Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful both for the chance to contribute to today’s consideration of this important legislation and for the opportunity to follow so many well-informed and forensic contributions. As we have heard enumerated extremely well already, this Bill is broad in scope and application—as it needs to be to achieve its objectives. Against that background, and conscious that I am the 17th speaker today, I do not intend to detain your Lordships’ House for longer than it will take for me to focus on one or two specific elements of the Bill.

Before I do that, I commend and thank my noble friend the Minister for his excellent introductory speech to legislation that is complex and difficult to understand. He has taken to the Front Bench of your Lordships’ House as a duck does to water, and I commend him for that too. As other noble Lords have, I also commend, thank and congratulate my noble friend Lady Winterton of Doncaster, who made her maiden speech today. She made what I thought was a speech that can be made only by someone who has a flawless political touch.

For half of my noble friend’s 27 years in Parliament, in the House of Commons representing Doncaster, our careers as parliamentary politicians followed a similar path. We were both elected in 1997 and we were both given ministerial responsibilities in 2001, after our first term on the Back Benches. My noble friend went on to have—I think I have got this right—six additional jobs. In my case it was five, and that took us to 2010. At that point, our careers diverged; I retired from the House of Commons and was introduced to your Lordships’ House. My noble friend went on to hold, entirely appropriately for a parliamentary democracy, senior positions in the Government for a period of time and then senior parliamentary positions. I retired because I had this conviction that three terms in the House of Commons was the appropriate time to spend there and one should then move on. She is, in that respect, the living contradiction of my judgment.

In anticipation of having this opportunity to speak about her, I made some inquiries and did some research in the media that covers the Doncaster area, of which there is quite a lot. I can tell you that, whatever she says about why this is the case, it seems very clear that, in Doncaster, she is deeply respected, greatly admired and loved for who she is—there is no question of that. I can say, from the time we were together in the House of Commons, that she was deeply respected, she was universally admired across the House and she was loved. From the reaction of your Lordships to this one speech from my noble friend, it is clear that she is deeply respected and deeply admired—the love will come.

This Bill makes no mention of the UK single market act. In that sense, it is somewhat like “Hamlet” without the Prince. These two pieces of legislation may turn out to sit awkwardly together on the statute book, both purportedly governing UK internal trade. But, to introduce my first point, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that this Bill does seem to be adopting an approach slightly distinct from that of the UK SMA in respect of the devolved Governments. I do not plan to explore that topic in any great depth today as I am sure this will be examined very thoroughly in Committee; if my former colleagues in the Law Society of Scotland have anything to do with it, they will guarantee that is the case. But I have a couple of questions to ask the Minister.

First, I understand from the Explanatory Notes that a legislative consent Motion is being sought from the Scottish Parliament. Given that the Notes further make clear that this process will apply only to Clauses 1 to 4 and 8 to 11 of the Bill, I ask my noble friend whether the Government plan to detail the discussions they have had with the devolved Administrations in respect of the legislative consent process. If they do not have such intentions, I urge them to get them because, from the point of view of our joint politics, it would be much easier to deal with these matters in the Scottish context if that is done.

Secondly, Clauses 1 to 4 and 8 to 11 empower the Secretary of State to make regulations in areas of devolved competence, but there is no requirement for him to consult with, or obtain consent from, Scottish Ministers before such regulations apply to Scotland. To forestall any possibility of this fact becoming yet another matter of unnecessary controversy during the implementation process, can my noble friend outline the circumstances in which regulations would be made without such consent being sought and granted—and, if it is not possible for him to do that today, will he write about it?

On the question of alignment, in the reaction to those elements of the Bill which concern the EU regulations, there are those who seem to believe that they can glimpse what TS Eliot described as

“the skull beneath the skin”—

that, behind what they regard as a designedly prosaic Bill, the Bill seeks to smuggle measures on to the statute book that would all but reverse Brexit, establish us as little more than a satrap of the European Union and condemn us, unthinkingly, to eight new European regulations as they emerge from the infernal bowels of the European Commission.

In that spirit, the Daily Express greeted this Bill with the typically understated headline “The Great Brexit Betrayal”, while another somewhat fevered headline suggested that this measure reduces Britain to nothing more than an “EU district”. Perhaps they are overstating things a little. This Bill offers nothing so apocalyptic, even for those who would regard greater EU alignment as inherently undesirable. Clause 2(7), for instance, would give the Secretary of State the power to declare UK product regulations met where these fulfil the requirements of the relevant EU law—this has already been referred to by others. This is caveated a little by the succeeding Clause 2(8), which makes it clear that this is subject to prior regard being given to the social, environmental and economic impact of EU alignment.

I know that Clause 2(7) has been particularly controversial, but there are a few points to make. First, this is an enabling power. It does not oblige the Secretary of State to accept EU regulations but gives him or her, an elected British Minister accountable to a sovereign Parliament, the ability so to do where it is believed that this would be in the UK’s national interest. Secondly, as the background briefing notes to the King’s Speech make clear, harmonisation is to be pursued only when

“it is in our interests to do so”.

This legislation also gives the Government the power to end recognition of EU product regulations where it is in

“the interests of UK businesses and consumers”

to do so.

The notion that regulation is inherently undesirable is flawed, to say the least. I will take the specific example of the chemical sector, where the enactment of the powers in this Bill could make a substantial beneficial difference. The last Government decided to leave REACH, the EU’s registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals regulation, to set up a parallel body. Since then, we have not adopted a single restriction on a harmful substance, compared with 10 new protections offered by EU regulation, including on harmful micro- plastics deliberately added to products. While REACH has regulated PFAs in the EU, not a single river or water body in England is in good chemical health.

As well as damaging wildlife and water bodies, these PFAs—so-called “forever chemicals”—have been found in high concentration in our drinking water, in pollution hotspots across the UK and even in our blood. Since we left REACH, the EU has initiated 23 risk assessments related to harmful substances while we have initiated just three. It may be that this is a function of a more vibrant, freebooting approach, or that we have superior data or a more effective methodology, but I fear it may just be that our duplicate body has simply proven less effective—which, in turn, imperils the safety of people in this country.

I have lost track of the number of Conservative Ministers I have seen in my 27 years in Parliament announcing their determination to kindle a bonfire of regulations, to take an axe to red tape or some similarly strenuous deregulatory measure. But the powers in this Bill that offer the chance for greater regulatory alignment will make trade with the EU easier across a variety of sectors, without any need for duplicate regulations. Indeed, Make UK, the manufacturers association, describes the Bill as “removing the uncertainty” created by the EU retained law Act, and giving Governments

“the ability to assess and implement EU product regulatory requirements into GB law for specific markets and categories”.

If I properly understood the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, I agree with him when I say that few things damage trade law more than uncertainty and asymmetry. It is therefore unclear, at least to me, how the British Government being empowered either to adopt or end EU regulations according to a calculus of self-interest represents an irreversible slide into geopolitical irrelevance.

In case your Lordships have not got it, I welcome the legislation before the House today. I look forward to participating in the later stages of its passage and offer the Government my support in ensuring that it reaches the statute book.