Daniel Zeichner
MP for Cambridge · Labour · United Kingdom
“I recall, as a shadow Minister, visiting a major institution in the country and sending the management into panic when I asked them where the bus stop was to get back to the station.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the location of bus stops. I am so frustrated when I have taken the train to Cambridge, arrive at the station, see the bus, but have to walk 200 yards around the platform, come out of the station and walk 200 yards back to the bus stop, to find the bus has gone.”
“Devolution and local government reorganisation are different things. To be honest, they should probably be considered separately, but they have become so interlinked and intertwined in this debate that it is impossible to do so. If we are to have a stronger devolution settlement, it is right to spend more time getting it right.”
“I commend the Secretary of State and his team for their determination and resolve in the transfer to renewables. In the extraordinary and unprecedented weather that we are having at the moment I can assure the House that some shade would be really welcome in parts of the east of England.”
“I commend all the hard work that has gone into both the road map and the profitability review by the civil servants, the ministerial team and so many people across the sector, including Baroness Batters.”
“On that point about speculative building, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is probably not a fan of big, bold projects of this kind, but does he agree that there is a very good example just down the road in Cambridge?”
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“But there is a joke in here somewhere, because if we get to paragraph 9.1 of the explanatory memorandum—I do have sympathy for the civil servants—it tells us that DEFRA “does not intend to consolidate the relevant legislation at this time.” Well, good luck to whoever has to consolidate the relevant legislation; I think that that would be quite a task. Let us now go back to March of last year—paragraph 7.6 in the explanatory notes refers to this. I think that we do need to look at some of the details, and of course if we turn to the instrument itself, we see that it has 48 pages of detailed amendments. Many of them are indeed just minor changes—for example, to ensure that the “relevant authority” is no longer the Commission and so on—but not all of them are.”
“The then Minister explained in particular the impact on the pillar 1 and pillar 2 CAP payments, which are hugely significant to many people. We then moved on. In fact, this was when the current Minister and I started to discuss these things. Back in January this year, we had the Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Act 2020 and a whole range of SIs that followed on from that. Therefore, we are now, in effect, on our third wave of SIs, and some of them of course refer back to the previous one and the previous one. I hope that everyone is still with us, because this is not particularly simple or straightforward. Of course, it is tempting to make the obvious point that it is not quite as simple as some people suggested this time last year—but perhaps that is unfair.”
“Could the Minister clarify when we will get advice on some of those big things, such as the sustainable farming initiative or bridging payments through to next year? Paragraph 2.3 of the explanatory memorandum refers to some 16 previous statutory instruments, some of which were discussed at length in Committee sittings like this one. It is quite intriguing to go back in time and re-read the previous debates. It is a bit like a detective novel, really—I find myself wondering who the villain was, whether there was a villain, who did it and whether it was ever resolved. The first five SIs were discussed on 25 March 2019, when we were just a few days away from a potential no-deal crash-out from the European Union. Those measures were being put in place quickly at that time to try to deal with such an eventuality.”
“I have mentioned this in passing to the Minister before, but back in the summer, when there were competition issues affecting the food chain, there were SIs that were never discussed in this place. I raise that only because, sadly, we may well face the same situation again. I gently encourage the Government to discuss some of those matters, because at the time we were told that the lack of discussion had led to an impact, or a lack of impact, in the real world. The payments SI is a kind of omnibus piece of legislation, with many bits and pieces in it. The farming sector needs clarity on a range of issues at the moment; it is a long time since formal advice was issued to the sector on what it faces in the new year, which is now some 58 days away.”
“It strikes me that it is like a palimpsest: there are now layers and layers, and as we peel them back we find some quite interesting things—sometimes some odd contradictions, and sometimes things that are not immediately explicable. As on previous occasions, I suspect that some of my questions are not instantly answerable, and I would be happy for the Minister to write to me about some of them. However, there will be people to whom these things matter very directly, and clarity is important. As a relatively new Member of Parliament, although five years seems like a lifetime here, I have to say that this is an odd process: we have a lot of very detailed legal explanations, but every now and then quite important things go through the process—or not—that have an effect on the real world.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I cannot tell you with what joy I heard that DEFRA has the largest programme of SIs in Government. I am sure that everyone is looking forward to the blizzard of SIs that is likely to descend on us. I have to say that I found the Minister’s explanations helpful; I suspect that, like me, she spent much of the recess reading the detailed trail that leads to these statutory instruments. The question for Members is how we can be absolutely sure about what they do and whether it is actually the case that nothing much is changing. Obviously, we trust the Government entirely, but there may be more to this than meets the eye.”
