Closing summary
The longer the US-Israel war with Iran continues, the more likely it is there will be economic damage in the UK, Keir Starmer warned as governments around the world braced for major disruption to energy supplies as a result of the escalating US-Israeli war with Iran.
The prime minister insisted the economy was resilient and said the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been speaking to the governor of the Bank of England “on a daily basis”.
He is facing scrutiny over whether the government is doing enough to prepare support packages that would help businesses and consumers in the event of sustained fuel price rises and inflationary pressures that would squeeze household budgets even further.
Starmer stressed that decisions about what is in Britain’s “best interests” are decisions for the UK prime minister alone.
Downing Street played down suggestions that a British aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, is being readied to protect Britons in the Middle East.
Finance ministers from the G7 – including the UK and US – held their conference call today to discuss the crisis, after the price of oil surged.
UK motorists were being affected by the surge in oil prices, and being encouraged to cut out non-essential car journeys to save fuel.
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Updated
While anxiety intensifies over global economies, the UK is pressing ahead with measures to improve post-Brexit trade with the EU.
The UK government on Tuesday announced it will comply with EU production and marketing laws in key areas including jams, cereals, frozen food and cut flowers, to simplify post Brexit exports to the rest of Europe and try to help grow the economy.
The announcement is seen as a necessary pre-cursor to a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement ahead of the second annual UK-EU summit in July.
On Tuesday the government formally announced which EU rules it would comply with. They include rules on frozen food, food enzymes and food additives. EU rules on marketing of jams, jellies, marmalade as well as fruit juices and honey will also now apply.
“Since leaving the EU, there has been some divergence from EU legislation. However, in many cases that divergence has been minor or minimal,” said Defra, listing the areas where the UK would now follow EU law.
More than 16,000 businesses stopped exporting to the EU according to a House of Commons select committee and many of those were food producers.
Even those producing food as they did before Brexit, they were hit by a mountain of paperwork and standards and public health compliancy verification after Brexit.
