Timber and Timber Products and FLEGT (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, this regulation applies to timber harvested in the EU and third countries. It imposes obligations on those who place timber or timber products on the EU internal market for the first time—

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

The House is having some difficulty hearing the noble Lord. Can you be a little closer to your microphone?

[Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]]

Yes. Can you hear me now? Is this better?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I believe there is a problem connecting to the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia. I suggest we move on and maybe return to him if we can reconnect.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

I will call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of this revised SI. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for her contribution and very helpful questions. Obviously, we are keen to have in place a robust and comprehensive licensing scheme for the import of timber. As the noble Lord and the noble Baroness said, we are all too well aware of the devastation that can be caused by illegal logging on biodiversity and global attempts to mitigate the impact of the climate change emergency. It is good that the EU has taken a stand on this and it is important that we replicate the provision when we leave the EU.

The Explanatory Memorandum makes clear that the EU has entered into a number of voluntary partnership agreements with certain countries to implement a licensing scheme. Does the Minister believe that this licensing scheme is sufficiently widespread to cover all potential timber-exporting countries we might deal with in the future, or is it the UK’s ambition to expand the reach of these licensing agreements so that other countries become partners with us? If the EU makes new or improved licensing agreements after we leave the EU, is it the UK’s intention to mirror those new agreements in UK law as well?

The Explanatory Memorandum also makes clear that it is necessary to have slightly different provisions for Great Britain and Northern Ireland to respect the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol. It says that any voluntary partnership agreement entered into with a third country by the Government will automatically be extended to Northern Ireland, even though Northern Ireland will technically be subject to the EU regulations. So, following on from my earlier question, if the UK entered into a new agreement with a country that does not have an equivalent agreement with the EU, could the Minister clarify what impact this would have on Northern Ireland and the flow of cross-border trade on the island of Ireland?

Finally, I return to the vexed question of errors—and I am sorry to return to this issue. It is interesting that I call them “errors” and the Minister calls them “deficiencies”—we could argue on the head of a pin about the difference. Either way, when we debated the INSPIRE (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations on 9 September—which also was correcting a number of errors—I asked the Minister what lessons the department had learned from these recurrent mistakes and what processes had been put in place to overcome them. At the time, the Minister chose not to respond to those questions, so I am giving him the opportunity to address them today. Could he perhaps also write to me with the total number of Defra EU exit SIs that have already come into effect only for errors to be identified and revisions needing to be made? I raise the issue now because, as the Minister will know, we have a heavy couple of months ahead, with hundreds of pages of SIs still to be considered. The last thing that we want to be doing is correcting previous mistakes on top of that. Perhaps the Minister could therefore tell us what improved checks have been put in place to avoid that. I look forward to his response.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, I will try calling the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, one more time to see whether we can connect with him. Lord Bhatia? No, we are still having trouble with the connection. I call the Minister.