“There may be perfectly clear explanations for all that, but it would be useful to know, and I am grateful for the opportunity to quiz the Minister on those points.”
“The subject of wine made my team’s eyes light up, but I had to tell them that it was not quite as exciting as they thought, although geographical indications are certainly important for our producers. It struck me on the basis of last year’s discussion that there seem to have been changes with respect to the right to appeal if an application is turned down, and I am not sure what has changed to result in that. There seem to have been some subtle changes to amendments to article 115 in relation to the appeals and publication process and the introduction of an appeal to the first-tier tribunal. Again, I am not entirely clear why that has happened, and what has changed. Finally, there used to be a part 3, which dealt with EU regulation 543/2011. It seems to have disappeared completely this year, but it was there last year.”
“What also struck me, in passing, was that measures in the Agriculture Bill seemed to take us into a new environment. I wondered whether we would be back here in a few weeks’ time having a similar discussion about SIs that might follow from that Bill. We are told that those fruit and vegetable producer organisations must have at least five members. I am not clear whether that is a change from the past or whether it is bigger or smaller. The minimum value those organisations have to sustain has now become quite a simple calculation, whereas it was very complicated before. Again, I am not sure why there has been a change, and what the impact might be on any current organisations in this country. Perhaps the Minister could explain that.”
“The Minister is shaking her head, so I may be wrong about that. Perhaps she will tell me what the other milk producer organisations are. A consultation is going on at the moment, on a quite delicate set of issues to do with mandatory contracts, or not, and some of the points I have raised could be relevant to that. I found it puzzling—this is where it gets very detailed—that article 149(2)(c) of regulation 1308/2013 has been introduced and seems to set a limit of one third of the raw milk production to be taken into account in establishing one of the organisations in question. I do not understand why that is, or whether it is significant, but I would be interested to know the reason. I dug out a DEFRA report that tells us that there were 32 fruit and vegetable producer organisations in 2017. I do not know how many there are now.”
“I am an avid reader of DEFRA publications every day, and I noticed the wine guidance coming out—at the end of last week, I think. Was that prefiguring the decision today?”
“Arts organisations have responded with flair to the existential crisis of the loss of their audience, but just as they are about to recover by going for live streamings from closed venues—I am thinking of organisations such as the Cambridge Jazz Festival and the London Jazz Festival—they face a new threat. Will the Prime Minister confirm that those closed venues will be treated as workplaces and allow them to continue?”
“We are just weeks away from the end of the Brexit transition period and, as I have said, we still have no measures to ensure that animal sentience is recognised in UK law. Perhaps the Minister will explain how that is going to be addressed. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for her speech. As she so powerfully pointed out, the Government have consistently failed to put into law their manifesto promise not to undermine standards relating to animal welfare in future trade deals. Of course, they will once again have the opportunity to do so in the coming weeks.”
“I am told that women in domestic violence shelters are 11 times more likely to report that a partner has hurt or killed a pet. This legislation is urgent. Why have we struggled with these delays? The Government may well cite the current pandemic and the run-up to Brexit, but, frankly, those issues are just as real and live north of the border, and the Scottish Parliament has managed to pass the equivalent legislation this year, raising maximum sentences to five years. Put all together, I am afraid that—despite the protestations there will be from the Conservative Benches—it really seems to many of us that animal welfare is not high enough up the priority list for this Government.”
“That is despite the growing importance of this legislation over the past few months, given that we know that animal welfare support services are already very concerned that the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown are leading to a rise in the number of incidents of animal cruelty and neglect. We have heard some of these points already, but let me say that the RSPCA reported in May that since the lockdown began, rescuers have dealt with a worrying 27,507 incidents of animal cruelty and neglect. A sector-wide survey led by the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes and the National Equine Welfare Council has further found that 14% of equine rescue organisations are already reporting more calls about cruelty to animals. Sadly—this point was well made by other Members—there is a correlation between animal cruelty and domestic violence.”
