Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Rosser and Lord Dykes

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

That is the reality that is now hitting members of public—and not just the press in article after article, comment after comment—as people interviewed say that they were not given sufficient warning.

On the detailed policies, this might seem to be a minor matter, and in one way it is, but it is of great importance to the environment and to the health of the motor vehicle industry in this country, which faces such a gloomy prospect now in view of the most recent developments. The point I was making, which I think is entirely valid, is that after the referendum result, and at least before the 8 June 2017 election when the Prime Minister completely lost the mandate to continue “Brexit means Brexit”—which needs to be remembered as well, but she carried on regardless—the Government should have started going through all the legislative responsibilities they needed to enact. This would have reassured the public that if there was continuity of any kind in policy formation, if we thought that the EU policy system, of which we were devoted members for 45 years, was sufficient, it would be protected.

I come now to the quick points I want to make to cement my agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was saying as well. I, too, cannot understand why there is no proper explanation of paragraph 2.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum. Further, paragraph 2.5 says:

“The proposed changes are designed to ensure that the CO₂ emissions of new cars and vans registered in the UK after the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union continue to be regulated in a manner that is at least as ambitious as current arrangements. If these changes are not made, then the retained EU legislation would have no legal impact on newly registered cars and vans in the UK”.


That, too, would cause a certain amount of alarm unless it was properly explained by the Government. I also agree with the question marks raised about paragraph 7.

Consultation was conducted on the second document, at least. According to the Explanatory Memorandum:

“There were seven responses to the consultation all of which were broadly supportive of the proposals”.


However, no detail is given, unless one gets the full government documentation. It sounds very strange that there were only seven responses to the major matter of the future of the motor vehicle industry. Once again, it probably indicates inadequate time for people to be able to consider these things.

Finally, paragraph 11.1 says:

“Detailed guidance on how the regulations will function and how the various flexibility mechanisms should be applied for will be provided to manufacturers, and made available on line, as soon as it practicable to do so”.


Is this future legislation or just extensions of regulations? When is it going to be? We urgently need guidance now from the Government on all these matters.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be briefer than I had intended, mainly because most of the points I wanted to raise have already been made. I am afraid there will inevitably be some degree of repetition.

As the Explanatory Memorandum says in relation to the first SI:

“EU law requires manufacturers of road vehicles and engines for non-road mobile machinery to be type approved before production can begin”.


It goes on to say:

“The proposed changes are designed to ensure that the type approval regime is effective after EU withdrawal”.


We then come on—and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, already referred to this—to the reason for the proposed changes. It says:

“If these changes are not made the legislation will not be operable after EU withdrawal because the UK would be required to continue to accept motor vehicles entering the UK market which have a type approval granted by one of the EU 27 approval authorities, and would have no formal way to challenge the validity of the approval”.


I think the question has already been asked but I will ask it again: how many challenges have there been so far under the existing arrangements if this is now being put forward, as it almost seems to be the sole major reason for making the changes we are now discussing?

I had also intended to read out paragraph 2.4, but I will not as my noble friend Lord Adonis has already done so. It makes reference to the interim arrangement that will be introduced, which is valid,

“for a maximum of two years, pending a comprehensive review and re-working of the UK’s type approval arrangements (with legislation planned for mid-2019)”.

I put it to the Minister that if we are talking about introducing an interim arrangement for a maximum of two years, with uncertainty as to what will happen after two years, does that not create quite a lot of uncertainty for the motor industry going forward? This SI may or may not clear up uncertainty for a short period of time, but it certainly does not do so over a much longer period of time. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.

As I say, the Explanatory Memorandum makes reference to the interim arrangement, under which there will be a need for,

“manufacturers holding an EU approval from an EU-27 approval authority … and producing motor vehicles on or after Exit day … to apply for a Provisional UK type approval from the VCA in order to be able to register their motor vehicles in Great Britain or Northern Ireland”.

How quick is this process for applying for a provisional UK type approval? After all, we are getting pretty close to 29 March, so how many of these motor vehicle manufacturers have already applied for one; how many applications are we expecting; is there loads of paperwork to fill in; is it a formality; and on what basis would an application be accepted or rejected? Presumably, that in itself might create a further degree of uncertainty for the motor industry in this country.

My noble friend Lord Adonis has already raised the issue of consultation and read out the bit from paragraph 10.1 that says:

“No formal consultation has been undertaken, as the intention is to ensure that, as far as possible, the status quo is maintained”.


I share his view that that is not a very good reason for not holding a consultation. Surely the consultation, or at least one key part of it, would be on whether what is in front of us achieves the objective of maintaining the status quo, since maybe some of the manufacturers or others involved in the industry might think that it does not. But since no formal consultation has taken place, presumably they were not invited on a formal basis to offer their views on that particular, rather key issue.