Patents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Debate between Baroness Kingsmill and Lord Adonis(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Adonis
My Lords, in my now quite long experience of the House I have found that on most occasions when policies are being tested and explained, amendments are being considered and so on, the difference narrows as debate advances. That difference can be eliminated entirely, sometimes because the explanations given by the Government turn out to meet the concerns, sometimes because the Government themselves move to meet the concerns and sometimes because the concerns are misunderstood. That is the general course. Because our job is to scrutinise there may still be resulting differences, but those differences are narrowed, not expanded.
However, a pattern is now emerging in the consideration by the Grand Committee of these no-deal regulations. In almost every case now, as the debate continues the difference widens, for three reasons. The first is precisely the point that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has made so eloquently, which is that you are expected to believe, in the words of the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, six impossible things before breakfast before you even consider these regulations. The first suspension of total disbelief that we are expected to entertain is that, all other things being equal in no deal, these regulations will simply make technical changes to govern the fact that we have left the EU with no deal. The problem is that all other things are not equal. The whole ground has shifted underneath the very activities, and the national interest and the companies, that are at stake.
That could not have been clearer than in the remarks of my noble friend—as I continue to call him; I know he now sits on the Cross Benches but he and I were Ministers together for many years so he will always be my noble friend—Lord Warner. I dare say that my noble friend, whom I hold in extremely high regard, knows this sector better than anyone in the House except possibly my noble friend Lord Darzi. He has huge, detailed knowledge from a long period of time as a Health Minister. My noble friend has reported to the House two issues of extraordinary import. The first is that the impact of the actual changes in these regulations will be profound for the industries concerned and for those who need to use their services. The second is that most of those directly concerned were not consulted at all.
That leads to the second big issue that has now arisen time and again in the Grand Committee: the consultation has been exiguous or non-existent despite the fact that the issues concerned are hugely important. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, who is one of the most forensic debaters in the House, noted to brilliant effect the use of the weasel words in respect of consultation in the Explanatory Memorandum regarding the,
“selected individuals with expertise in the relevant areas”,
who the Intellectual Property Office chose to consult.
Lord Adonis
They turn out to be lawyers. I have nothing against lawyers; my noble friend Lady Kingsmill is a distinguished lawyer. It is fine that lawyers should be consulted, but others should be consulted as well. I do not think it is for the Government to select who should be consulted. We are a democracy where everyone should have that right. Indeed, the Cabinet Office rules on consultation were long laboured over by successive Governments: there should be 12 weeks of consultation on regulations that should be published, and so on. We are told that that cannot happen in the case of these regulations because we do not have 12 weeks. Well, we would if the Government were not engaging in this ludicrous no-deal planning that means that there are not 12 weeks to start with. That argument is entirely circular.
The Explanatory Memorandum looks to me to be worse than my noble friend and the noble Lord have said, on top of these informal discussions with a small group of selected individuals. Incidentally, I may say that the Minister was unable to tell us at the beginning who were they were; he said he was going to tell us when he wound up, so we are still awaiting the names of those selected individuals. They do not appear to have included any of the significant companies and experts that my noble friend Lord Warner knows.
I will repeat this fact because it is of great importance to the Grand Committee: the only person who we know with certainty has been consulted by, and has spoken to, the Intellectual Property Office so far is my noble friend Lord Warner, because he tells us that he phoned them up and gave them his views. There has been no information from the noble Lord, Lord Henley, or from anyone else as to who the others were. We have now a lengthening list of those who were not consulted, but we do not know who was. That is an extraordinary state of affairs for the Committee.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, a situation has arisen where there is a serious difference of view, to put it mildly—
Lord Adonis
A difference of fact, as my noble friend has just said, between the Minister and my noble friend Lord Warner, who has just pointed out to me that paragraphs 1 and 2 of Regulation 55 specifically concern exclusivity. This is the precise issue which he said should have been consulted on and on which the companies and trade associations concerned say they were not consulted. I simply note that, but this issue needs to be explored more fully before these regulations go to the House itself, as the situation at the moment is clearly unsatisfactory. The Minister, who is deeply honourable in these matters, would not wish this dispute of facts to be unresolved.