The NCF is considering the effect changes in trade agreements from the UK within the EU to the UK by itself could impact consumers.
- Within the EU all the disparate safety laws and standards have been brought into a single system of laws and standards – One rule and one test applicable right across the EU meaning that consumers have consistently high levels of safety wherever you shop in the EU. This also saves businesses and hence consumers the costs of lots of different safety standards to be met and means that businesses can compete more fairly.
- The EU also provides a high level of consumer protection (complaints, dispute resolution, returned items etc.) by taking the best attributes of the many different national laws and standards and bringing them into a single legislative framework that consumers can depend on wherever they are in Europe.
The EU as the world’s largest economic block currently ensures that trade deals with others meet these standards and regulation.
When we go it alone in negotiations we won’t have that size on our side as we are the 9th largest economy in the world and the key deals will be with those larger than ourselves. The USA is over 6 times larger than the UK and China is 4 times larger than the UK.
So in any new trade deals do we risk accepting standards that are worse than our own for our kids, our pensioners and ourselves?