EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I can only agree with my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and many others that a stream of two-minute speeches in no way comprises scrutiny of the trade and co-operation agreement. This can be described only as a democratic travesty. It must also be noted that this is not Brexit done. So much remains to be settled that this is Brexit barely started, something I fear the public will find immensely frustrating in the weeks, months and years ahead.

However, to be concrete, and to attempt to be positive, one of the great tragedies of the TCA is the loss of the Erasmus programme, and there are concerns that much remains to be settled about the Horizon programme, but, rather than look back on what we have lost, I will look forward to what happens now, particularly with the Turing programme, which at the moment is little more than a label, even though it is supposed to start in September. As valuable as the outward part of Erasmus was, setting up so many students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, for their professional and personal lives, I will focus on the exchanges of academic staff and students: the partnerships that were so much part of Erasmus+, as well as the partnerships of businesses, apprentices and communities. I hope the Minister’s response—or the Government in future action, given today’s ludicrous time constraints—might show an understanding that this is what is needed in the Turing scheme.

More than that, given that the brilliant, international Oxford Real Farming Conference is going on right now—I was at a session today about sharing best practice among practitioner experts—I hope the Government will use the Turing scheme to include muddy boots on the ground knowledge to inform the implementation of our new food strategies and environmental land management schemes to bring to the UK, and to arrange visits from the UK to, small farmers and agroecological practitioners and to draw on traditional knowledge from the academics who help record it around the globe so that we can learn from it on these disastrously unhealthily fed, nature-depleted, ecologically sick islands.