“So Labour strongly supports the Bill, as we have done all its previous iterations, but we are disappointed that it has been relegated to the status of a private Member’s Bill and has not been allocated proper Government time or reintroduced as a Government Bill. The shadow Environment Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), has written to the Secretary of State numerous times this year calling for the Bill to be expedited by the Government, as have a coalition of 11 animal welfare organisations that support the Bill. I am afraid that instead we have seen further postponements and delays; it is quite extraordinary that it is taking so long.”
“The reality is that, while we do have some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, our maximum penalties in England and Wales are currently among the lowest. A substantial number of EU countries have maximum sentences between two and three years, including France, Germany and Italy, while Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Latvia, all have maximum sentences of five years. It has also been pointed out that the six-month sentences are out of kilter with the rest of the UK. In Northern Ireland it is five years and Scotland is following suit in the same way this year.”
“… However, due to the circumstances we would, if we were permitted to do so, have imposed a far greater custodial sentence.” So it is clear that there is a call coming from the people who are trying these cases. There is clear support for longer sentences and I suspect Members’ inboxes will have been overflowing in the run-up to today’s event. I have had over 100 emails from constituents in Cambridge, and I am told that more than 68,000 people in total from every constituency in Parliament have emailed their MP asking for their support for this measure. The previous public consultation saw more than 70% of people supporting proposals for tougher penalties, so it is clear that people want it to happen.”
“We had a discussion earlier on the Sentencing Council, and it has been pointed out that defendants who plead guilty at the first reasonable opportunity can have their sentences cut by a third, which means that the punishment gets smaller and smaller. The key to this, for us certainly, is that it is not a deterrent if the punishment looks so short. Magistrates often clearly find themselves in a difficult position when faced with these kinds of cases. One told one of the offenders that he was extremely dangerous and that she would have liked to put him in prison for as long as she could. Another said: “Due to your guilty plea you are entitled to a reduction of one third, to 18 weeks.”
“I was about to embark on recounting some of the awful cases that we all know about, but a number of them have already been referenced in the debate and actually just seeing them on paper and reading them is pretty upsetting, so I see no need to repeat some of them. However, it is important to point out that, while around 80% of the 1,000 people prosecuted for animal cruelty each year are convicted, only 10% get custodial sentences—a point that has already been made—and, although the maximum sentence is six months, as we have heard, many get much less than that, with the average sentence being about three and a half months.”
“Now, bovine TB is an extremely serious disease, and we all want to see it tackled, but we want it tackled in the right way. We want it to work. I do think—where have we heard this before?—that the Government should be following the science and the advice. The Animal Welfare Act has been providing penalties for 14 years for those who commit cruelty against animals under human control, tackling cases related to dog fighting, the abuse of pet animals and cruelty to farm animals. But with the passage of time it is clear that updates are now needed and it is right that we should increase the maximum penalty for cruelty offences.”
“He is not in the Chamber at the moment, but he pointed out to us that he had introduced legislation on tethered horses as much as 30 years ago, yet still we face a problem with enforcement. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the key issue of the badger cull, and it is disappointing that we have not had an opportunity to discuss what is going on in our countryside at the moment. Earlier in the year, after a long wait following the Godfray review, many welcomed the Government’s move towards a vaccination policy and away from a culling policy. Sadly, we have discovered that in the interim they have embarked on the biggest culling exercise ever known. It led me to reflect that on national badger day they were actually killing more badgers than ever before.”
“I would like to go back a bit, to the landmark Animal Welfare Act 2006, because that is the starting point for our discussion. As a Labour Member, I am extremely proud that it was a Labour Government who brought that Act into law. It was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) long before I had the privilege of coming to this House, but I was involved in discussions with him and others at that time. I particularly remember pressing him on the issue of tethered horses, because at the time I was a rural district councillor and that was a pressing issue in my area. I was also struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) earlier.”
“I was struck by the contribution from the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), who is not in her place. She has had a rough week, but her account of the role that that cat played in her child’s life absolutely made the point about sentience. We have since seen two Government Bills on sentencing fall due to the volatility of the parliamentary timetable in the lead-up to our withdrawal from the EU. I commend the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for bringing the measures forward again as a private Member’s Bill, but frankly, even this Bill is late, because today is the fifth date set so far this year for its Second Reading. It is very good that we have finally got to this point because, as we all keep saying, cruelty to animals is abhorrent and despicable, and it has no place in our society.”
“Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for explaining that very well earlier in the debate. Without equivalent UK legislation in place by the end of the year, animals in the UK will lose that protection, and I think probably very few people in the House want to see that happen. The Government promised three years ago, after much pressure from the public and animal welfare organisations, to include animal sentience legislation in UK law post Brexit, but here we are with the end of the transition period almost upon us, and that legislation still has not been introduced and is nowhere in sight. We know from a wealth of scientific evidence that animals can think, feel, experience pain and suffer, and we know that we must adopt that recognition in UK law to move forward on animal welfare rather than going backwards.”
“As we have heard, back in 2017, the Government tried to fit animal welfare sentencing and provisions for the recognition of animal sentience into one draft Bill, until the EFRA Committee strongly recommended that they should be separated out to ensure that the maximum penalty was available to the courts as soon as possible. The Committee was absolutely right to demand urgency, but how wrong it was in thinking that it would work. Here we are, years later, still talking about it—and, worse still, about to lose the vital protection on animal sentience that was at that time linked to it. Under European law, article 13 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union requires Governments to have “full regard” when formulating and implementing policy to the fact that “animals are sentient beings”. I am grateful to my hon.”
“And so it seems with the Animal Welfare (Sentencing Bill), a simple piece of draft legislation that has long enjoyed cross party support, and has the entirety of the animal welfare sector calling for it. Already on its fourth delay this year alone, it is a truck that nimbly manoeuvres tantalisingly just out of reach to those of us wanting to get on board.” Hopefully, that truck has finally been reached, but he is right: we, and the animals that have suffered in the meantime, have endured a number of wasted years and false starts.”
“The sense of frustration about the delay is captured rather well by an excellent piece in this week’s edition of The House magazine, which some may have seen. The League Against Cruel Sports took out a full page, and I will quote Andy Knott, the chief executive, whose account puts it very well. He says: “When training as a young officer in the Army, our instructors had a wheeze to grind us down and test our resolve. It usually involved going on a long march with full kit, and at the end, just as you thought you were about to reach the truck and return to barracks, it would speed off into the distance. You would be left downhearted to trudge, desperately seeking said truck around the next corner.”
“I suspect that many people across the House and across the country have similar experiences. It is a pleasure to speak today for the Opposition and to offer our enthusiastic support for a Bill that we know is supported across the House but also right across the country. Frankly, it is long overdue. The only real question is why it has taken so long. It has been a long road, and many Members on both sides of the House have taken up the baton. It has been three years since the previous Member for Redcar, Anna Turley, tabled the first iteration of the Bill. I am grateful to the current hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young), who is not in his place at the moment, for the gracious comments he made about her.”
“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, having heard many positive contributions from Conservative Members, many of which I agree with. Can I make the mandatory pet declaration? Trevor the chicken has turned up in a number of my discussions with the Minister on previous occasions, but I can introduce Brian the female cat— [Interruption.] Yes, Brian—Members can see I have no career in sexing animals in the future. Brian the female cat turned up outside our house many years ago. In the same way as many other Members have described, when we see an animal in a desperate situation, our hearts go out to it, and inevitably we did what so many others do. This poor creature’s tail was barely there, its nose was falling off, but with love and care, that cat lived a happy life for many years.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity to explain why it is actually Government Members who have been misled. At the moment, the protections are absolutely cast-iron, of course, but the day following the end of the transition period, all those cast-iron guarantees slip away. They can be changed and undermined by secondary legislation—”
“The Opposition will do all we can to make that happen and end the scourge of animal cruelty in our country.”
“I also pay tribute to the animal welfare organisations that work so tirelessly on the ground to mend the animals that come to them abused and neglected, that have campaigned so successfully to see the Bill come to fruition, and that have continued to inform our debate today. In particular, I thank the RSPCA, Blue Cross, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, Cats Protection and Dogs Trust for all their hard work. I will conclude where I began, with Andy Knott of the League Against Cruel Sports. It has indeed been a long trek and, as he suggests, the truck always seems to be parked around the next corner. He says: “Hop on and get this Bill back to barracks where tea and medals really do await!” It is time to get on with it and get the legislation on the statute book.”
