Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord always poses his questions wishing me to say “yes”. I am sympathetic to the points he raised but I cannot commit, and I cannot go further than what I said this afternoon except to say that this is a very important area and clearly something that we as a Government need to strongly reflect upon.

Having said that, I hope that I have indicated to noble Lords that I understand the important issues raised. I have given an absolute assurance from the Dispatch Box that we want to make our relationships with the devolved Governments as effective as possible. It is true that four can play but we hope that we will be able to deliver this and that we will get consent. Again, I would like to reflect some more on some of the tricky legal issues that both the noble and learned Lords raised.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response to my amendments and for his assurances on the way forward that he sees on these matters.

I would like to make two points. First, I appreciate entirely that consulting on every single regulation would be a very time-consuming process, and I have seen the extent of to-and-fro engagement that goes on behind the scenes with good will between civil servants on both sides of the border. It is obviously a matter that deserves reflection and I absolutely understand why the Minister would like to take more time to look closely at it.

Secondly, as far as common frameworks are concerned, it always struck me in dealing with this subject that it is a great misfortune that the language chosen to identify them was not as readily identifiable as “internal market”. When you talk about the internal market everybody knows at once what it means but when you talk about common frameworks nobody knows what it means.

The Minister has obviously done some homework and has reassured me he understands the point, but the particular point about common frameworks is that it is a living process. It is perfectly true that there is a list of the frameworks—some 32 of them—but the prospect of having new ones is there all the time. One of the examples is that, in Wales, they are considering diverging from elsewhere on single-use plastics. I may be wrong but our products are developing all the time and each part of the UK might have an idea that it suits them to have a particular regime that they would like to discuss and introduce.

I ask the Minister to bear in mind that it is a living process and we have to make provision for the future. That is what my amendment seeks to do. I chose the words that were indeed the Government’s words in the internal market Act, so it is a system that they were prepared to accept. I am quite prepared to discuss this with the Minister further if he would like to and welcome his promise of future engagement before Report.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, of course, I very much welcome that. It is worth just referring to Section 10 of the 2020 Act, which defines a “common framework agreement” as

“a consensus between a Minister of the Crown and one or more devolved administrations”.

I take the noble and learned Lord’s point that “common framework agreement” does not readily come off the tongue but the wording very much sets the tone of the relationship that we want to see developed.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

The Minister is right. Consensus lies at the heart of the common framework system. There will not be agreement across the various Administrations without consensus but, where consensus exists, it is a signal that they should be protected against any misfortune on legislation that is across the entire United Kingdom.

Having said all that and with gratitude to the Minister for what he said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Committee stage
Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 27, which is principally in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. There is a lot to be said in this particularly obscure Bill for the publication of regulations in advance of their being made, so that people can see them in draft and consider them before they take effect. Regulators themselves would of course be consulted if this amendment is passed, but publication gives the opportunity for the wider public to scrutinise them, and no doubt inform this House and the other place, before the crucial point comes when the regulations are made. So I support this particular amendment.

There is a lot of force in the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that to confine this provision to the priority professions perhaps misses the point. Perhaps there should be a requirement across the board. There are other important professions that are not in this list. I am not claiming this particularly for the legal profession, as there are certainly other professions that are absent from this list, given the enormously long list of people who are within the purview of this Bill. The amendment may be a starting point but, for what it is worth, I support it.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord. I put my name to these amendments because I regard full and transparent consultation as very important. At its heart, the integrity and independence of our regulators is at stake. The problem is that the Bill gives far too many powers to Ministers. In the previous debate the Minister said that future trade agreements will not compromise standards. I wonder what our farmers and fishers think of that. We know that the Government are desperate for trade deals and that they have a track record of carelessness about their details. Clause 3 gives Ministers a completely free hand when it comes to trade agreements.

This debate is also set in the context of the independence of health regulators and fears that it may be compromised. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, made a cogent analysis of the interrelationship, or lack of it, between this Bill and the current extensive consultation by the Department of Health and Social Care on the reform of the health regulatory bodies. Those proposals are extensive and, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, give extensive powers to each regulator to streamline its own processes. I support that, because the public will benefit from more streamlined approaches to fitness to practise, which will deal with issues more quickly.

However, alongside this, it is widely expected that the forthcoming NHS Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech will contain extensive provisions on the very same regulatory bodies in health that we are talking about today. One provision will be to allow Ministers, by regulation, to abolish a regulator and establish others. I have huge reservations about this, because surely it puts their independence at risk if, on a whim, a Minister can get rid of a regulator that they do not like. When you put that prospect together with this Bill, alarm bells start to ring. Consultation is not everything, but it is a safeguard. My noble friend’s amendment would provide one such safeguard that I believe we need.