EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Wharton of Yarm, to the House. I commend him on an excellent maiden speech, and I hope he will enjoy a long and fruitful membership of this House.

The Minister referred to the Second Reading debate. Speaking last Wednesday, he graciously acknowledged that in taking a very brief break to bolt down his fish and chips he missed my question, so I will put it again, along with another one.

Brexit and the debates that led to it have seen the release of powerful nationalist forces that will not be put to bed by Brexit. The Prime Minister’s ambition to take back control is now being turned against him within the United Kingdom, for the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish do not want to take back control from Brussels only to hand it to London. That is why the Minister had to acknowledge in that debate that the Government are unable to get legislative consent Motions passed in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. The appearance of a de facto border down the Irish Sea is a practical example of the fissures opened up by the powerful centrifugal dynamic that Brexit has released. Can the Minister tell us what the Government will do to hold the UK together?

In asking my second question, I draw the House’s attention to my interests at the University of Oxford as declared in the register. Post Brexit, as the TCA makes clear, we are outside the previous ready access to the larger territory and population of the EU, but we are fortunate that cyberspace gives us a new environment in which to operate, less hindered by our reduced territorial footprint. The pandemic has also demonstrated how the creativity of our people and businesses can benefit not only our own country but the whole world through the production of an excellent vaccine and effective treatments.

How will the Government enable our people and businesses throughout the country to exploit the possibilities of the digital world when, as Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee of the other place, has reported on its behalf, they are failing to deliver on their promises of digital connectivity? When Brexit and Covid make high-speed broadband essential, how will the Government address these shortcomings so that they do not compound and exacerbate the inequalities and isolation of our population and businesses post Brexit?