Great British Energy Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I support Amendment 1, in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes. I should declare at this point that I live about five miles away from Sizewell B nuclear power station and one that is about to be built, Sizewell C, and less than a mile away from other energy infrastructure that is still going through the planning process.

A lot of my time at the other end was taken up with considering the importance of energy, not only for a long-term sustainable future but the security issues rightly referred to in these objectives. The reason these objectives matter is that this is an unprecedented situation, where we are handing, in effect, a blank cheque to an arm’s-length body. Admittedly, it will have strategies set by the Secretary of State, but, as has been pointed out, there will be absolutely no reference to Parliament in its consideration. That is why the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Frost has attraction, in proposing at least having a direct connection with two Select Committees of the other place and a relationship with the chair of GB Energy. As my noble friend pointed out, these are the reasons that the Government gave us for having this new entity. Therefore, it would make a lot of sense for the Government to accept this amendment directly.

On Amendment 17, where I disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is that I do not believe we should get into legislation that dictates the amount of taxpayers’ money that will be spent. I have seen that happen before in legislation, and then all of a sudden money starts getting wasted. The whole purpose of this financial vehicle is to de-risk and bring in external private investment. That is a sensible approach, especially given the amount of uncertainty, which I appreciate the Government are trying to address in other ways. Nevertheless, for something such as energy security, a significant amount of investment is going to be required right across not just Great Britain but the United Kingdom, and this is a critical moment for our nation. That is why, while I think there will be money well spent, we should not be dictating a minimum.

The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, is really sensible. This company will be in an unusual situation—not unique, but unusual—and the extra information required, particularly in proposed new paragraph (d), is the core essence of why this company is being set up: it is stepping forward to try to get others to do so.

If anything, what has evolved over many years is the need for transparency and understanding. The amount of trust that people have in how their taxpayers’ money gets spent really matters in the contract that Parliament and government have with the electorate—the taxpayer. So, elements such as this will enforce the rationale rather than just necessarily seeing energy bills tick upwards, unfortunately.

So if Amendments 1 and 37 are pressed, I will certainly support them—although, regrettably, not Amendment 17 from the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 39 in my name. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for putting his name to it, and thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his warm comments on at least aspects of this amendment.

The broad aim of Amendment 39 is to do what a lot of other amendments have sought to do, both in Committee and no doubt today, which is to ensure that GBE gets the kind of scrutiny that a major public company would get: that is, its internal procedures, processes and purposes get a degree of public attention and comment. I worry that we are setting up a company over which there will be relatively little oversight and perhaps rather idiosyncratic governance compared with a normal public company. So it is with that in mind that I have tabled Amendment 39.

There are two aspects to the amendment. One is about pre-appointment scrutiny and the other is about what happens once the chair has his feet under the desk, as it were. I share the view of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that the first part of this is the most important part of the Bill.

Before getting into the substance I should declare an interest, which is that I am an unpaid director of the group Net Zero Watch—I am sorry for not mentioning that at the very start.

On the first aspect of this amendment, its purpose is to make sure that the appointment at least attracts a degree of scrutiny and comment from relevant Select Committees. When I put this amendment down in Committee, I had in mind only the Treasury Select Committee in the Commons, but I have picked up the suggestions made by others that the Environment and Climate Change Committee also ought to have a role in this. I emphasise that this amendment would not give those committees a block. The right to make the appointment does not go to those committees; it is the right to comment on a decision that the Secretary of State proposes to make and which he or she will still be able to make after the Select Committees have looked at it. That degree of public scrutiny is important. The chair is a public figure in many ways, and in fact we have seen, from some of the statements he has made already, that he intends to use that public platform to make comments. It seems right in these circumstances that there should be a degree of political scrutiny of this.

The Minister said in Committee that this was not in line with the guidance of the Cabinet Office for such appointments. But I suggest that, even under the hard rein of the internal regimen of the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, guidance written by a department cannot constrain the Government, or indeed the legislature. Indeed, we see that in real life, because the appointments of the chairs of Ofgem, the Climate Change Committee and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and so on, are all made in accordance with such a procedure. So there is really nothing novel here: it is the right thing to do for a major company of this nature and I hope the Minister will think hard about the defensibility of the position as it currently stands.

