, but that is simply abstracting from a single figure and presuming what the future financing of the NHS will be. That is a false, reductio ad absurdum position to adopt. I am very confident that the deal we have struck is a good one.

As a member of the Business and Trade Committee, it is a delight to see the fruits of Brexit being brought home. Will the Minister confirm that the deal is not contingent on us taking Swiss courts as being superior to our own? We are not aligning with their rules on angular chocolate, for instance, and I know that the Swiss do not have a large fishing fleet, so there is no impact on our fishing waters. I am struggling to understand why we are bold with this deal, but so supine when it comes to the EU.

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s argument is full of holes—thank you very much, I’m here all week. I should also point out to him that Toblerone is no longer Swiss; it is owned by an American company and is therefore not covered under Swiss rules, although it has had a complicated negotiation process. We are not supine in our relationship with the EU; we are absolutely determined to get a good deal. The worst deal that could ever have been written was secured by his Government.

If the Swiss negotiator was asking, “Is There Something I Should Know?”, it is that the shadow Minister was boasting about Brexit. He mentioned the mutual recognition of qualifications, but by leaving the European Union we have lost benefits for British workers worth 20 times anything that could be compensated even by the admirable deal the Minister has negotiated with Switzerland, and the contrast with the British Ministers in this Government, who are looking to the future to the new relationships that we need to build to help British businesses. That is what today’s trade deal is about. I very much welcome the deal that the Minister has struck, because it means that we can learn from the Swiss, who have the benefit of doing business both with us and with the European Union, have access to the single market for goods and have a managed migration scheme that replaces freedom of movement. Rather than saving a prayer for the future of the Tory party, could the Minister tell us what he thinks this teaches us for our future relationship with the European Union?

I detected the Duran Duran quotes there. It is important that we are able to secure mutual recognition of professional standards; otherwise, we do not have full business mobility. That is one of the key things we are trying to sort out with the European Union at the moment. I see that the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), is also sitting on the Front Bench at the moment—that is one of the issues that we have been addressing. Whether it is accountancy, legal services, financial services or whatever else it may be, we need to be able to secure that. I would just add one thing: to quote one of the greatest philosophers of our era, “When the going gets tough, the tough reinvent”, which is precisely what we are doing. That, of course, was RuPaul.

I welcome this deal, and I agreed entirely with the Minister when he said that when it comes to trade, the primary role of Government is to pave the way for UK businesses by taking down the barriers that prevent them from exporting their goods and services around the world—if only there were not so many domestic barriers being put up that were thwarting British business. The Minister is quoted in the press as saying that the negotiations around this deal descended into “shouting…across the table”. Will he tell the House where most of the compromise fell when that shouting stopped—was it on our side of the negotiations, or the Swiss side? Will he also say more could have been in this deal after that shouting?

A gentleman does not tell. We did have forthright conversations—as, for that matter, I did on the deal with the Gulf Co-operation Council, with both my Saudi and Emirati counterparts. The last bits end up with a degree of haggling, and it has to be done Minister to Minister because we have a bit more political leeway to be able to deliver the goods. We are both very happy with the deal that we have struck. It is true, though, that we had some forthright conversations.

I congratulate the Minister on securing this deal, which is the sixth from his Department—not bad for a Government made up of public sector workers, as derided by those on the Opposition Front Bench. I was interested in what he said in his statement about this being a statement of intent for future co-operation. I hope that he stays in his position under the new Prime Minister. If he does, what sort of future co-operation would he like to see?

I note that the No. 1 song at the moment in Switzerland is “Dai Dai” by Shakira and Burna Boy, which I thought was about two Welshmen. One of the lines in the song is “Dream a little higher”, and I think that is what we need to do. There are a lot of British businesses and Swiss businesses that fit alongside each other in a perfect way, and we therefore need to address these issues face to face.

Government policy is represented by our manifesto commitments, but a boy is allowed to dream.

