Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Morrow

Monday 11th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I agree entirely with what my two colleagues said. However, can the Minister give us the commencement dates, please? I think she said this but I missed it; I am not sure whether she said 2025 or 2026.

We are also told that the Northern Ireland Assembly will have a vote, albeit a type of vote that has not happened in Northern Ireland for over 50 years, because we do not do majoritarianism any longer in Northern Ireland. That is not the way it is done, but it is very clear that the process is that it will be a majority vote. That is a complete departure from what the Belfast agreement says on how Northern Ireland will proceed and go forward.

If this measure comes into force before there is a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly, will it just be another example of saying, “You folk over there, you don’t really count. We’re not too much interested in democracy; we’re just doing this because of an agreement with Europe”? We were told that Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom would be decided by the people of Northern Ireland. I suspect that, with all those decisions, whether they are being done by statutory instruments or not, this is a substitute for a proper Bill and a proper debate. This is all coming through piecemeal.

To be very fair and honest, I do not so much blame the present Government for this, although they are now the Government and have the authority and power to make legislation and change things. However, I would be grateful if the Minister would go over those points again. I accept that she may already have said it, but I hope that she will indulge me.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their consideration of this instrument, and for their excellent questions and contributions to this debate. This instrument will implement common charger measures in Northern Ireland but, in practice, as I hope that I explained in my opening statement, it will have a very limited impact, because the USB-C has effectively become the industry default, not only across Europe but, increasingly, across the world. We consider that similar measures introduced across the UK would potentially help to deliver business benefits and environmental and consumer savings.

To pick up on a few of the questions that have been raised, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for his comments about the consumer and environmental benefits. That is a very strong point. All too often, we find that we are forced to buy another charger, even though we already have one, because they all come as a package. Like most people, we end up with an awful lot of chargers lying around the house that no longer charge anything, and we do not know what to do with them and it is all very frustrating. The fact that these are now being streamlined into one standard benefits consumers and, as the noble Lord said, will cut down on environmental waste, which has to be a good thing.

The noble Lord asked that, when we do the call for evidence for the UK, we make sure that it is evidence based. He makes an important point there. We do not want to rush this; we want to make sure that we get it right.

We judge that the measure will not have a huge impact on small businesses. The producers of this equipment are mainly the big multinationals, so the cost to small and micro-businesses will be very small.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, made the point that chargers should be safe. I absolutely agree with that; we all know of the awful cases where these materials are misused or mis-sold, causing fires. As we know, my noble friend Lord Leong is taking the product safety Bill through the Lords, and it will address some of those safety issues.

I was asked whether the measure would apply to the whole of the UK. We hope that it will apply to Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. That is what our call for evidence is about. Although the timeframe is slightly different, we hope that this will happen to everybody across the board; there will not be a distinction between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. If things go to plan—and I think that businesses will support this—we will have a standardised process across the UK that uses the USB-C, a standardised thing that we will all use. It is a standard system and most companies are already producing this equipment to that standard; we are not trying to impose something different on Northern Ireland from what will happen everywhere else. To my mind, that is a bit of a no-brainer, although I understand the concerns of colleagues in Northern Ireland. But we will be catching up with you, rather than the other way around—we will catch up with you very soon, I hope.

The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, asked about commencement dates. For portable electronic equipment the date is December 2024 and, for laptops, it is April 2026, so there is a fairly tight timescale for portable equipment to bring us in line with the EU. But as I say, Northern Ireland is the forerunner of what will happen anyway; it is increasingly standard throughout the world, and I hope that you will have nothing to fear from that. I hope that I have persuaded noble Lords—maybe I have not, but there are huge consumer benefits to this move. I do not think that businesses feel any concern about this measure, as they are increasingly beginning to produce equipment that meets these standards. This will be the new standard and we have to make sure that we grow it in the right way. I hope that I have persuaded noble Lords on this issue, and am therefore pleased to commend the SI to the Committee.