Growing up in Leeds in the 1980s and 1990s, I was struck by the lip service paid by politicians to equality while, in the real world, children from disadvantaged backgrounds were being let down.
This rings true in what we have just agreed with our European friends, which delivers everything that the British public was promised in the referendum. As an outward-looking global trading nation, we will now take back control of our laws, borders, money, and trade.
n the late Eighties, I spent a year at a school in Vancouver. It was an exciting time – many of my fellow students came from nations along the Pacific rim, and we shared the same eagerness to get on in life and embrace new ideas.
When the British people voted four years ago to leave the European Union, it was a vote of confidence in our great potential as an independent trading nation.
Today Secretary of State for International Trade and South West Norfolk MP Liz Truss signed an historic trade agreement with Japan which aims to boost trade between the UK and Japan by around £15 bn.
US tariffs on Scotch whisky are unacceptable and unfair. I cannot be clearer about that. Whisky-making is one of our great industries and a jewel in our national crown.
Britain has upped the ante with the US over the terms of a trade deal by pushing for a ban on lamb and haggis imports to be lifted and warning that threats to slap tariffs on gin could derail talks.
