UK-EU Summit
Lizzi Collinge Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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The Prime Minister
They all know this. Every trade deal has an arbitration clause to deal with the settlement of disputes. All trade deals have that, including all the trade deals that the Conservatives negotiated.
On the question of the ECJ, if an issue of European law needs to be referred by the independent arbitrators to the court, it will give a ruling on the interpretation. It will then pass back to the arbitrators to make the final decision. That is how trade deals work, but I understand the Conservatives’ new policy. Their new policy is against any trade deals. That has never been the Conservative party’s policy before, but it is good that we have clarity now.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
This deal is very welcome, particularly for my farmers in Morecambe and Lunesdale. When I was a young person, I benefited from a year in New Zealand and a year in Spain. Can the Prime Minister assure me that he will do everything he can to ensure that other young Brits get the same opportunities that I did?
The Prime Minister
I want young people in this country to have the opportunity under the scheme to work, to travel, and to involve themselves in volunteering and other activities in Europe.
Covid-19 Inquiry
Lizzi Collinge Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Pat McFadden
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. My experience in Wolverhampton, which I represent, was that the local authority did a great job of looking out for vulnerable people. An inquiry, perhaps by definition, places the emphasis on things that went wrong, but there was a great deal of experience during the pandemic that showed the best of society, with people looking out for one another and helping those who were vulnerable. We should draw on the things that went well, as well as those that went wrong.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
In my previous role in health scrutiny in Lancashire, I got a bit fed up of hearing from Conservative politicians that no one could have seen covid coming, as if a global viral pandemic had not been top of the NHS risk register for years, and as if epidemiologists had not warned authorities that it was a matter of when, not if. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it was a disgraceful abdication of responsibility for the former Government to plead ignorance to the well-known risk of a global viral pandemic?
Pat McFadden
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. There is always a risk of planning for the wrong thing, which is a risk I am very aware of as we try to do this forward-looking exercise. I was encouraged by what I saw yesterday in Liverpool at the Pandemic Institute, where the scientific expertise that we have in this country is trying to take the learning from that in the past and ensure that we do not assume that the next situation will be the same as the one we went through several years ago. It might be something similar, but it might also be something very different, which is transmitted differently and creates a whole different series of questions and requirements for the Government of the day.