Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to start with history. I used to live on Leather Lane in central London between the City and Westminster, where, despite Victorian urban expansion, a dairy farm continued to operate in the middle of the city. That was no historical accident. With the adulteration of milk rampant, with filthy water and much worse, the only way consumers could be sure that milk would not kill them or their children was if they actually saw it come out of the cow.

A few years ago I was privileged to visit the Rochdale Pioneers Museum in the home of the first successful consumer co-operative in the UK: the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844. Its aim was to ensure not just affordable products but safe and genuine products, without sawdust in the flour or arsenic in the sugar. But not everyone had a co-operative nearby. It was eventually conceded back in the 19th century that it was the responsibility of the state to protect consumers.

Amid a huge ideological debate about the freedom of traders to sell whatever they liked, the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1875 was passed. However, it took time to take effect. In 1877 a quarter of all the milk examined by the local government board was seriously adulterated. However, the law worked. By 1894 adulterated milk accounted for less than 10% of all samples. Campaigning worked to get the law and the law worked for the good of the people. Lives were saved. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Winterton of Doncaster, noting in her wonderful maiden speech that such protections are particularly important for the most vulnerable in society.

Today, in 2024, however, we are seriously failing to provide protections. The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and others referred to the fact that it has been clear for some time that there is a huge problem with lithium-ion batteries and chargers. We have seen this problem, yet there has been no action. I would like to ask the Minister specifically about what timeframe the Government see for taking action on this. Do we have to wait for the Bill to go through the many months it will undoubtedly take? I do not know if that is necessary. Could something not be done sooner? As the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, said in bringing his particular expertise to this debate, in the current age we need a kind of agility in reacting to changing products, circumstances and methods of sale, but we are utterly failing.

Last weekend, I was listening to the London Review of Books podcast. James Butler, who closely followed and reported on the evidence to the Grenfell Tower inquiry, was speaking angrily, and rightly, about the decades of regulatory failure that led to the deaths of 72 people. When you read in Hansard the debates about the 1875 Act, we had people then making the same kind of arguments that are made today: about the need to protect business from extra costs; about the need to allow business to make profits; about the need to allow freedom of trade, even of substandard products. But what could be more central to the role of government than keeping people safe?

It is demonstrably clear that exercising the rhetoric of cutting so-called red tape has killed and continues to kill. Anyone using that language really should take a good hard look at themselves. Taking the US approach of waiting until a product kills and injures, then setting the injured consumer or their relatives against the enormous weight of multinational companies—or in pursuit of some fly-by-night trader who cannot possibly be located—in the hope of financial recompense through the slow lottery of the courts, years or decades later, when of course that will not restore their life or their health, is indefensible and ineffective. It is fit only for a society that does not care for its people.

Product regulation is not just a matter of life and death. It is also about keeping a basic quality of life and well-being, not just for the purchasers of products but for general society and our disastrously battered environment on this planet, where the boundaries for novel entities have already been exceeded, in addition to the now acutely obvious climate emergency and nature crisis. Product regulation is crucial in the quality of our everyday lives and health, in both obvious and more subtle ways. How much energy your TV or computer uses, how much noise your neighbour’s strimmer makes or how much pollution you breathe in as you walk down the pavement affect all of us, every minute of every day. With public health in the UK in such a terrible state, this is even more crucial.

Since Brexit, Europe has demonstrably continued to advance in health, well-being and the safety of its products—even if, as the European green parties regularly point out, still far too slowly—while the UK has been sliding further and further behind. I want to particularly note three briefings that I received before this debate from the Green Alliance, Friends of the Earth and the Institute for European Environmental Policy. Those organisations are, as those names suggest, particularly focused on environmental health. What we need to adopt, of course, is a one-health approach acknowledging that environmental health, animal health and human health are all intimately interrelated. In that context I have to note, as I acknowledge the Minister did in his introduction, that this is an environmental Bill. It therefore contains significant devolved elements which cover areas under the control of the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has been listening closely to our debate and I expect that in later stages of the Bill we may well be working on these issues together.

However, it is probably already clear from my comments that the Bill is welcome from the Green Party perspective, if severely insufficient in its current form and approach. I foresee many a debate about “may” or “must” being in its clauses. Surely, the Labour Party will not be reversing the kinds of positions it took in debating such matters when they were on the Opposition Benches. I hope we are not going to see the kind of 180 degree U-turn that we saw from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, much as I am glad to see that the Conservative Party is now concerned about Henry VIII clauses.

I want to focus briefly on a couple of areas. Chemical regulation is a huge area of concern, with the science fast exposing how disastrously we have poisoned this planet. I am looking forward to a commitment from the Minister, either today or down the track, to either a new chemicals strategy or a new chemicals agency. I note that the Royal Society of Chemistry has been calling for this.

I also want to take a brief look at the advances being made in Europe, particularly the EU’s eco-design for sustainable products regulation, which entered into force on 18 July this year. This is part of a wider circular economy plan, an approach I hope to see the Government taking forward. It is focused not on a particular problem or product; it is a framework law that aims to drive forward improvements across a whole range of products and product categories by encouraging products that use less energy—so saving consumers money—last longer, can be easily repaired or recycled, contain more recycled content and have parts that can easily be disassembled and put to further use. It ensures that each product should have a digital product passport, so that producers have to collect and record the sustainability of their products. This means we can look at how to best use these products in the future. Do the Government plan to take a similar approach?

