Oral Answers to Questions

Eddie Hughes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

If the right hon. Gentleman is not willing to stand up in this House and talk about the Labour party policy on Europe, we actually learned a little today from the shadow Brexit Secretary about the Labour party’s policy on Europe, who made it clear that it was a

“pretence that somehow everybody in the Labour party is in the same place on this”.

So now we know what the right hon. Gentleman is. Labour Members voted for a referendum; they voted to trigger article 50; and since then they have tried to frustrate the Brexit process at every stage. Their MEPs voted against moving to negotiate the trade discussions. They voted against the withdrawal Bill. Today, we saw again that they are refusing to rule out a second referendum. The British people voted to leave the European Union, and this Government are delivering on the vote of the British people.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

Q2. Mr Speaker, I know you are keen to learn more about blockchain, so I have written a paper on it for the think-tank Freer, to help inform the people of Bloxwich about the possible benefits of this technology. With some countries saving up to 2% of GDP by deploying this technology, will the Prime Minister commit to harnessing it to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of it as we forge a greater, global Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he has done on distributive ledger technology, as I think we should call it. We are committed to supporting the development and uptake of emerging digital technologies in the UK such as AI and DLT. The Government have invested around £10 million through Innovate UK and our research councils. The Treasury and the Bank of England are working on crypto-currencies and looking at these issues in a working group together. We are deploying the technology that my hon. Friend has referred to in order to help Government discharge our duties more effectively, and many Departments are already developing DLT proofs of concept. I thank him for the work that he has done. He might like to distribute the article on the work that he has done to all Members of this House.