REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

I see the wrinkled faces of those opposite me and they will be glad to know that I have reached the end of this point. There are clearly many flaws in this statutory instrument. Some of them have been highlighted also by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and I am sure that we will hear about others from my noble friend Lord Teverson. That is why I have tabled this amendment and I await the Minister’s response with interest. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

I should inform the House that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call either of the other amendments to the Motion on the Order Paper by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, in the light of that, I should like to speak to my amendment and to the contributions made so far. It is some time since I have found myself on the Front Bench, so I had better observe the niceties.

First, I thank the Minister for spelling out these complex regulations. No one denies the need, post Brexit, for robust regulation in this field. However, I contend that the way in which the Government are going about it is causing excessive bureaucracy and cost. The Minister rightly referred to the work that his department has done in talking to the industry, and the industry appreciates that, but he must be aware that there are still grave concerns among large sectors of the industry and firms, as well as downstream firms, about the situation post Brexit. I thank his department for all that work and I thank him for producing the latest UK REACH guidance yesterday, bringing together previous technical notes and updating them, but it is a little late given that these regulations were laid when we thought that by Friday we might be out of the EU.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his amendment. I agreed with pretty much every word he said and I will try not to repeat his points—at least not at great length—but I disagree with the purport of his amendment. The regrettable fact is that we are in an unenviable position here. These regulations could have come into effect on Friday and might still come into effect in two and a half weeks’ time. As is the case with so many of the no-deal contingency regulations that we have been through, whatever we might think and whatever the ideal outcome might have been, industry, consumers and the workforce need some degree of certainty about what happens on Brexit day and the day after. If we do not have these regulations, as is the intention of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, we will be in a legal vacuum. Given the complexity of this area, the potential danger and the hazardous nature of many of the chemicals covered by the regulations, as well as the legal and insurance situations, I suspect that a lot of trade will grind to a halt. That would be very dangerous for the environment and very expensive to the sector.