“Secondly, we will need to ensure that bans on keeping pets are properly monitored, recorded and enforced. Thirdly, will she consider the situation of dogs seized during proceedings, who will spend protracted time in kennels while cases go through the courts? Fourthly, will she consider whether filming animal cruelty offences for entertainment should be considered an aggravating factor in crimes, as raised earlier by the hon. Member for Redcar. It has taken a lot to get the Bill to this stage. I thank the many Members across the house who have campaigned on the issue for many years, including, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), and the previous Member for Redcar, Anna Turley.”
“Guilty offenders might well seek to persuade a court that a lesser sentence should be imposed if the victim can be classed as a wild animal, but animals have the same welfare needs and any attack on them has the same impact on their welfare, regardless of whether they are a domestic pet, a police dog or a wild animal. They all feel pain, they all suffer, and the people who harm them should feel the full force of the law. I know that stakeholders have raised a number of additional issues, so I encourage the Minister to consider these carefully. First, will it be necessary to review and revise sentencing guidelines, once the Bill is passed, to enable the courts to establish clearly which offences would merit the toughest available penalties, which may not require a custodial sentence?”
“In discussions around previous iterations of the Bill, we have had good debates about this issue. It is not always a simple or easy distinction, but it does raise possible cases. For example, torturing a pet cat and torturing a feral cat could lead to different penalties. They are both cats, they have both been tortured and they both suffer, so why the distinction? There are also questions about the different penalties for organised crime. Cases of organised cruelty, such as gangs perpetrating dog fighting, would, we think, come under the Bill, but what about the equally serious and equally organised crime involved in hare coursing? We believe that the same sentences should be available to judges for similar or identical crimes, regardless of whether the animal is domesticated or wild.”
“Would it not be extraordinary if the Government once again allowed this simple piece of legislation to fall through a lack of Fridays? What a feeble excuse that would be. Can the Minister provide a concrete guarantee that this Bill will now finally get the time it needs, and ensure that those tougher measures will be available to the courts in 2021? We are supporting the Bill today, but will seek to improve it in Committee. We have concerns, which are shared by a number of stakeholders, about the scope of the Bill. The proposals apply only to the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and therefore do not apply to wild animals in the way in which they apply to domestic animals. Our concern is that this will create a two-tier system, even if that is by oversight rather than intention.”
“I am very grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I do think that it is important to address these points when they are made. We share the deep concerns of the animal welfare organisations that, once again, the Bill may run out of time. A letter sent to the Secretary of State this July, signed by a coalition of 11 organisations—including the RSPCA, Blue Cross and Dogs Trust—has been candid about this, saying that confidence in the Government’s commitment to deliver the Bill is starting to diminish, and what has been promised on so many occasions over the last three years has not materialised. What is needed is a clear timeframe for the passage of the Bill, including when the next stage will be scheduled, because we do not know how long this Session of Parliament will run.”
“Our familiar countryside is as it is today because of protection and management, but, as we have heard, the Environment Bill that is needed to maintain that protection has gone missing, and financial support for farmers, who of course do so much to manage our countryside, is just weeks away from major upheaval. The Secretary of State talks about sustainable farming initiatives without bringing any detail to this House, and that is a worry for everybody. Come 1 January, will farmers have the financial information they need to make informed decisions, and will the promised Office for Environmental Protection actually be in place and operating properly?”
“The national data strategy was unveiled recently, and I am sure the Leader of the House knows how important it is that we secure a data adequacy agreement with the European Union soon. He may also have noticed that commentators were surprised at what they termed the “buccaneering” language used in some of it, which I would perhaps attribute to Mr Dominic Cummings. Given the importance of securing data flows with the European Union, can the Leader of the House make time for a statement from a Minister on this very important issue soon?”
“It is almost a month since fire engulfed the refugee camp at Moria on Lesbos, leaving 13,000 refugees homeless. Organisations such as Becky’s Bathhouse, which was established in memory of Rebecca Dykes, who lost her life while working for the UK Government in Lebanon, are doing amazing work there, but what are the UK Government doing? May we have a statement from a Minister please?”
