Government plans to dramatically slash tariffs will have “big implications” on UK industry, but will only be brought into force if Britain was on course to crash out of the EU, Greg Clark has confirmed.
The business secretary said the new schedules, which could see import tariffs on goods slashed by up to 90%, would only be published in the unlikely event that MPs backed a no-deal Brexit.
Government has drawn up the plans amid fears inflation could explode if the UK fails to secure a deal before March 29.
Clark also acknowledged “big implications” for some sectors under the plans, including for ceramics.
“We have been consulting with different industry sectors on this. It has big implications for different sectors,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.
“Ceramics is an industry that I know very well. It has been subject to very unfair competition, to dumping of very cheap ceramic exports from the Far East, from China.”
The tariffs move, which trade secretary Liam Fox has been spearheading, would mark the largest single liberalisation of the British economy in history.
HuffPost UK was the first to reveal the plans last month.
Critics have warned unilaterally abolishing tariffs would decimate farming and industry and could undermine the UK’s ability to negotiate trade deals.
Some imports including cars, beef, lamb, dairy and some lines of textiles would remain subject to levies in order to protect sensitive industries.
It has been reported, however, that items including component parts used to make cars, many finished food products and some farm produce including cereals, could be exempt from tariffs.
Stoke MPs Gareth Snell and Ruth Smeeth blogged for HuffPost last week, saying the tariffs plan would smash the Brexit-voting city’s ceramics sector.
Anna Turley, a Labour MP on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, said the reported tariff cuts were “unbelievable”.
She tweeted: “Is the government giving up all pretence of Britain being able to make anything any more? This will open the door to floods of imports from steel to ceramics.”