Draft Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 General Committees

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I note that you can get from one end of the Committee corridor to the other far more quickly than I can. That is something to bear in mind for future meetings.

I find this evening’s discussion quite complex, and not only because of the complexity of what is before us. By the way, I think I will be saying this fairly regularly in Delegated Legislation Committees: this matter should not be before us in the shape of an SI. We are increasingly getting to the position where we cannot properly scrutinise these matters. This is one example of that. I find the subject quite complex not because of the complexity of the stuff before us, important though that is—I thank the Minister for providing a rapid guide to it in its complexity—but because of what might happen in terms of eco-design, energy labelling, and, as the Minister mentioned, the CE label mark in the event of a no-deal Brexit. What will happen in terms of the operation of those different marks and their acceptability? The Minister mentioned that the CE labelling would be acceptable in the UK for a limited period, but we have had no clarification of what the regime for energy labelling, for example, is likely to be.

The legal position immediately after a no-deal Brexit is that, even though the standards will be the same, those EU labels will not be acceptable in the UK, and vice versa. Third parties, certainly after a short period, will have to undertake two separate regimes of labelling, even though the standards may be identical. As far as I understand it, there has been no discussion of how those labelling arrangements might be acceptable on an interchangeable basis, provided that the regime is the same.

I welcome the fact that the Minister assured the Committee that, as we adopt these new requirements in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the various regulations that comprise the eco-design and eco-labelling specifications will not be in any way amended as a result of the draft regulations—that is to say, the arrangements will be identical in substance, as far as having the same regime is concerned. If we are to have anything that is usable immediately post a no-deal Brexit, it will be very important that it is absolutely clear that EU and UK arrangements are identical. If the Minister can shed a little light on that, I would be very grateful.

Let us assume that the arrangements will be identical. In that case, we have the following position: there is a body of regulations and arrangements that makes the design of energy-related products fit for sale and use within the EU. Obviously, under such circumstances as we are discussing, the eco-design arrangements regarding items fit for sale and use would hopefully be grafted wholly on to the UK position.

Then we have the eco-labelling information, which arises from the eco-design. It is the sticker that we see on fridges, freezers and other items that gives us the energy rating and other things. As the Minister said, that will be subject to a redesign by the EU shortly after we will have left in the event of a no-deal Brexit. When that happens, that will presumably also have to be incorporated into UK regulations in order to keep that UK-EU equivalence going.

The third pillar of this, although it is not exactly what the draft regulations are about, is the CE labelling, which sits over all the other things. The eco-design is what makes the product saleable. The eco-labelling is the information that should be provided to the public as a result of the design. The CE label is what makes anything, including energy-related products, saleable and useable throughout the EU. Anything that will be sold in the EU has to have that CE label on it.

In the explanatory memorandum there is a passing reference to the fact that all that will be subject to the CE marking framework. It indicates that the UK marking that will replace the CE marking will be introduced by the draft Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. My understanding is that until that statutory instrument is introduced and replaces the CE marking with a UK marking, the rest of this falls down because they are all subject to that arrangement. Although that SI has been published, I understand that it has not been laid or discussed in Committee.

It is rather important that we receive some kind of assurance that that statutory instrument will go through before the possible occurrence of a disorderly Brexit. If it does not, the set will be incomplete. What we are discussing will have no substance because there will not be a regime to enable the CE marking that oversees the whole process to be replaced with a UK marking. The Minister says the UK has indicated that there will be a time-limited period—I do not know whether that is unilateral or negotiated and whether it will be months, years or weeks. It would be helpful for the Minister to give an indication of how that might work.

There is likely to be a pretty chaotic arrangement to determine who will have what standards affixed to their products for sale in the UK from Europe. A European piece of electrical goods sold in the UK will have to have a European energy standard attached to it and, presumably, on the other side, an identical UK thing stuck on. I hope the eco-design will be the same, although there are indications in this SI that the Secretary of State will have powers to alter those arrangements if necessary. I would have thought that the Secretary of State would do such a thing at his or her peril, inasmuch as that would throw out the possibility of any alignment of standards for future reference out the window.

That emphasises the need to keep the arrangements aligned, because I anticipate that there will have to be discussions and arrangements for how those things work in the long term. These regulations provide no solution to that. All they do is provide a regime that allows standards to be maintained in the UK; they give no indication of how the trading arrangements will work from the EU to the UK, the UK to the EU and third parties to both the UK and the EU in future. That is a particularly dangerous area for us to go into.

Although I understand that these regulations are necessary to align with what exists in the EU, they lack clarity about how the regime will work in the longer term. Does the Minister have any intention to make further clarifications, or will further statutory instruments come our way to give us further definitions? One has to be in the pipeline very shortly in order to sort out the CE regulations, but there may be others to sort out those trading regulations. I am interested to hear from the Minister whether it is the Government’s intention to clarify any of those positions about what is acceptable for trading purposes in different parts of the UK.

My reading is that it is not about whether arrangements themselves are parallel and equal in their effect but about whether, if a label is placed on a sale item in the UK or the EU and that label is not valid, even if the background is, the product can be sold. Unless there are good arrangements at least for the time-limited period the Minister mentions, or better oversight arrangements for that trading, even with the regulations in place we are potentially in for a period of complete chaos. Potentially, goods will be prevented from going into a country or an area as a result of people not having the right bit of labelling on them, even if the regulations are, as the Minister indicates, good and sound regarding the environmental and energy consequences of the sale items.

Although the Opposition do not intend to oppose the regulations, we think that a lot remains to be done to clarify how the arrangements will work. I look forward to hearing from the Minister whether that work will be done in time for the Brexit we all hope will not occur on 29 March—a disorderly Brexit that causes these problems to arise in the first place.

[The Chair]

I do not see anyone else energetically bobbing to catch my eye, so I call the Minister.