“In just 100 days, all food exports to the EU will require an export health certificate and an authorised vet to sign it off. Do we have enough vets to do that? I understand that £80 million has been made available for the 50,000 custom agents required. Can we be told how much of the money has been drawn down and put in place? As a former IT person, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is really confident that the IT systems will be in place and working?”
“It now designs and licenses the basic blueprints of chips used in around 90% of the world’s smartphones, as well as countless sensors, smart devices and cloud devices. Hundreds of global companies license its designs, including Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Qualcomm, putting the UK firmly at the centre of global technological development. ARM employs around 2,700 people in the UK, many in highly skilled, high-tech jobs. They work in its headquarters in Cambridge and across the country in Belfast, Manchester and Warwick.”
“Earlier this evening, BBC Look East reported that this was a debate worth waiting up for, so we surely must not disappoint. I am very grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue vital to my constituency, but also important for the future of the wider UK economy. I declare at the outset that I am a member of Unite the Union, and I am very grateful to it for giving me the opportunity to hear directly from members employed at the company. This urgently needed debate is to secure answers on the future of one of the UK’s most successful tech companies, ARM, which is based in my constituency. It was confirmed last Monday that it was being sold to the American tech firm Nvidia. Since it was founded in 1990 in Cambridge, ARM has become one of the UK’s best home-grown technology success stories, with huge global reach.”
“Back in 2016, the then Chancellor, Philip Hammond, considered it so significant that he announced the deal personally and legally binding guarantees enforceable by the Takeover Panel were secured. This time there has been silence from Government—a silence that I hope will be broken this evening. Although I recognise the sensitivities around commercial confidentiality, the same applied back in 2016. We need to know what the Government’s view is on the transfer of a key UK- based technology giant, particularly in such uncertain times.”
“The hon. Gentleman anticipates my arguments, because there can be little doubt that this home-grown tech star is a great national asset for the country. Back in 2016, alongside many in Cambridge and across the UK tech sector, I was hugely disappointed to see ARM sold to the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. I warned then that we were losing control of this important national asset, and I fear we are now seeing that warning borne out. ARM’s sell-off in 2016 was backed by this Government with conditions that its headquarters would stay in Cambridge and its staff would be maintained, and so far that guarantee has been honoured, but we are now faced with a new situation with the news of the sale last Monday.”
“I urge the Minister to consider such issues carefully, make the case to her colleagues and wake up to the threat that the deal poses unless strict, legally binding conditions are applied. Finally, will the Minister confirm today whether it is the Government’s intention to refer the takeover to the Competition and Markets Authority? Do the Government intend to place clear conditions on the deal to guarantee that ARM’s HQ will stay in Cambridge; that jobs will be protected; that its unique business model will be secured; and that its technology will not be a lever in future trade negotiations that this Government have handed to our competitors?”
“I also appreciate that Government policy is in a state of flux, with a pattern of tech businesses being taken over, the status of the industrial strategy unclear, and the national security and investment Bill yet to be published, so we have to use what we have. The Government have the power to impose conditions on such takeovers if they threaten national security or financial stability, which the selling of ARM to Nvidia clearly does. I appreciate that the Minister who will respond to this debate is the Minister for Digital and Culture, not a Minister from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy or the Minister for Security—that serves to highlight the complexity of the issue. Last time, the Chancellor took ownership; we need the same again. We need a coherent, cross-Government response, led from the top.”
“The takeover comes more than a year after the Government’s telecoms supply chain review report, in which the Government committed to diversifying the UK telecommunication supply chain. Since then, a plan to do just that has repeatedly been promised and repeatedly been delayed. Will the Minister explain just how selling this UK-headquartered, world-leading telecoms supplier to a competitor supports the diversification of the supply chain? I understand that the Government say they are looking into the takeover and that Ministers are considering whether to refer it to the Competition and Markets Authority.”
“Some may not be bothered about that, but it highlights the real role that this UK-located tech giant plays in the international struggle for technological sovereignty. We need guarantees that ARM is not going to be embroiled in American trade wars and that decisions over this key technology are not completely lost to us. As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee said: “The sale of @Arm raises questions of sovereignty. Control of tech is an essential element of independence and @UKParliament will have no say on the CFIUS decisions that go to the US President alone.” I agree. To safeguard the UK’s interests, we need clear conditions on the takeover to exempt ARM’s tech from intrusive US regulations.”