Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski welcomes Cabinet job for Liam Fox

Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, said one of the "greatest opportunities" for the country following its EU referendum would be tailoring export policies to benefit Britain, rather than 28 EU member states.

However, he also called for closer working relationships with Russia.

He said: "I am pleased that Liam Fox, a very experienced parliamentarian, has been appointed by the Prime Minister to head this new major government department which will be purely focussed on working on these exciting new trade agreements.

"I agree with a great deal of Fox's political ideology and priorities, apart from one major issue which we have debated over national radio and at party conference on numerous occasions. That issue is our British relationship with Russia."

Mr Kawczynski said the relations have been put into "deep freeze" because of concerns and issues not meeting international standards and expectations.

He said: "One thing however is clear – there are growing voices from major British institutions, representing large numbers of British businesses and British commercial interests, that are calling for an effective engagement between British and Russian politicians to try to rectify this impasse and to get back to a normalisation of our relationship.

"The amount of trade and bilateral investment between our two countries has staggering potential and could result in billions of pounds of additional revenue, representing hundreds of thousands of new jobs and a better standard of living for the peoples of both countries.

"I look forward to contributing extensively to our report in the coming weeks. I will continue to champion the need to engage with Russia, despite it not being a fashionable thing to do, because I believe sincerely it is in my country's national interests to try to resolve these outstanding issues."