No-deal Brexit could send food prices soaring
uty managing director Tony Walker warned that without a deal to protect cross-continent supply chains, its UK operations would face major challenges.
“Without the Withdrawal Agreement, withdrawing with no deal, we would have stop-start production for weeks, possibly months,” he said. “It would be very, very difficult for us to cope with.”
Mrs May faces a battle to get her Brexit deal through Parliament and will begin the fight with a speech in the Commons at the start of five days of debate on the package.
Over the coming days she will deploy senior cabinet ministers to make the case, with Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Sajid Javid expected to appear at the despatch box.
Mrs May will tell MPs: “The British people want us to get on with a deal that honours the referendum and allows us to come together again as a country, whichever way we voted.
“This is the deal that delivers for the British people.” SHOPPING bills could surge by up to 10% if the UK crashed out of the EU, Bank of England boss Mark Carney has warned.
Mr Carney told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that increased tariff prices, import costs and a sharp fall in the value of the pound would send food prices soaring “quite quickly”, while cars would also cost more after Brexit.
In the most extreme no-deal scenario, he said shopping bills could rise by up to 10%, but even in an orderly no-deal withdrawal, with a transition period, he said grocery prices could rise by 6%.
The warning came as he defended the Bank’s apocalyptic Brexit forecasts last week, saying some of the criticisms were “unfair”.
Mr Carney said there was “no exam crisis” with teams of experts at the Bank behind the Brexit impact analysis, which he stressed was only published at the committee’s request.
Mr Carney’s comments follow the Bank’s stark warning last week on the havoc a no-deal Brexit could wreak, with the worst-case scenario sending Britain into a recession worse than the financial crisis.
On food prices, Mr Carney told MPs: “In the most extreme scenario, on average your shopping bill goes up by 10% because we have a 25% depreciation.
“If you go to a more orderly scenario transition, it’s something in the range of 6%.”