Alok Sharma highlights the importance of making EU-US transatlantic trade and investment partnership succeed and raises his concerns at slippage in the timetable of the negotiations.

Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con): Like everyone in the House, I want this partnership to succeed and for us to get to an end point. On the stock-take, the EU Commissioner noted that the areas of difference between the parties are still larger than the common ground they share. Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that there may be slippage in the timetable?

John Healey: There may indeed; the hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. He has been part of the cross-party efforts in this House in taking the debate about the potential for this deal out more widely into the country, and he spoke at a business debate in Reading in his constituency.

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