Draft Intellectual Property (Copyright and Related Rights) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Harrington of Watford and Henry Smith

Monday 11th February 2019 General Committees

[Richard Harrington]

Yes, it is. The hon. Member for Huddersfield has been to far more than I have.

I hope the shadow Whip will accept that I am not generally one for waffle on this kind of thing. I do not know the answer to his question, but I know that formal minutes were not published because there was a discussion rather than a formal consultation. He does not have a copy of the minutes in his pack because there are not any.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

How were the companies invited to the roundtables? How were they selected?

[Richard Harrington]

They were selected because the officials concerned understood them to be the main stakeholders in the field. They are experienced at their jobs. As I have said before, I have found the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to have a very good system of consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

There were roundtable discussions, not a formal consultation that was put online. It was a group of stakeholders that the Department thought were the relevant ones. The Department wanted to hear their views and listen to what they had to say, and that is reflected in this no-deal statutory instrument. The point that the hon. Gentleman makes—he usually makes it—is about the view of industry and business on leaving the European Union. In this case, we are talking about a limited amount of what we might call crash-out, emergency, hard-Brexit statutory instruments. No minute was kept because it was not a formal consultation, but roundtables are like that—people raise their views and officials take note of them.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful for the Minister’s generosity in giving way. He has used the term “crashing out” twice now. I appreciate that there are a range of opinions across the Committee about the merits or otherwise of Brexit—I see some well-known suspects in the Committee Room, and I think I know the Minister’s view, too. When industry stakeholders were brought in, was their selection conducted with a bias towards “remain” opinions, or was it more random?

[Richard Harrington]

I do not want to mislead my hon. Friend. I do not know about this specific case, but I could give him other examples in which the Department has consulted with stakeholders. I assure him categorically that their views on Brexit would be the last consideration. The Department is a professional organisation run by very professional civil servants. From a ministerial point of view, I have come across no case in which any Minister would say, “We are having that company in, but not that one.” That would be very improper. I reassure him categorically on that point.