Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and I am glad he started referring to international products. Given the earlier contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, I am reminded of this House’s scrutiny of the Biocidal Products (Health and Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2022. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, told the Grand Committee that there was a huge backlog in processing chemical standards given that we lost access to the EU chemical standards database. As a result, the Health and Safety Executive’s chemicals division had to have its budget increased by 39%. On those figures alone, any sensible Government would want to be able to use existing standards—in this case, the EU’s standards—not least because any organisation manufacturing products in the UK that sell in the EU will have to conform to them. I have not had time to check what the HSE chemicals division’s budget is now, but over five years from 2018 to 2022 it increased by 39%.

I was also delighted to hear the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Winterton. With her wit and experience, she is already being heard very seriously and with some smiles in this House. I wish her well.

As noble Lords have heard, these Benches support the scope of the Bill and the secondary legislation. Others have already explained how necessary it is, but, along with my colleagues, I have some concerns and I will try not to go over the points they have already made. The Government’s delegated powers memorandum says at paragraph 5:

“We judge it essential to be able to respond quickly to an evolving evidence base on product safety and metrology issues”.


I want to focus on those powers being used in a slightly different way and I hope that the Minister can give your Lordships’ House some reassurance that emergency procedures made available to Ministers will not be used on this Bill, as happened on many others over the previous eight years—not least, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, on the issue of leaving the EU.

I also saw it at first hand when I was the Lib Dem health and social care spokeswoman from January 2020. The emergence of the pandemic inevitably meant that there was obviously a need to introduce emergency statutory instruments but, to be frank, using the emergency powers completely negated the importance of Parliament being able to scrutinise affirmative SIs before they are introduced. Between January 2020 and March 2022, the Government laid 118 affirmative Covid SIs, of which 66 were introduced by emergency procedures, meaning that they were implemented before either House had any chance to see them, let alone debate them.

The Hansard Society Covid statutory instrument dashboard website is a brilliant resource for this period—perhaps I am extremely sad, but it really is extremely useful. It also noticed that those SIs implemented using the emergency procedure were more likely to have to be amended or revoked, which was perhaps not surprising because of the speed of response needed and the fact that there had been no time to scrutinise them. I hope the Minister will give the House some reassurance that emergency procedures would be used only in true emergency.

I say that because it has become something of a habit inside Whitehall to use them. I had a call from the Paymaster-General in August, informing me that the SI relating to the redress scheme for the infected blood compensation scheme was laid in the middle of August. We do not debate it until the end of this month. We have a debate on the inquiry and the redress scheme generally next week but we have to wait to the end of the month, which is two months after the SI was implemented. I really am keen to hear from the Minister on that.

I turn to one of the examples that was repeatedly raised in the preparation of the Bill and was the subject of my noble friend Lord Redesdale’s Private Member’s Bill—lithium-ion batteries. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Foster for his many years’ work in this area. I declare my interests as a vice-chair of the APPG on Fire Safety and Rescue and a vice-president of the LGA. The APPG on Fire Safety and Rescue, the National Fire Chiefs Council and almost everybody involved in manufacturing safety equipment for the fire service want urgent regulation of the use of lithium-ion batteries.

E-bikes and e-scooters present one of the fastest-growing fire risks. In London on average there was a fire every two days last year. There were 143 e-bike fires, three deaths and around 60 injuries. This year, up to the end of August, London Fire Brigade has so far recorded 127 e-bike and e-scooter fires. The real problem is the intensity of the lithium-ion fires, both the heat and the length of the flame. It is not even a flame; it is more like a firework. If you have ever seen a video of such a fire, it is never forgotten. Temperatures get up to 1,000 degrees and substantial damage can be done.

We also need regulation for those who use products with lithium-ion batteries that do conform to very strict regulation. I have a travel wheelchair that uses lithium-ion batteries. It complies with IATA regulations but I have been refused permission to go on a plane because the pilot has the final say on whether or not you can take medical devices on board. He said he was not having any lithium batteries on his plane at all and did not care whether they were IATA-certified. Having regulation would enormously help those of us who rely on these things. It cost me €900 to get back from Bucharest that night.