I will speak briefly to the second part of my amendment, which is really probing. The current arrangements for the accountability of the chair seem rather unclear. I guess formally he is accountable to shareholders, but the shareholder is obviously the Secretary of State and a chat with the Secretary of State is perhaps not enough for accountability for a company such as this. It may be that the auditors are not best placed to do that and it may be that there should be a degree of confidentiality to it, but there surely should be something that is formal and agreed and which can produce a degree of political debate. Perhaps the Minister can say exactly how this accountability will be achieved in practice, if it is not via some formal process of this nature. I repeat, to conclude, that the first subsection proposed by my amendment is the most important, and indeed, really quite substantively important to the nature of the body we are creating.

Great British Energy Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the concern that we have here is all to do with financing projects, and the worry that the Great British Energy fund will be used to bolster the financing of some highly speculative energy projects that the private sector is not prepared to back. Those are the ones that will be moving in the Government’s direction and they will be very speculative. They may well not make money; they may be almost doomed to lose money when they start.

There is a great concern here that, when the Treasury is raking around to get contributions for a highly speculative scheme, it will be looking for Great British Energy to put some money into the pot in addition to taxpayers’ money. One thinks here about the development of batteries or energy storage—which is all very controversial—and the whole business of storing CO₂ emissions and pumping that into existing oil wells. I am not sure that the technology for that has been completely satisfied. It all seems to be rather speculative as to whether it will ever happen.

That is the worry that many people have about this Bill. There is a very lively private sector that is happily picking all the low-hanging fruit when it comes to profitable ventures in the energy field. If we are not careful, Great British Energy will be left with everything else that is far from profitable, is extremely speculative and may well lose taxpayers’ money in the process. We want some reassurance from the Minister that this will not happen. Otherwise, it really will be an abuse of taxpayers’ money if Great British Energy just gets involved in all the things that the private sector is not prepared to back.

There are so many different areas that are very speculative when it comes to energy. We had a great debate about hydrogen in the past, for instance. My noble friend Lord Roborough and I do not in fact agree that there is a future for hydrogen. We do not seem to have had any great elucidation from the Minister on this; I do not know whether the Government think that hydrogen is a good idea or a bad one. Either way, it is a typical example of a very speculative form of alternative energy that could cost a fortune to develop and lose people an awful lot of money if it did not work out at the end of the day.

The point of my amendment is that I am very concerned that the Great British Energy fund will be used for these very speculative ventures and I am not sure that that is really what the taxpayer is looking for. I had an issue with what my noble friend Lady Bloomfield said about all the profit that would be made by Great British Energy. I am not sure that it will be making any profit; I think it is much more likely that it will make thundering great losses and all the billions of pounds that are put into it will merely disappear with very little to show for it in the future.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 130 in my name. I begin by noting my interests as set out in the register; I have a new interest as a director of Net Zero Watch.

Amendment 130 would postpone the entry into force of much of this Act until the Secretary of State publishes a comprehensive report setting out the full costs of the renewable energy industry. My noble friend Lord Hamilton has just set out the logic of having such a clause that delays the entry into force of certain provisions. From my point of view, the logic is that certain things need to be made clear before Great British Energy can effectively start its work.

It is in this area—the cost of renewables, the subsidies, the taxpayer support, the higher prices—that this problem of establishing the basis on which GBE is proceeding seems the strongest because it would be going into this without any reliable costings in this area and with a real sense that what is known about the costs of renewables is not being disclosed entirely frankly for full and honest debate. When we try to have a debate on this subject, we are often shot down by a statement that, whatever the costs, the costs of climate change are higher. But again, that is never set out. I was lucky enough yesterday to be able to ask the Secretary of State when the last cost-benefit analysis had been done on this subject, and he said it was in 2021. That was before the Ukraine war, which is used as the justification for the rush to renewables.

The NESO report was produced last autumn. It shows that both the pathways to decarbonisation of the energy grid in 2030 are more expensive than doing nothing. That is even clearer if you eliminate the vastly inflated carbon price included in those costings. My right honourable friend the shadow Secretary for Energy Claire Coutinho said last week that internal work within the department on the full system costs of renewables, which she commissioned when she was Energy Secretary, had been stopped. That work would have given us the data that would have enabled the report that my amendment requires.

To conclude on this point, I refer to a blog by Sir Dieter Helm, a well-known expert in this area and not someone with whom I agree on the fundamentals of climate change. He says in this blog, written last week, on the prospect of renewables costs falling:

“It would be wonderful if it was true, but sadly it isn’t anytime soon”.


He goes on to say the UK and the EU are

“telling fairy tales that ‘it’s all going to be cheaper’ here”.

