Conformity Assessment (Mutual Recognition Agreements) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
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Lord Callanan
That the Grand Committee do consider the Conformity Assessment (Mutual Recognition Agreements) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Conformity Assessment (Mutual Recognition Agreements) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, which were laid before the House on 21 November 2022, be approved.
Switzerland is the UK’s 10th-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade between our two countries worth £38 billion in 2021. The UK and Switzerland have strong economic and historical ties, and both our countries have been clear about a shared commitment to maintain a strong trade and investment relationship.
In 2019, the UK and the Swiss Confederation agreed a trade agreement bringing together a number of different areas covered by the EU’s various agreements with Switzerland. Included as part of this were provisions to replicate the mutual recognition agreement between the EU and Switzerland for three sectors of UK-Swiss trade: motor vehicles, good laboratory practice and good manufacturing practice for medicinal products. It was possible to reach agreement in these sectors because many of the applicable rules were already aligned internationally. Between them, these three sectors covered 70% of the UK/Swiss trade covered by the old EU/Swiss mutual recognition agreement.
Although this covered a significant amount of trade, the UK and Switzerland committed through a memorandum of understanding to continue to work towards an agreement in the remaining chapters; the UK and the EU also agreed temporary measures to aid continuity of trade in 13 sectors until such an agreement could be reached. On 17 November this year, the UK and Switzerland successfully concluded a mutual recognition agreement in five of these remaining sectors. From hereon in, I will refer to this as the MRA.
The MRA supports trade in goods between the UK and Switzerland by reducing technical barriers to trade but, importantly, it does so in a way that protects the UK’s robust product safety system. The UK’s product safety legislation requires certain products to be assessed to ensure that they meet requirements in legislation. Sometimes this assessment must be done by third parties that are independent of the manufacturer. MRAs can reduce barriers and costs by allowing this assessment to be undertaken by a conformity assessment body—a CAB—based in the UK for export to the relevant country, in this case Switzerland. We make the same arrangements for Swiss businesses so that the agreement procedures carried out by recognised Swiss CABs are accepted for the purposes of our domestic regulations.
The SI that we are debating today implements this MRA to ensure continuity for UK businesses trading conformity-assessed goods with Switzerland. It does this by amending the earlier 2021 regulations made by my department, which implement MRAs with other countries so that they also include the Swiss MRA. I will return to this briefly when discussing the territorial scope and specifics of the regulations.
Let me now address the measures that we are taking to recognise Swiss bodies and appoint UK bodies under this MRA. This SI provides for the Secretary of State to designate CABs as competent to assess that certain goods comply with the regulatory requirements of Switzerland under the MRA as set out in the schedule to the SI. For example, this means that, where a UK- based CAB would like to be recognised by the Swiss authorities as capable to assess goods against the Swiss measuring instruments requirements, it can apply to UKAS—the United Kingdom Accreditation Service —to be accredited as fit to test against those Swiss requirements. The Secretary of State may then designate the body under the Swiss MRA to assess, for example, measuring instruments for export to Switzerland.
As a result, a UK manufacturer that uses the services of that UK CAB can now use the same body to do its accreditation for the Swiss market. It does not need to identify and start contracting with another CAB operating in Switzerland. This should reduce its costs and make it able to place products on the Swiss market more cost effectively, potentially passing savings on to consumers.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, for his comments. It is clear that this SI will maintain our robust product safety framework, at the same time as reducing barriers to trade with Switzerland. It will do this by providing for recognition in Great Britain of conformity assessment by Swiss CABs for certain products under the MRA, while Swiss bodies will be recognised in Northern Ireland under their country’s MRA with the EU; and by providing for the Secretary of State to designate UK CABs to assess against the requirements of Switzerland for certain products under an MRA.
In response to the noble Lord’s questions, I will have to get back to him in detail on the points that he raised, and in writing. In the meantime, I hope he will give us forbearance and allow me to do that, while agreeing that technical agreements such as this play an important function in the landscape of new trade agreements that the Government are negotiating with partners around the world. With these agreements, we demonstrate our commitment to free trade through a variety of means to promote growth in the UK.
With my apologies for not having a detailed answer for the noble Lord, I will get back to him. I again commend these regulations to the Committee.