I also think that lithium-ion batteries stand as a proxy for everything that the Bill is trying to achieve. Many of the e-bikes and e-scooters in these fires have had different batteries or converters bought in an online market and added to the machine, so regulation is vital, as is compliance and ensuring that there are enough people to be able to find out where these are. The below-the-radar sales of these batteries, which often look identical to ones which comply with current safety regulations, mean they can be hard to track down.

It also takes us into what I think is a grey area of the Bill and I have not heard anybody else talk about this: at what point do the product regulations apply to individuals as opposed to businesses or people working in businesses? The Bill sets out those people covered by the regulations in Clause 2(3) and, helpfully, paragraphs (a) to (g) explain those with particular responsibilities and roles, but Clause 2(3)(h) refers to

“any other person carrying out activities in relation to a product”.

Does this include individuals who may have bought an e-bike online as an individual, changed the battery to one bought elsewhere online and then after a couple of years decided to sell it on through eBay, which has a mixture of professional sellers and individuals?

I am trying to find the boundaries here because if the answer is that individuals are included, communications to the public about their new responsibilities when they buy and sell will become vital. But if the answer is no, how will the Bill prevent what is happening at the moment, which is individuals buying and adjusting products from a global marketplace, often untraceable, where the UK has no ability to scrutinise or take action? How would this be enforced? If it is helpful, I do not necessarily need an answer now but would appreciate a letter from the Minister before we go into Committee.

I am very interested in who will be the statutory consultees and wonder whether we might have access to lists—again, before we move on to Committee—because there are some professional associations that might be very obvious to include if you are in the fire industry but not necessarily obvious to the Department for Business.

I turn briefly to the creation of criminal offences through affirmative statutory instruments, which has already been referred to. I want to pick up on the earlier comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about medical devices, which are specifically disapplied in the Bill because of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act. Can the Minister explain why this Bill has a maximum imprisonment of up to two years, whereas the Medicines and Medical Devices Act, which covers at least as sensitive and dangerous issues, has provision for conviction and jail sentences of up to 51 weeks only? Why have those different figures been used?

It was good to hear the Minister say that the Attorney-General had been involved. Is there a formal consultation with the Ministry of Justice once these regulations are drafted? I remain concerned that our court system is really congested at the moment and if there were, for example, a particularly large, concerted campaign to bring people to justice, that might involve breaking gangs, frankly, even 30 or 40 extra people in prison over a short period would put real pressure on our prisons. What can the Minister say on that?

Finally, we need this Bill but we must have access to affirmative instruments in plenty of time to be able to scrutinise them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I am coming back to that in the later part of my winding speech.

National emergencies such as Covid-19 highlight the importance of ensuring that our product regulation framework allows for flexibility in times of national emergency. This enabling Bill will allow the Government, in response to an emergency, to temporarily disapply and modify product regulation while maintaining high safety standards, thereby providing a faster process by which critical products are able to reach the market in order to sustain an adequate supply of such products.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I apologise, but that was not my question. My question was: will the Government make sure that, if emergency powers are used, both Houses of Parliament are kept informed prior to that happening?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I will get back to the noble Baroness in writing. I see the time flashing, so I might have to write to other noble Lords in response to their questions. Let me conclude.

I would like to thank everyone across this House for their contributions in today’s debate. I specifically thank my counterparts on the Opposition Benches, the noble Lords, Lord Johnson of Lainston and Lord Fox. This is not the first time that we have sat across from each other in such debates, albeit in different spots. I look back fondly on our debates during the passage of the CPTPP Act last year. I hope and expect that debates on this Bill will be as good-natured and as enlightening as those were.

I should like to stress my willingness to meet noble Lords to discuss further the detail of the Bill. I take the firm view that dialogue is essential to building public and parliamentary support.

To sum up, this Bill allows us to keep pace with new technologies, gives us the tools to stop dodgy suppliers placing dangerous goods on the market and allows us to make sovereign choices as to how we diverge or align with the EU and other trading partners. It gives enforcement bodies the tools they need to tackle modern problems facing the transit of goods coming across our borders, be they land, maritime or digital. Finally, it will allow us to update the legal and technological framework that underpins economy and trade. This Government will never compromise on safety. The Bill is essential to strengthening the rules and regulations needed to protect consumers, businesses and the public.