He is one of the biggest experts in this area. We need honesty and GBE needs clarity about the reality on which it is proceeding with its work. That is why I have tabled my amendment, and why we need a proper report and clarity. GBE needs a reliable starting point so that its actions can be tested against reality and we can be sure that it is acting properly in the public interest. I hope the Minister looks at the issue with that in mind, and perhaps gives this amendment sympathetic consideration.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom’s Amendment 118B, with which I obviously agree, as I do on most things—apart from the widespread competitiveness of green hydrogen. I also draw the Committee’s attention to my interests in solar and wind energy project development.

This amendment appears entirely logical in preventing GB Energy investing in any project whose economics depend wholly or in part on government support. This would prevent any impression that the Government may be self-dealing or that there could be any bias in project support from the Government. Without the amendment, there is a risk of a chilling effect on private sector projects that may wish to compete with projects backed by GB Energy, if there is a perception that the Government will always prefer GB Energy projects. There is also a risk that the Government will face the moral hazard of temptation to prop up failing GB Energy projects and investments. For these reasons, this is a highly desirable amendment.

I am also interested in the Minister’s replies to my noble friend Lord Frost on the whole system cost of renewables—particularly if the Minister were able to give this Committee some insight into the carbon costs that his department are using. If he cannot do so now, perhaps he can do so in writing. If the Minister does not agree with the wisdom of my noble friend’s amendment, what transparency can he offer into the amount of government support that may be falling into the hands of GB Energy’s projects?

Great British Energy Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th January 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Frost]

98: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause—
“The Chair of Great British Energy(1) The Chair of Great British Energy may not be appointed until the appointment has been scrutinised by the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons, or any successor committee.(2) The Chair of Great British Energy must be based full-time at the headquarters of Great British Energy in Aberdeen.(3) The Chair of Great British Energy must undergo an annual review on their performance and—(a) this review must be carried out by external auditors;(b) this review must be submitted to the Secretary of State and laid before Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This would require the Chair of Great British Energy to undergo pre-appointment scrutinisation, to be based at Great British Energy’s headquarters full-time and to undergo an annual review of their performance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 98 I will also speak to Amendment 99 in my name. As it is the first time I have spoken in Committee, I take this opportunity to declare an interest as the director of the company Net Zero Watch.

I have a couple of preliminary remarks before turning to the text of the amendments. These two amendments very much echo themes that we have been debating at length over the last day or two. They are amendments to make up for the lack of detail in the Bill and to ensure, as my noble friend Lady Noakes pointed out the other day, that this company is subject to the same degree of scrutiny that large public companies would expect to face. With the Bill, we are creating a company with precious little oversight or scrutiny as normally understood in company law, and with an idiosyncratic version of the normal governance and accountability arrangements that go with a normal company. Of course, this fact is why nationalised public companies are typically so badly run.

The only detail we have had on the ground covered by these two amendments is in the founding statement, which says:

“Led by its own CEO, Great British Energy will be overseen by an independent fiduciary Board, rather than ministers, benefitting from industry-leading expertise and experience across its remit. Trade unions will also have a voice and representation within Great British Energy”.


Although Ministers both here and in the Commons have commented on that, they have not gone beyond what that statement says, and we are still left rather unclear about how these arrangements are to work, other than to say that normal company law will apply. As I say, that is not quite enough, and these amendments are designed to fill the gap here.

I turn to the text of the amendments. Amendment 98 is designed to set out a few minimum requirements for the themes that we have been talking about: transparency and accountability. Amendment 98 would make clear that there must be a chair and, more importantly, that the appointment of the chair would require a degree of parliamentary scrutiny, in this case by the Treasury Committee. As has been noted, we have already trespassed slightly on this ground, and the Minister noted that this degree of scrutiny would be going beyond precedent. He read out the Cabinet Office guidance on this subject, which is interesting but not decisive for this House and the legislators.

Certainly, the degree of parliamentary scrutiny is dictated by the very political nature of this job, and quite a political figure has been appointed to it as the current chair. He has not been shy in giving us his ambitions for the company. He told the Guardian on 17 October that he thought it should become a “national champion” and

“a longer-term operator in … areas, such as floating offshore wind”.

I do not know whether that is the Government’s view of the development of GB Energy—it might or might not be—but they are statements by the chair and, by making them, he is coming into the arena of political debate about the company. Therefore, some sort of political process in his appointment seems logical. I cannot help noting that he has made broader reflections on politics, populism and progressivism, and he has been a quite a critic of Brexit in the past. Of course, he is entitled to have these opinions but, once you get into the political field, you must expect to face a degree of political scrutiny of your appointment. That is why this amendment would require such public scrutiny.

