“Pound rallies strongly by 7% against the dollar as investors see positives in Brexit.” (Pound up to $1.30 from low of $1.20)

“UK economy grows 2% in year to end March 2017 as Brexit gives consumers a boost”

“Jobs bonanza in post referendum UK. UK reaches record levels of employment in the summer of 2017 after the vote”

“UK companies think main problem with Brexit is they may not be able to attract enough low cost labour from the continent to fuel their continuing expansion plans in UK”

The UK art market is one of the big three in the world, coming second after New York and a little ahead of Hong Kong/Shanghai. 98% of the world’s expensive paintings are sold through one of these three markets.These 3 account for 81% of total world art market turnover between them.

Only 3% of the UK’s art exports go to the rest of the EU. Imports from there account for 16% of the total. The EU has imposed two extra costs on the London market not charged to clients of New York or China. One is a VAT on imports. The other is the living artists levy on a re sale.

In typical EU fashion they have invented rules and taxes that make an EU based market less attractive. London has lost some market share to New York and China as a result. It has not helped continental centres. The UK has 21% of the global overall market, and 62% of the European market.

Once we have left the EU the UK could cut the costs imposed. The VAT has cost us some business, but collects very little tax as a result.

It would be good to hear more from other media about the opportunities for us to do better out of the EU in sectors we are good at or have a natural advantage in. I have talked about fishing before, and agriculture is another obvious one. The Art market is an excellent example of something we are good at, something which generates well paid jobs with a high level of training and interest. Out of the EU we can help it grow faster.

The ONS today announced a fall in the UK inflation rate in June. That came as no surprise to me, as the main upwards driver of the inflation rate has been oil and commodity prices, and they have weakened a bit recently. The BBC thinks our inflation rate has risen owing to a decline in the pound – a decline which started in the summer of 2015, not with the Brexit vote.

The ONS now confirms in their analysis that the UK inflation rate has risen and now fallen a bit in line with other countries – e.g. US and Euro area – owing to movements in commodity prices. Time for the BBC to catch up with reality.

I agree with the Chancellor about one thing. It is best if private conversations around the Cabinet table remain private. Every member should be able to put their case, and all come out telling us what was agreed. If we learn about everything that is said it makes it more difficult for Cabinet to consider awkward issues or unpopular views.

There seem to be two main arguments underway which are now the stuff of media speculation. There is the argument about public sector pay and spending levels. There is another argument about the nature of Brexit.

The pay round is now well advanced. The government did set guidance of a 1% overall payrise for the public sector. Individual Pay Review bodies can propose more in the light of supply/demand circumstances, current levels of pay and standards of living, comparability with other groups and the rest. Government is likely to accept the recommendations of the Review Bodies. I have suggested government give more consideration to productivity based deals where employees receive something for something, more money for working smarter. Government has plenty of scope to help employees work smarter with more technology back up and better training.

The issue of Brexit is meant to have been settled. The government reached a common position for the Article 50 letter and the White Paper. Apparently there are arguments about a transitional deal. We are still 20 months away from leaving, plenty of time to do a proper deal about our future relationship. Surely you would only consider an implementation phase near the end if there really are problems that will take a bit longer to work out. It will be no easier negotiating a transitional agreement than an agreement, so lets get on with the real thing.

There need be no cliff edge without an agreement. We know how WTO operates and what it looks like. There is plenty of time to put in place the landing rights, customs checks and the rest for continued EU trade. We should be doing that just in case there is no deal.

What a nonsense this row is about so called Henry VIII clauses.

All our current EU laws either were imposed direct with no reference at all to Parliament, or had to be voted through Parliament as Statutory Instruments in order to comply with decisions already made by Brussels. Thousands of EU laws became our laws with no opportunity for Parliament to debate and vote on them as draft Acts of Parliament. Parliament was warned it could not vote down SIs that were needed to implement Directives, and an alliance of the two main front benches ensured they always passed.

Now Parliament is debating at great length transferring all these laws into UK laws by a full Act of Parliament. Thereafter if we wish to change any of them we will be able to so, but again it will take a full Act of Parliament to do so. That is the restoration of the democratic control we voted for.

Because the draft Act says Ministers for a 2 year period may make technical adjustments so these laws still work in the way intended once they are Uk law by passing a Statutory Instrument Labour is wrongly saying this is not democratic.

The power will only be used for technical changes like striking out reference to other member states in what becomes a UK law, or substituting a UK’s court or other body to adjudicate or act where an EU institution does at the moment. Parliament will still be involved as any Statutory Instrument can be debated and voted on if the Opposition wishes.

It is embarrassing to hear and see so much airtime given over to this non story. Why did we never hear about the complete absence of democracy for all those laws the EU imposed on us? Why was it right to allow SIs for major changes to our law when it came from the EU, yet it is not even allowed to use SIs for technical changes to keep the purpose and effectiveness of the inherited EU law?

