EU: Non-financial Services

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, in the interests of time, I will write, if I may, to the noble Lord with a detailed response on that point.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that the withdrawal agreement does not protect the rights of representation of UK trademark and design professionals in the European Union Intellectual Property Office, while it does protect the rights of EEA professionals to work in the UK for an extended period, when there will be a great deal of new work at the UK IPO. What plans do HMG have to make these arrangements reciprocal?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to protecting IP to a very high level and are proposing a chapter in the free trade agreement based on precedence to reflect this. Both the EU and the United Kingdom are IP-intensive economies and we need to make progress. My noble friend is right in relation to rights of representation that flow from the single market, and I assure her that these issues are currently very much in the mind of the Government.