Brexit: Fashion Industry

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on the fashion and other design-based industries of the potential loss of European unregistered design rights for United Kingdom-generated designs following Brexit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, as expressed in the United Kingdom technical note on other separation issues, where the UK does not have existing domestic legislation to protect certain types of rights, it will establish new schemes. This will preserve the full scope of the unregistered Community design right in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the hard exit from the EU means the loss of EU unregistered Community design rights and of vital protection for designers who first disclosed their design in the UK. This is just the way to lose London Fashion Week. We have discussed the problems with loss of country of origin rights for our broadcasters. Is this not yet another example of why the creative industries want us to remain in the single market?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not going to get into the wider debate about the EU at this stage, but what I can say, to expand on my Answer, is that we will bring forward various statutory instruments in this country to further our rights here. The negotiations will take place with the EU as part of the leaving process, which we hope will deal with these matters, but there are also, as the noble Lord is fully aware, what I think I can call inclarities in the current EU regulations, which obviously need to be sorted out by the EU itself.