Similar thoughts are behind the other part of this amendment: the requirement for a publicly available review of performance against the purposes of GBE, and that this should be done independently. Once again, we come back to the point that has been touched on at length: that this is an unusual company and that normal accountability mechanisms are not there. There is only one shareholder, the content of the board is uncertain and, as it stands, there is no requirement in the Bill for directors of any kind at all—although I will come on to Amendment 99. This is a public company, fulfilling absolutely classical public goals, so there must be accountability to the public in how it is run.

Proposed new subsection (2) would require the chair to be based full time at the headquarters of the company, which has been said to be Aberdeen. The Government have made a virtue of that fact, at some length, when talking about GBE. They also confirmed, in October, that the new chair would be based in Manchester. It is not unusual for a non-executive chair to be based somewhere else, but the current chair role is not exactly a non-executive one; it is quite hands on. I struggle to see how one can run the company in quite that way.

The Government say that he will

“regularly spend time in Aberdeen”.

That is good and important, obviously—but this is a new company. It needs leadership as it is built up. If the taxpayer is going to get value for money out of the chair, his salary and the process, he should be where the company is when he is working.

I wish to record that Amendment 99 is a copy of an amendment tabled by Andrew Bowie MP and debated in the Commons—although perhaps it was not fully debated. Again, this comes back to the fact that we are dealing with an unusual company. What is being created is, in many ways, more like an executive arm of HMG than a genuinely independent company. The description that the Minister just gave about the role of the CEO rather confirmed that. It sounded much more like the role of the Permanent Secretary of a department, responsible to Parliament as accounting officer, than the role of a genuine CEO of a company.

The Bill is literally silent on appointment processes, content of the board and so on. The amendment is designed to fill that gap, to give clarity on numbers, and to make it clear that there must be non-executives as well as executives, that there must be a CEO as well the chair, that there can be no repeated appointment beyond defined limits and so on. That is a bare minimum. There already are some provisions in the Bill connected with the articles of association, so the line of principle about what is right to include in the Bill and what is not has already been passed. I hope that, with that in mind, the Minister will consider that these are serious amendments designed to deal with potential weaknesses in the corporate governance and accountability of GB Energy. I look forward to hearing his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive and understanding response, and I thank other noble Lords who spoke in support of these amendments. I have two very quick points in response.

First, I note what the Minister says about the likely degree of independence of Great British Energy. We will have to see how that turns out, but I make the point, which was not really dealt with in his response, that there will always be an area where the company thinks that something is operational, but the Government believe it is political. That is where it is important to have clarity on relationships and how accountability works, so I am not entirely persuaded that the Bill gets this right at the moment, but I hear what he says.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I am not sure that you can legislate for this. I understand what he says, because as Ministers, we have relationships with a number of key bodies at the moment. We have formal relationships, there are accountabilities, reports and meetings, but we also build up trust, understanding and working closely together. It is difficult to legislate for that. In saying that we want GBE to work, it has to feel operationally independent, or it is not going to work. We cannot micromanage it, but on the other hand, we are setting the tramlines in the context in which it operates. It is hard to go much further than that, in reality.

[Lord Frost]

Obviously, there is a degree of judgment and practice in how these things are done. There is also a degree of judgment on the extent to which it is desirable to fix the framework within which these judgments and relationships operate, which is probably the area of disagreement.

On the question of where the chair is based, the amendment may not be perfectly drafted. I think there is a difference between “based at” and “resident at”. The point of this amendment is to make sure that the business of the company, when transacted by the chair, is very firmly in Aberdeen, the HQ of the company, and not dragged elsewhere by the fact that the chair may not be resident there. This may not perfectly deal with that point, but it is an important point all the same, so I welcome the Minister’s comments on it. I will reflect on whether any of this is necessary at Report, because it is part of a wider discussion, but for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 98 withdrawn.

Great British Energy Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Frost]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 3, at end insert “, in order to advance the objectives set out in subsection (1A).
(1A) The objectives which the Secretary of State must seek to advance in designating a company as Great British Energy are—(a) reducing household energy costs in a sustainable way, and(b) promoting the United Kingdom’s energy security.”

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 2 in my name, and I thank my noble friend Lord Offord for his Front-Bench support for it. I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests as set out in the register, and I note my regret that I could not be here for Second Reading.

