The whole point about having cake is to eat it. If we do a good deal with the EU both sides can have their cake and eat it. If a deal means too little cake for one side there’s no point in the deal. No Deal will let us eat more cake than a bad deal.

As we are constantly hearing cautionary remarks from trade bodies, from the motor industry and sometimes even from companies like Airbus about their future in the UK as manufacturers, it might be a good time to examine what they are actually doing rather than listening to remarks which become highly spun and negative.

Toyota has announced a £240 million investment at Burnaston and will make its new Auris model there.
Nissan is going ahead with a 20% increase in its production capacity in Sunderland. It is also planning to raise the proportion of UK manufactured components used from 40% to 80%. This is important for rules of origin under WTO rules and is in line with government policy to encourage a higher local sourced percentage.
Aston Martin announced its new factory in St Athan’s before the referendum but has since confirmed it and announced deals with Japan and China to underpin the expansion. That second factory will make a new model.
Airbus has carried on with its investment and said it is still “very highly committed to the UK” whilst also pressing for a close future relationship with the EU
Siemens has announced a £200 million new plant for Goole in Yorkshire to make trains. In December 2016 after the vote it also committed £310 m to a wind turbine blade plant in Hull.

Yesterday industry had to reduce its demand for gas to allow priority to households. Compensation will be paid to industry as a result which we will all have to pay.
I have long argued that we need to make more energy available, and that margins are now too tight. The loss of the Rough Storage capacity for gas has taken one more reserve and flexibility out of our system, leaving us short on a cold day. The gas forecasts were based on the assumption that less gas would be used for electricity generation, with more planned reliance on imported electricity. Yesterday we certainly imported plenty of power from France, the Netherlands and Ireland, but still we ran short of gas.
I will write again to Ministers urging them to adopt a policy of self sufficiency in UK energy. We do not wish to be dependent on the goodwill of others to keep the lights on, nor should we have to tell industry to make less because we are short of fuel.

A majority of the public just want the EU to get on with it, so we can complete Brexit.

We voted to take back control of our laws, our borders and our money, so we know our destination . Increasingly the travellers in the car are asking “Are we there yet?”. Instead they are told we are still stuck in a traffic jam in London, with arguments going on over which is the best route to our destination. Meanwhile the Opposition are rushing round trying to close the roads we need to take to get to Brexit.

Most interviews on BBC Radio 4 of business people, economic experts and farmers have to have questions designed to elicit negative forecasts about the impact of Brexit, whatever the main subject of the item.
This morning on the Farming programme in the middle of an interesting piece about modern pig farming techniques we got to the regular lets condemn Brexit slot. The expert being interviewed then gave a most interesting answer, saying that if we went over to WTO terms with no general trade and partnership deal the UK pig industry would clearly benefit, expanding its domestic output and sales as tariffs came in against imported pork and bacon. The interviewer hurried on from this embarrassing forecast.
It reminded me how the BBC often seems to think a negative forecast that says Brexit will damage this or that is “news” even though many of them have already been proved wrong by events, whereas any more optimistic forecast is played down. I don’t suppose they will be leading the news today on the estimate that UK farming could benefit from a WTO tariff regime and win back lost market share from continental producers. They certainly ignored the point I made in my lecture about the obvious boost to output and incomes in the UK that we will get once we have our money back to spend here at home. I have yet to hear interviews where people are asked how they would like to spend the Brexit bonus.
I would still prefer the EU to agree a Free Trade deal to avoid tariffs, but the interview this morning was a reminder that there would be some winners from tariffs as the UK is a heavy net importer at the moment. Consumers should be recompensed by tax cuts from the tariff revenue, and UK businesses competing with EU products would be beneficiaries. More free trade is a good thing, but it needs to be reciprocal and then all are winners.