I thank my hon. Friend, who is a former Minister in the Department, for all his work and for his continued passion and commitment in driving
forward the UK’s opportunities to find these fantastic trade deals. He is now doing great work with Thailand, and it is interesting that we already have nearly £5 billion-worth of bilateral trade with Thailand. So many countries are knocking at the door saying, “We want to do more. We want to have better deals with you.” That is a really exciting and strong message. Now that we are on the global platform, those countries want to do that trade, because they know that we have the best businesses in the world and they want to have a close relationship with us. I think it is very exciting.
In answer to my hon. Friend’s question on parliamentary scrutiny, he is not wrong. It is a relatively complex journey that we are about to take with our first deal. We anticipate that there will be a period probably of several months before we lay everything before Parliament. We have asked the Trade and Agriculture Commission to crack on with its review, and once it reports back to me, I can submit the section 42 measure required by the legislation, and I hope that his Committee and the Committee in the other place will submit their own perspectives once they have had a chance to look through—I apologise for this, but in a way I do not—what is a very large tome of nearly 2,000 pages.