As Parliament stands ready to begin a week-long debate over the Government's Brexit deal MPs are being urged to get behind the Prime Minister for the good of business.

Anthony Poeton, the chairman of Gloucester-based firm Poeton, has written to 40 Members of Parliament calling on them to think about the consequences of their soundbites now and of a no-deal.

With the latter a very real possibility the boss of the city surface coatings specialists, which also has a base in Cardiff and Poland, is concerned some in Government are still using the crisis as an opportunity to showboat.

All of which is doing nothing for the nerves of investors, companies in his supply chain or those in two powerful sector groups he is a member of which covers off aerospace and his own firm's specialism.

"I have written to a number of people and spoken to a number of companies and lot of them are pretty perturbed about some of the comments some of our elected members of Parliament are making. There is a lot of grandstanding going on," said Mr Poeton.

"I think the Prime Minister's transition agreement and letter goes a long way to clarify she has got us into a pretty good position. The UK will take control of its borders, there will be skill-based immigration, we will stop payments to the EU, take control our laws. What is there not to like?

"If they do not back this the country could end up in a really difficult situation."

He added: "There is still a lot more detail to be worked out afterwards, and that was always going to be the case.

"I have written to 40 MPs and I did not write those letters before I spoke to other people about it. We are in two major trade associations - for aerospace and defence, which includes the likes of Airbus and Rolls Royce, and also in metal coatings. I would just call for our elected members to focus on the decision they need to make on December 11."