Extract from second
reading debate (day 2) on the European Union (Withdrawal)
Bill
(CB):...On the
economic aspects, I hope that Ministers and civil servants will
study the wealth of analyses that are now being undertaken by a
number of groups, such as the Trade Knowledge Exchange, which I am
involved in, which are all committed to helping us get the best
deal possible. Their analysis highlights that the benefits of a
good trade deal with the EU are worth far more than the amounts
discussed in the first stage talks and, I would argue, far more
than deals with third countries. As Pascal Lamy, the former head of
the WTO, has pointed out, the big costs in trade terms come from
regulatory divergence. Yet the ability to diverge from EU rules is
regarded as a big benefit by some. It is also true that trade deals
with third countries will require similar regulations. Such deals
will be governed by what I would call the tug of regulatory
gravity, meaning that the bigger partners, such as the US, China
or India, have the biggest say in determining
the rules...
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Extract from Westminster
Hall debate on People with Autism: Public Building
Access
(Bristol West)
(Lab):...When my cousin Sunitha, who lives in
Chennai, India, found out that her young son Ricky was
on the autistic spectrum, it was not a surprise. She had known
that something was not right. Ricky was not speaking at age
three, and there were other things that meant she knew that he
understood social interaction in a different way from other
people. It was a difficult adjustment at first, but I am proud of
how my cousin Suni and her family—her beautiful daughter Rachael
and everyone else in it—have changed how they interact with one
another and with Ricky, and how they support Ricky’s interaction
with the world. Their experiences in India illustrate much of what needs to
and can change in public buildings in the UK and beyond.
As with many, but not all, people on the autistic spectrum, Ricky
does not speak much, although he is no longer non-verbal. He has
outstanding skills in listening, reading and writing in
several Indian languages, but his lack of fluent
speech—and that of many autistic people—could come across as
stand-offish. It might make it harder for him to get information
about how to use a public building. Although some of his skills
are far beyond most of us, they are not typical. Making a public
building accessible needs to include giving clear information
visually and logically as well as a non-verbal means of gaining
that information.
Again, as with many but not all people on the spectrum, Ricky
likes routines and sometimes has trouble adjusting to change.
Some people may ask, “Does that make me a little bit autistic? I
like routines and I don’t like change.” The National Autistic
Society mentions the myth that “we’re all a bit autistic” on its
website, but that is a myth about autism that I am keen to
scotch—no, we are not. My routines help me to organise my day.
Ricky’s help to prevent him from experiencing sensory overload
and to soothe him when he does.
Ricky wants to take the same route to school each day, which is
fairly straightforward, but when he goes on holiday—as he does
when my mum, my husband and I visit India—some experiences can be tricky for him,
such as a very noisy and chaotic queue for a zoo, which we
quickly left. That is an example of something we did to
accommodate Ricky but which benefited us too—I did not like the
queue either...
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