The purpose of my amendment is to establish why the Government are creating Great British Energy and what its underlining objectives and purposes are. Ideally, this would be clear from the Bill or the related documentation, but it is such a thin Bill that calling it a “skeleton” Bill really does not do it justice. Its rather evanescent, wraith-like provisions provide no solidity other than giving a fig leaf of cover to the willed actions of the Secretary of State. I think that we as legislators and the British people are owed a bit more than that from the Bill.

Before I come to the detail, I note that the Bill includes a requirement for the articles of association to contain a statement of “objects”. Of course, objects are not the same as objectives, and what is now Clause 3(2) bears that out. The objects there described are process requirements on the company and limits on where it may spend its very generous taxpayer funding: production of energy, reduction of carbon emissions, energy efficiency, security of supply and so on. They are a “what”; they not the “why”.

The Bill also includes a requirement, in Clause 5, for Great British Energy to have strategic priorities and plans but, again, there is absolutely no constraint on the Secretary of State as to what those strategic priorities may be. Really, this is not good enough for a vehicle for £8 billion of taxpayers’ cash. It is important to have a clear idea of why Great British Energy exists and what its purposes are. That is what my amendment is there to secure and why it is written as it is.

My amendment sets out two objectives for Great British Energy:

“reducing household energy costs in a sustainable way”

and

“promoting the United Kingdom’s energy security”.

In putting those two objectives forward, I am not inserting my own view to substitute for that of the Government. Rather, I am ventriloquising into the Bill, looking at the political statements, spoken and in writing, of the Government and the party opposite and trying to use them to ascertain why they feel this Bill and this company are necessary.

I will briefly take noble Lords through this. I look first, of course, at the Labour Party manifesto— a document whose probative status has been quite significantly weakened in recent months, one might say, but it is all that we have. Number four of the six priorities of the party says:

“Set up Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company, to cut bills for good and boost energy security”.


Those are the two purposes set out in my amendment. Similarly, the launch document for Great British Energy, which was published on 25 July, says that:

“In an unstable world, the only way to guarantee our energy security and protect billpayers permanently is to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels”,


et cetera. At Second Reading in the Commons on 5 September, the Secretary of State said that the Bill would “protect family finances”. The Energy Minister said that it would

“guarantee our energy security and protect bill payers”—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/24; col. 529.]

once again.

It seems a fair reading to see these as the underlying purposes of Great British Energy and to see them reflected in the Bill. If the Minister, speaking for the Government, thinks differently on this, then perhaps in winding up he could explain what the Government see as the objectives of Great British Energy instead and why they should be different from those in this amendment.

Noble Lords may ask why, if those purposes are understood by all concerned to be the objectives of Great British Energy, they need to be reflected explicitly in the Bill. There are a few reasons. The first, which I have touched on, is simple transparency. The hard-pressed British taxpayer needs to know why they are being asked to stump up over £8 billion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always helpful to have that kind of clarification, because I certainly was not intending to mislead the Committee in any way. From what I see in Clause 3, I am clear that GBE can participate in, encourage and facilitate the production, distribution, et cetera—informed, as I say, by the strategic plans and priorities. But I will obviously look at that and, if I have got myself confused, I will certainly reflect on it.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his response and to all those who contributed to our discussion, including the mini-discussion at the end about the difference between objectives and objects, which is important and I am sure we will return to it. I do not want to detain noble Lords long but, as the Minister repeated the words of Lady Thatcher on this subject, I cannot forbear repeating her words in her final work on it:

“By the end of my time as Prime Minister I was also becoming seriously concerned about the anti-capitalist arguments which the campaigners against global warming were deploying”.


She—rightly, in my view—added:

“We should be suspicious of plans for global regulation that all too clearly fit in with other preconceived agendas. We should demand of politicians that they apply the same criteria of commonsense and a sense of proportion to their pronouncements on the environment as to anything else”.


Those wise words are worth bearing in mind today when we discuss this issue.

I am not sure that we have entirely got to the bottom of this issue, and I suspect that we will have to return to it in some form on Report, because it is so fundamental to what the Bill is about. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Frost Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this landmark Bill, and I welcome my noble friend the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to their Front-Bench positions. I firmly believe that the Bill protects consumer rights. However, I declare an interest as a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which scrutinises statutory instruments. In that respect, I refer to the amendment in the names of my noble friend Lady Crawley, the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, which would require the Secretary of State to conduct appropriate consultation on draft regulations under the Act.