I join the City of London and the British Chambers of Commerce in welcoming this deal—I’m smiling too, Minister! I am sure that the large number of my residents in Chelsea and Fulham who work in financial services will be delighted, too, and that they will have a lot of questions to ask. I wonder whether I could invite the Minister to come and have a meeting with them in my constituency to sell and make quite clear to them the opportunities, both in the City and across the country, that this deal now presents.

I can wholeheartedly commit the Minister for Trade to organising precisely such a meeting in the near future. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the financial services industry, some of which is based in the City of London, will benefit from this deal, but it is actually about the whole of the United Kingdom—as I was trying to lay out, there are financial services and tech industries across the whole of the UK that will benefit from this deal, whether that is in Glasgow, across Scotland, in Leeds, Manchester or wherever it may be. That is an important part of what we are trying to achieve.

I apologise in advance to those on the Opposition Front Bench, because I, too, am going to ask a question about Brexit. A study last month showed that the Scottish economy has been hit to the tune of £30 billion every single year because of Brexit, so deals like this—as much as I congratulate the Minister on securing them—do very little to comfort Scottish businesses, especially those in the food, drink and agriculture sectors. So although I welcome some of the additional benefits that will come from this deal for Scottish agricultural industries, there is still a deep feeling among Scottish farmers that they have become collateral damage and are constantly overlooked as the UK Government scramble to secure trade deals in a post-Brexit world. What does the Minister have to say to my farming constituents who feel that they have been overlooked in new trade deals?

Well, it would have been difficult for us to secure more in this deal, because 99% of all tariffs on goods are at zero between the UK and Switzerland already, so there was not more to achieve in that. I would simply point to the fact that the India deal enters into force tomorrow, immediately cutting tariffs on Scotch whisky from 150% to 75%, and then further to 40%, which has been welcomed enormously in Scotland. I would also say that the financial services industry and a whole series of tech businesses across not just the mainland of Scotland, but the islands, will stand to benefit from this deal, because we are in the main a services country.

I thank the Minister for his statement and for his great work in securing the deal. I particularly welcome the fact that the call he received in Hyde Park while the Scissor Sisters were playing has enabled him to cut red tape in our trade relationship with Switzerland. The acid test for the six free trade agreements that have been achieved since 2024, including this deal, is whether they make my constituents in Dartford and constituents right across the country better off. I hope that the Minister is able to confirm that will be the case.

Packaged together, all these trade deals represent a significant additional set of opportunities for British businesses. I have said this before, but I think it bears repeating: only one in 10 British businesses exports. Something like twice that number of French businesses export, and it is three times that number in Germany—the numbers are not precisely correct, and it is difficult to compare, but it is not far off. That is a problem for the UK, so we need to get much better at exporting. Our Department’s job, once we have all these trade agreements signed, is to try to persuade and enable people to understand how they can do that. Now, we have some funds—the Ricardo fund, for instance, is available for people to take down trade and other barriers where they see them. We also try to make financial support available for people to take advantage of these opportunities across the whole country, including in the south-west.

I thank the Minister very much for his statement. There are strong commitments to all of the United Kingdom. In particular, I welcome the focus on—and, indeed, the bonus for—the high-tech industries in Northern Ireland, which will enable our businesses to grow even more. Does the Minister agree that this is an excellent example of the benefit of being an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? As I often say in this House, we are always better together, and here is the proof.

One of the great things about Northern Ireland, of course, is that it gets the double benefit of being both in the European single market and in the UK’s single market. That has undoubted benefits. If I could point to one tiny area where having left the European Union has caused us an enormous headache this year, it would be steel. It seems bizarre, in the end, that the UK and Europe, which are not one another’s problem for steel production—other countries in the world are, where there is over-production and unfair subsidies—should have to negotiate access between one another. It would make much more sense if we were able to achieve some kind of shared deal. As this is perhaps my last appearance as Minister for Trade—[Interruption.] Well, who knows? I just want to thank my private office. As every single Minister will know, our private office is the only way that we ever get anything done. I want to say an enormous thank you to everybody in my team, so to Alisha, Josh, Josh—there are two Joshes, senior and junior—Lola, Georgia and Tarek, I say an enormous thank you. We would not have got any of these deals over the line if it had not been for them.