Dr Al Pinkerton

Dr Al Pinkerton

Liberal Democrat — Surrey Heath

Speaking in the House of Commons on 10 March 2026

Debate

Technology Sovereignty

Contribution

The hon. Lady mentions Britain’s extraordinary human capital. In my role as my party’s Europe spokesperson, of late I have been speaking to very large international defence firms, which thrive in the UK intellectual environment. They have great links with universities, but they say to me that they are increasingly looking to move some of the start-ups that have been created in the UK into Europe, so that they can assemble rapidly the kinds of teams that they need to take those initial ideas and scale them up. Does she agree that having a closer working relationship with our European partners and colleagues, allowing that freedom of movement to return, could be an enormous benefit—counterintuitively perhaps—to our sovereign capacity?

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