In his article this week, Crawley MP Henry Smith talks about Brexit and the new Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
As the UK entered the New Year it did so having finally delivered what Crawley and the country voted for in the Brexit referendum almost half a decade previously.
Last week I voted for
the European Union (Future Relationship) Act which allows the British
Government to implement and ratify the agreements secured between the UK and
the EU.
With no role for the
European Court of Justice and no requirements for the UK to continue to follow
EU law, and no more payments of billions of pounds to Brussels, we fulfil one
of the key aims of Brexit, which is to secure this country’s political and
economic independence. This means, of course, that our laws are determined by
elected politicians in the United Kingdom who are accountable to the British
people.
Britain’s commitment
to maintaining high labour, environment and climate standards now ensure we do
not give the EU any say over our rules.
In areas such as the
living wage, entitlements to sick pay, parental leave and annual leave, UK
policy already goes further than EU requirements.
The Future
Relationship Act represents the largest free trade agreement in history, not
only allowing the UK full access to the EU but also the ability to strike trade
deals globally, following recent agreements already signed with countries
including Japan, Canada and Turkey.
Looking ahead to 2021;
it is welcome that the start of the year has seen the roll-out of the
UK-developed University of Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination.
On Monday the NHS
began administering over half a million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca
vaccine, with 100 million doses secured in total. This is part of a national
vaccination programme alongside the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, which has already seen
more people inoculated in the UK than the rest of Europe put together. Indeed
Great Britain was first globally by several weeks in delivering COVID-19
vaccines to its citizens.
The Government’s plan
to roll out vaccinations as swiftly as possible is well underway, with 1,000
vaccination sites up and running by the end of the week.
With this further
welcome news on the vaccine we can see an end to the blight of Covid in sight.
These are still challenging times but global Britain will deliver in 2021.
Henry Smith MP
Crawley Constituency