Liam Fox: Post-Brexit trade deals 'some time away' The International Trade Secretary also rejects impact assessments on leaving the EU.

Image: Liam Fox says post-Brexit trade deals are some time away

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has told Sky News that new post-Brexit free trade agreements may be "some time away" if Britain proceeds with an implementation phase before leaving the EU.

Dr Fox, speaking in Beijing as part of the PM's trade mission to China, said there was the prospect of a "double plus" for Britain from improving export performance and eventually doing new trade deals, but rejected leaked Brexit impact assessments that calculated only a fractional economic benefit from such deals.

Dr Fox was asked when such free trade arrangements would deliver cheaper Chinese imports of clothing, footwear and food as suggested for next year by Tory backbenchers to show an immediate Brexit dividend for consumers.

Liam Fox: Post-Brexit trade deals 'some time away'

He said: "We haven't got to Brexit yet of course and that may be some time away if we've got an implementation period, but what we're doing is to ensure that when we have economic freedoms we can take advantage of them.

"We've set up a trade and investment review with China to take a look at the options we have in terms of our trading relationship and agreements once we have left the EU. But in this short term that doesn't mean we can't increase our trade."


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The Trade Secretary also did not definitively assert that there would be an implementation phase - a key part of the PM's reassurance of the business community in recent weeks.

"As everybody knows, we can't negotiate never mind sign any agreements while we're still in the EU and that's likely to be extended if we were to have an implementation period, which business seems to want us to give them in terms of stability," he said.

Image: The Prime Minister is on a trade mission to China

Dr Fox appeared to downplay prospects for a free trade agreement with China, the world's second-biggest economy, saying that a "gold standard free trade agreement" was one option, but also stressing options short of that such as "a series of measures for market access, mutual recognition or equivalence - the whole range of tools in the box".

In Westminster it has long been thought that Dr Fox's department could not exist properly if the UK remained in a customs union with the EU.

But this is an option for the end state being debated within Cabinet, and being pushed by some business groups and opposition parties for economic reasons and as a way to help solve the Irish border conundrum.

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Dr Fox was asked directly if he could live with staying in "a customs union" and if all the deals signed in China were also possible in such an arrangement.

He said: "Self evidently we can do it in a customs union because we can do it now while we are still in the EU.

"As I've always said we have to increase Britain's trade, increase the proportion of our national income to create national dividends to fund public services."

However, Dr Fox did dispute the leaked Brexit impact assessment which calculated free trade deals likely to be signed by a post-Brexit Britain were likely to increase the size of the economy by small fractions of a percent, versus a large hit to trade with the European Union from a marked divergence.

"In any assessment you can only get out of it the assumptions that you put in.. and I'm putting in that we are able to improve our export performance... there's an enormous capacity - if we can improve trade performance and improve our market access with new agreements - that is a double plus for Britain," he said.

It comes as Theresa May tried to assuage the fears of her Brexiteer MPs, vowing to fight some of the compromises insisted upon by EU negotiator Michel Barnier.

Also speaking on the trade trip to China, the Prime Minister said freedom of movement remaining in place after the official Brexit date was a matter "for negotiation".