There are endless discussions in some of the media and in Parliament about what concessions the UK should offer. Why don’t they understand the negotiations may go on for 19 more months? The EU has not yet made a sensible offer or explained how it wishes to maintain full tariff free access to our market with no new barriers. Why do they keep on recycling the same old stale stories, and the same old failed lines from the Remain campaign?

Some people are in danger once again of mistaking media noise for change of policy. The government’s policy of Brexit was clearly laid out in the Article 50 letter, the supporting Act of Parliament, Lancaster House speech and White Paper. it is not changing. It is now embodied in the EU Withdrawal Bill.

If the media had any interest in news rather than olds they would go off and interview the other member states about their negotiating aims and their attitudes towards the EU approach so far. They would go and ask German car companies, French dairy farmers, Dutch market gardeners, Danish pig farmers and the rest what they want the EU to achieve on the trade front.

There is no need to offer the EU any money over and above our legal obligations. If you have to pay to trade the cheapest way is to adopt WTO tariffs, and then negotiate away the tariffs with countries outside the EU to get us even better access to their markets and to cut import prices. If you had to pay a fixed up front sum to trade related to the volume of your trade they would be paying us more than we pay them, which is extremely unlikely. We are offering them free access to our market.

The UK voters were very clear when they voted to take back control. Taking control of our money was the central feature of the Vote Leave campaign. There are plenty of good uses for that £12bn net saving. it would be a good idea if the media had a few interviews with interested parties on how we should spend that money, or whether we should give some back to taxpayers.

There is no sign of the government weakening its line on the money, as the Foreign Secretary has recently made clear in his vivid if unorthodox language.

Some newspapers and BBC commentators, led by the Evening Standard seem to think everything revolves around Brexit if it is negative. They either avoid the positive or dismiss it as happening despite Brexit.

It has become a lazy habit of mind. Since Brexit, if the pound goes down, it is because of Brexit. When the pound goes up they tend to ignore it. After Brexit they delighted in the short sharp markdown of the Stock Market. When the strong upwards move commenced in the FTSE100 they said they had not meant the FTSE 100, the larger stocks, but had meant the FTSE250 which more accurately captures the domestic economy. When that too surged they switched to another topic.

They quietly dropped their recession forecasts for last winter, and tiptoe round the excellent jobs figures which have continued to show good new job generation throughout the post Brexit vote year. Instead they shifted their forecasts from recession to slowdown, and shifted the date from soon to later.

Using their methods I should be arguing that since the Brexit vote the Stock market is up sharply, showing improved confidence in our future prospects. I should point out that business has given a resounding vote of confidence in post Brexit UK in the most positive way possible, by hiring many more staff. I would point to the continuing very high levels of inward investment, to the growth in new housing being built and sold , and to high levels of consumption as all marvels of the vote. There we have it – the Brexit vote has brought us more jobs, more homes, more inward investment, more business confidence. The main complaint I now have from anti Brexit business is a worry they will not be able to recruit all the labour they need in future. In other words they plan to stay here and invest and grow here.

I do not do so because I think the impact of Brexit is exaggerated. Just as joining the EEC and then the single market did nothing to raise our growth rate – indeed it went down – so leaving the EU will have little economic impact. What it will do is important politically, giving us the power back to shape our own destiny and have a better economic future if we wish to make the changes necessary to bring that about.

The government is pressing on with Brexit preparation. Labour now say they wish to amend the Bill and maybe even vote against it. That’s strange as they put an identical Bill into their Manifesto. Their overriding request that all EU employment rules become good UK law will be met by the Bill as drafted. The government can win the votes without them if needed. Their own Leave voters will be right to ask why they are doing this after their promises, and after their vote to send the Article 50 letter.

There are still too many UK interests wanting to give ground on paying money to the EU. The legal position is clear. We only owe our regular contributions up to the date of departure. We do not have to pay extra to trade. If they insist the only way they can make us do that is by imposing WTO tariffs. That would be a far cheaper route for us than them, and far cheaper than any of these so called bills they have been talking about.

Under WTO tariffs the UK government would gain around £12bn of tariff revenue at the expense of UK consumers, which it could give back as tax cuts.

Today I have been granted a debate on how more people can become homeowners.

A large number of people who rent their homes would like to be owners. Over a lifetime it is much cheaper to buy and hold a home of your own than to rent one. A person can be free of the mortgage to buy after say 25 years, leaving them without mortgage payment or rent for the rest of their lives. There are maintenance costs still to pay, but no rent rises and service charges.

A home owner has other advantages. Homes often go up in value, giving the owner an appreciating asset. This can help raise finance for other purposes, leaves something to pass on to another generation on death, or helps pay the care home bills in a home of their choice if the individual has to go into a care home at the end of their lives. There is more flexibility in switching between homes if you need to move areas or alter the amount of accommodation you have, than if you rent from a social landlord.

The issue today I want to encourage is how can we help more people into home ownership? I will of course state again that better controls on the numbers of people coming in to the UK will ease the demand pressure on our housing market. I will consider ways of more homes being built.

It still leaves open the question how can we assist all those first time buyers who do not have access to the bank of Mum and Dad?