It is vital that we set out as we mean to go on. One criticism that our committee had of many of the statutory instruments is the lack of proper consultation, as well as inadequate memorandums and impact assessments. This amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Crawley is timely, and I urge my noble friends on the Front Bench to accept it. More effective scrutiny processes are required in legislation to ensure that the policy decisions made with the powers set out in the Bill can be effectively scrutinised as products and marketplaces evolve, particularly those that will evolve online. It is important that consumers are totally protected.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, referred to relationships with the EU. I hope that the Government are successful in resetting that relationship and that there is a closer relationship with the EU, because it is important not only for trade but for society and economic growth—and it is good for wider relations in this part of our global world.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I shall speak briefly to my Amendment 128. I begin, like others, by congratulating my noble friend Lord Sharpe on his role.

My amendment is only a small one, and it is overwhelmed by the pretty savage surgery proposed in other amendments tabled by other noble Lords—a surgery that is well merited, on the basis of what we have seen so far. I shall save my substantive remarks on my main concerns about the Bill until the fourth group, where most of my amendments lie. I share the concerns about constitutional and democratic process expressed by other noble Lords so far. I would probably not go so far as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, in advocating a very complex, process-heavy and corporatist EU-type process for the Bill, because I believe that speed and simplicity in legislation are also advantageous —but certainly, if any of the Bill survives, we need some sort of serious scrutiny-sifting process to make it work.

My Amendment 128 is just one tiny part of this. It would ensure that, if Clause 2 survived at all, the powers under Clause 2(7) would be exercised—if they were exercised—under the affirmative procedure. That, however, is really a minor part, when we look at some of the other proposals on the table. Nevertheless, I hope that the Minister will reflect, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Frost]

4: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave out subsection (2)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes from the Bill a broadly-drawn power to align with EU environmental regulation.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 4, I will also speak to my Amendments 6, 15, 36, 37 and 42. I thank the Minister for the constructive exchanges we have had in the previous two or three weeks, both face to face and in writing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I will pick up where I left off. I was about to note that my six amendments in this group have a substantive purpose and, I guess, a probing, clarificatory purpose. I will begin with the substantive. My amendments are separate, but they all stem from the same broad thought, and they are designed to deal with the fact that the powers in the Bill give Ministers the ability to make regulations for products in the UK, or GB, in a range of areas defined by simple reference to existing EU laws; and, beyond that, to provide for those regulations to evolve dynamically —that is, when the EU changes its law, that change feeds through into our regulations.

Personally, I am not and have never been a purist in this area. I do not think it is necessary for GB to have its own defined sets of rules on every single thing, with the UKCA designation that covers everything—unless, of course, we were to drop the current approach to regulation entirely, which was, after all, developed in the last few decades under an EU law framework, and revert to a more traditional, common-law, objectives-based framework. That is possibly a step too far for the time being. Given that, it makes sense to look at other standards and whether they work for us. In practice, that is what happens now, in a limited way. For example, we recognise the CE marking for the EU while sometimes having the UKCA marking or our own rules in parallel, but there are two problems with this.

First, I do not see why that possibility of recognising other standards should be limited to EU law only. Of course, I do not really agree with the thrust of Amendment 17 in this group, which we are about to discuss, which would require alignment with EU law. We may want to use other standards from other territories with less prescriptive regulatory frameworks, and we may want to allow goods with different standards from more than one place to compete on our market to make the country open to the best standards globally. That is the first problem the Bill presents.

Secondly, I do not really think it is right for us in this Parliament to subcontract our lawmaking to another body. It must be clear what the law of this country is at any given moment; it must be properly on our books. It is not good enough to say to the question “What is the law on product X?” that the answer is whatever EU regulation number whatever says it is today. My amendments are designed to deal with these points, and I take them in logical, not numerical, order.

Amendment 4 deletes Clause 1(2). I propose this really to explore why it is necessary, in a Bill specifically on product regulation, to include the ability to import large areas of EU environmental law. I can see that it might be convenient, but the same could be said of lots of other areas too. If there is a more specific and persuasive explanation, I would be interested to hear it from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have reassured the Committee with my comments and respectfully ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate, even though it may have had a slightly retro feel to those who lived through it all in 2019 and 2020.

I have a couple of quick points. On Amendment 37, if it is genuinely the Government’s view that this clause is not intended to and does not give the power to create ambulatory references, it seems we agree on substance—but maybe it could be clearer in the Bill.

On my question about the Windsor Framework, I gently suggest that the Minister has not quite answered the point. It is not about mirroring in GB; it is about goods that are able to circulate in Northern Ireland and therefore can circulate in the rest of the UK without further ado. I would appreciate it if that could be clarified further. I will not prolong this debate, even though I suspect we will return to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.