A senior Conservative MP has called for Boris Johnson’s government to take the UK back into the EU single market to help ease the cost of living crisis.

Tobias Ellwood, the defence select committee chair, said Brexit had left British business “strangled” by red tape, insisting that it was time to “think outside the box”.

The leading Tory MP urged the government to look again at forging a Norway-style relationship with the EU, allowing access to the single market through the European Economic Area (EEA).