Theresa May urged to put agriculture at the heart of her Brexit deal as we buy so much food from the EU
Ex-top civil servant Sir Richard Packer says Britain’s £16.7 billion food and drink trade deficit is “a strong hand” for the Premier to “to deploy”
THERESA May must put agriculture at the heart of her Brexit deal as we buy so much food from the EU, according to a former Whitehall mandarin.
Ex-top civil servant Sir Richard Packer says Britain’s £16.7 billion food and drink trade deficit is “a strong hand” for the Premier to “to deploy” as the EU will want to carry on selling to Britain.
The call came as the more economic good news strengthened Britain’s position ahead of the crunch divorce showdown with the EU.
New figures released yesterday showed the UK’s powerhouse services sector going gangbusters.
In a report today for the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, Sir Richard, a former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, says our EU exit is the time to expand our farming sector from it’s current 0.7 per cent of economic output.
Free from Brussels red tape and complex rules, he says Brexit is a golden “opportunity to develop a completely different agricultural policy”.
Sir Richard also sets out plans for a new “efficient agricultural sector which contributes to national prosperity”.
And his report finds that while tariffs on imports from the EU on agriculture and food “would be inconvenient for UK interests but significantly more inconvenient for the EU.”
Meanwhile Britain’s services sector activity jumped to a 17-month high in December as the British economy surged despite Project Fear scaremongering before the referendum.
The closely watched Markit/CIPS services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) reached 56.2 in December, up from 55.2 in November and above economists’ forecasts of 54.7.
A reading above 50 indicates growth.
The PMI report said the sharp expansion in December rounded off the strongest quarter of the year, driven by new business despite Brexit.
Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, said: “A buoyant service sector adds to signs that the UK economy continues to defy widely-held expectations of a Brexit-driven slowdown.”
