Chamber and committees

Good morning, panel. You have already touched on some of the report. We have talked about alignment and conformity, and we have also touched on rules of origin and how things can be progressed. We know the challenges that we face: the differences, the standards that we have and the key standards that need to be agreed. Are there any opportunities for the UK and the EU to negotiate changes to the TCA? How effective might any such negotiations be?

Mr Hamilton, would you like to pick up on that?

Good morning. You have touched on the sizes of the businesses that seem to manage to co-ordinate and cope. You have indicated, as others have done in the past, that larger businesses manage to cope much better in these scenarios, because they have the means to do so. Smaller businesses have had much bigger challenges, and some have chosen not to continue with the process as a result.

We have talked about some of the existing common frameworks, and you have touched on the data that you have collected and collated. It would be useful to get a flavour of how you see the situation progressing for businesses as a whole. Your scenarios and case studies provide us with examples of what has happened and what might happen in the future, depending on how things go. The data that you collect will give us a much better understanding of how things are progressing and a road map to ensure that we manage to collate information in the future. It would be useful to hear from you on where you see things going.

Is there more need for public participation in some of that? Government and industry have a role, but could we talk about creating a bigger role for a group or a focus to which we could bring people from different parts of society? It has a bigger impact on them as a nation; they do not seem to be part of the solution, but they can be looked on as a problem. Giving more potential for such public participation—creating some kind of opportunity—might be a way forward to dealing with some of that balance.

Thank you. Time is tight, so I am happy to leave it there.

You have identified possibilities that could be problematic for some sectors. You also said that if the data is not complete, so that we do not have a complete picture, that might give a skewed view as to how things will go in future.

It has been interesting to see that businesses have been resilient. In some of the areas that you have explored they have adapted so that they can progress towards what they see the future holding. However, there is no doubt that we are not sure what the end of the journey will be, depending on where we take this. If we do not have all the data packages for the future, then it becomes even harder to analyse how successful some sectors have been or how difficult they have found it to cope, depending on the information that you have to hand.

Oxfam has strong, well-documented views on some of those areas. What should we be looking at to find that balance and make that progress?

There is no doubt that the outcomes are linked, and there is a strong commitment to having that. We understand the complexities of the wellbeing economy and fair work. We need to balance good international trade and the relationships that we want to have, while, at the same time, supporting existing industry and sectors that we have and ensuring that we avoid potential harm to them.

You touched on the climate action outcome, which is vital, because we want to have a good global impact and to be seen as a global leader. Although we want to maximise what we are trying to achieve, actions to reduce climate can have harmful aspects in the world. We touched on the fact that many targets have been met but many have not been met. Many of those targets have been removed, changed, cancelled or dropped.

When we are thinking about being balanced and positive and making real progress, how can we as a nation produce the image that we want? At times, that image has been tarnished because of our deeds and our actions to date. It is about trying to balance that by ensuring that we can be taken seriously. We have not always managed to receive and attain what we should, but it is about making sure that we have that positivity, that balance and that practice. It would be good to get a view from you on that. I will start with you, Ms Davies.

We also discussed the media coverage and the perceptions and the realities out there in the marketplace. Is it a problem if the media choose to put something out there that might give an impression—either good or bad—about the situation?

Ms Foster, you represent the Federation of Small Businesses, and we believe that small businesses have had the biggest hit, as you said. It would be good to get a flavour of what you think is the way forward.