Rachel Reeves

We also have agreements in principle from last May around the UK doing a food and farming deal to reduce barriers to trade at the border, around electricity trading and energy trading, as well as some form of youth mobility within the European Union and the United Kingdom.

So we're making progress in all of that.

looking to have another summit this year where we can mark ourselves on progress against those ambitions and set new ambitions because that summit last year was just the start of improving relations between the UK and the EU.

And I would just say that

You know, at these sort of times when others are putting up barriers to trade, what Britain is arguing for, and what I believe in strongly, is that those of us who believe in free and fair trade should practice what we preach and reduce barriers between ourselves.

That goes to the UK, the EU, Canada, and other allies around the world.

And we are determined...

to lead from the front in that.

We've already secured trade deals with countries around the world.

We want to do more in the months to come.

We can't go back in time.

And since we left the EU, we have done trade deals with India, with the US, with Korea.

And obviously, you would lose some of the benefits of those trade deals if you were to re-enter a customs union.

Things like the benefits of the deal we did with the US for our automotive sector.

The deal that we have with India is better than the deal that any other country has with

India.

So I think you have to consider all of these things in the round.

I don't think we need to return to the customs union to seize greater benefits of free and fair trade.

And we are working piece by piece, but with a strategic goal in mind, which is to make it easier for British businesses to sell into European markets and for European businesses to sell into British markets.

And when the barriers to trade in other markets are going up,