I thank the Minister for that reply, and I'm sure she'll agree with me that it is important that we conclude a successor agreement to the EU agreement as soon as possible when we leave. She said earlier in response to Darren Millar that it's easier to create a trade deal when you've got 450 million people than it is with 50 million. I'm not sure there's any historical evidence to justify that assertion, but what is incontestably true is that it's easier to conclude a deal if you're negotiating on behalf of one country than 28 countries, as the progress of the EU-Canada trade agreement certainly demonstrated.

Will she agree with me that trade with Japan is very important, particularly for the automotive industry, because there was a 25 per cent increase in the demand for British-made cars in Japan last year? As the British economy is doing pretty well internationally, there is every reason to expect that we will be able to increase our trade with Japan significantly. The latest GDP figures for the UK show 0.5 per cent growth, business investment up 0.5 per cent and manufacturing growth up 2.2 per cent, compared with 0.4 per cent in the EU, and the German Government has recently slashed its growth forecast for this year from 2.1 per cent to 0.5 per cent, so outside the EU, and trading with the 85 per cent of the global economy that is not in the EU, offers us the best chance for Britain to succeed in the future.