UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement
13 Jul 2026 · Commons Chamber · 32 speeches · Official record
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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... Full speech
Obviously I welcome this deal, but the Minister recently told CNBC’s Ritika Gupta that he believed that this country’s “historic destiny” was to rejoin the European Union. Last December, the Deputy Prime Minister said that we should rejoin the customs union. Do either of those things represent Government policy? Full speech
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 relationsh... Full speech
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 her... Full speech
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... Full speech
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 t... Full speech
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 a... Full speech
Government policy is represented by our manifesto commitments, but a boy is allowed to dream. Full speech
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-p... Full speech
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 renegotiat... Full speech
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... Full speech
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 u... Full speech
I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee. Full speech
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 b... Full speech
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 service... Full speech
I do not think you are meant to take part in the conversation, Madam Deputy Speaker. Full speech
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 bee... Full speech
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. Full speech
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 Minist... Full speech
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. Full speech
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... Full speech
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 dea... Full speech
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 ... Full speech
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. Full speech
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? Full speech
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... Full speech
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 ... Full speech
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 figure... Full speech
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. Full speech
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 ove... Full speech
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. Full speech
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... Full speech