Mr. Ian Talbot:

It is ultimately about the proper use of the EU Single Market. The patent court was introduced in about 2013 by the EU. Twenty of the 27 EU countries have signed up to it. What it means is that if you have got an idea, you can patent it and a single patent applies across those 20 EU countries. The reason I referred to the Young Scientist Exhibition is that it is great every January to see wonderful ideas from schoolkids, but at the moment if they have an idea to patent, they patent it in Ireland and that is it, whereas, if we have the Unified Patent Court available, they can patent something that can be across most of the 450 million people in Europe, for example.

It is clearly not all about young budding entrepreneurs. Existing businesses can avail of it as well. It will help to reduce legal costs and it is to be hoped it will encourage people to export more into different markets, for example, small export businesses that have only focused on the UK market. It is another encouragement for them to move into the wider Single Market across the EU.

There is a conundrum here for us. We see an awful lot of talk in the media and in government about free trade agreements. We have the best possible free trade agreement in the EU Single Market, but I do not think our small businesses are availing of it enough. We need to train them, educate them and give them opportunities to expand. It is really about availing of that Single Market. It is another thing that we should be unequivocally signing up for to encourage our entrepreneurs. However, I know there is a certain resistance to holding referendums.