EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Winston Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Broers. I will tell noble Lords a story. In the 1960s, a young man called Ivo Brosens came from Belgium to Hammersmith Hospital to study the placenta, the life support system of the unborn baby—research done by my old boss, Professor McClure Browne. After his PhD, he returned to Leuven university, where eventually as a professor he established the centre for reproductive science in the Low Countries, which led in Europe. Collaboration with Hammersmith continued, influencing antenatal care and saving many babies’ lives worldwide.

In the early 1970s, I went to Leuven, now the Mecca for experimental reproduction, on a grant from the Belgian Government. Our research improved women’s health, discovered the cause of endometriosis and the reason why people get ectopic pregnancies, which kill more pregnant people in the developing world than any other cause of death in pregnancy. On my return to Hammersmith, reproductive medicine and IVF flourished. Subsequently, Jan Brosens—Ivo’s son—came to Hammersmith to do his PhD. He and his family stayed in the UK; he is now a professor at Warwick University and leads the world in the study of miscarriage, a very important female condition.

The new deal arrangements are not remotely comparable. Collaboration is not one-way and is often unsuccessful without face-to-face contact with colleagues. This is true in science and the humanities, and it is of supreme importance in the arts, particularly music. Music is not just about talent, hard work, dexterity or cognitive ability. Although these are important, collaboration is critical. Reducing music in schools is so unfortunate because music teaches collaboration. If we do not promote music education, we start to undervalue it. Hence losing Erasmus is serious, and the unformed plans for Turing cause great concern. The Minister dismissed the idea the other day, saying that young musicians could apply like any other student, lacking the understanding that serious music is fragile and how important music education is in the United Kingdom.

I too have worked in the United States. Like it or not, we are still culturally and scientifically closer to Europe than to any other national bloc. Erasmus nurtured this and we must replace it with bilateral and reciprocal collaboration. Currently it seems very unlikely that Turing will do this.