Lord Livermore (Lab)

I do agree with what my noble friend said. Already, even before this crisis, the damage that Brexit was doing to our economy was apparent. As I say, at the time of Brexit it was estimated it would cost about 4 percentage points of GDP. That has now risen to between 6 and 8 percentage points of GDP. Obviously, cutting ourselves off from our closest trading partner was never going to be good for the economy, and that has been seen absolutely to be the case. It is why this Government have put in place the reset with our European friends, and we are deepening our trade relationships. The Chancellor set out her intention to deepen further our economic relationship with the European Union in her recent Mais Lecture, and I hope we will see more action on that in the near future. In terms of the industrial strategy, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. That is why, for example, as I was just saying, the British industrial competitiveness scheme is so important in helping electricity-intensive manufacturing frontier sectors. That was a commitment given in the industrial strategy that has now been put in place. What my noble friend says about procurement is absolutely right. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, will know how hard it is to change procurement rules in government, but I absolutely agree wholeheartedly with what my noble friend says.