I am perhaps surprised that this debate has not focused more on another issue. Chemical substances in toys are an obvious area of grave concern to the health of our current and future generations. We need particularly to protect children from exposure to harmful endocrine-disrupting chemicals. I note that public awareness of PFAS and “forever chemicals” is growing fast; the Government are going to find themselves coming under considerable pressure in these areas very soon. At the moment, the Bill’s powers appear primarily to cover products that come under the Department for Business and Trade and the Office for Product Safety and Standards. Are the Government prepared to consider—I would be delighted to discuss this with the Minister—whether the Bill can be extended to cover the EU REACH restrictions and bans on other consumer products not falling into those categories? An obvious example here is formaldehyde in furniture, an area of growing health concern.

I have two final points to make. One is about Clause 11, which lists the regulations to be considered under the affirmative procedure but misses an opportunity to deal with something that, again, the now Government frequently lamented from these Benches: the impossibility in your Lordships’ House of dealing with statutory instruments with regulations that are patently inadequate but which we have no effective opportunity to stop. There is a chance to create further oversight in Clause 11, including perhaps a potential option for the House of Lords to disapprove draft instruments, sending them back for extra homework where significant concerns are raised. This, of course, is crucial, given that in the Bill’s current form there are essentially no real commitments.

Finally, I want to pick up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The noble Lord rightly highlighted how our trading standards enforcement has been absolutely sliced away by austerity. Your Lordships’ House can do wonders with this Bill, but without enforcement—if the Bill is not enforced—that is pointless. I hope that the Government will address the issue of austerity’s impact on local government, particularly trading standards, as a matter of urgency.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th November 2024 Grand Committee

I should mention the CPTPP before I close. It is a trading bloc of 11 countries with global trade now shifting to the Indo-Pacific. It accounts for around 12% of today’s global GDP. With the UK coming in as its 12th member, it is estimated to increase the CPTPP share of global GDP to 15%. By 2050, the estimated proportions will be 25% of global GDP for the CPTPP, by contrast with the EU’s, which is declining from a current 12% or 15%, depending on which figures and the year, to 10% in 2050. For these reasons, I hope that the Minister will reconsider closing our opportunities worldwide by linking us to a shrinking market, where growth and jobs are declining. This is in contrast to the great growth opportunities that Brexit allows us with our new trading partners.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, with the explicit kind invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, I rise to provide an environmental perspective and broadly support Amendments 17 and 127. Since it is the first time I have spoken in Committee, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to his new role. Given the range of subjects I cover, we have discussed many things before and we will have new subjects to cover. I also apologise to the Minister: I was aware of the long time that he devoted to consultation; like the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, however, transport interfered with my attendance. There is a lot of it around, I am afraid.

I will comment broadly on the amendments introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and others on this side of the Committee. I am not in favour of all those amendments. I suspect it will not surprise many people to hear that but I suggest respectfully to the noble Lord that he might be picking the wrong battlefield when it comes to tethered bottle tops. I am not sure that being the noble Lord in favour of litter is something that he would like to adopt, given that if you look, for example, at a marine conservation study from 2023, bottle tops were the third most littered item found on beaches. Indeed, the NGO Seas At Risk found it was the third most common plastic item in the seas, causing damage to wildlife. So I suggest a small, practical and sensible measure. If the noble Lord is finding it difficult to manage these new bottle tops, there is a TikToker whose handle is @andreilifehack. He has 8 million followers and a neat little trick of how to manage a tethered bottle top. I should be happy to share that link with the noble Lord.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Russell, I am going to take a moderate, practical approach to this. Picking up the point he made about the advantages to businesses, we particularly look at small and medium enterprises in the UK, which have suffered enormously and lost a huge amount of trade following Brexit. Regulatory confusion and uncertainty does not help them, whereas larger businesses may be able to cope. The certainty that his amendment could help to provide would be useful to those small and medium-sized enterprises.

Picking up on environmental health and, indeed, more broadly, the one-health aspect of this and being pragmatic—the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, focused on chemical regulation and as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has amendments on that later in the Bill, I am not going to get into the detail of that now—harmful chemicals and industrial processes are damaging public health in the UK. We have huge problems. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred to the state of our rivers, then there is air pollution and the contamination levels in our food. All these things have big impacts on public as well as environmental health. Again being pragmatic and thinking about the fact that both the two largest parties in your Lordships’ House often reflect on the number of people who are not in employment because of ill health and who are not contributing to the economy as a result, taking steps to improve public health, and environmental health as part of that, is an extremely pragmatic step. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, we are trailing significantly behind the EU in important areas of that.

I said I would be brief, so I will stop there because I have more to say on these areas in the next group.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

As noble Lords can probably imagine, I have been looking forward to this group for ages, and I thank noble Lords for not disappointing. I put my name to Amendments 17 and 127 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and tabled my own Amendment 94. I think the valedictory remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, about leaving this Bill may have been premature because Amendment 16, which is group 9, explicitly deals with the REACH issue, which I know he is so passionate about. I would like him to join me in probing the REACH elements of this, so I hope he can put off his exit from the Bill.

The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and others have stated that they wish to re-engage with our largest market, which is the EU. Their aim, and our aim on these Benches, is to remove friction to make life easier for British business. Thereby costs will be kept to a minimum, markets will be more accessible and growth, which we all agree is vital for our future, can be more easily achieved. I was delighted today when the Treasury spokesperson, the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, endorsed the role of this Bill in helping the Government make those moves to re-engage with the EU. It was reassuring that he sees the importance of this Bill in that process. That is a very good mark to put on what we are doing.

We heard some excellent speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Russell, Lord Browne and Lord Kirkhope, in favour of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. The UK Government are introducing legislation to guide the future regulation of standards for thousands of products when they are sold in the UK market. It should go without saying that creating different standards for UK businesses hoping to sell in both the UK and the EU works counter to this. Consistent standards that apply across both markets will give business the ability and certainty to sell in both those markets.

Never mind the dolphins. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, brought up the issue of tethered bottle tops. As far as I am aware, there is no regulation in this country to require tethered bottle tops. The reason we have them is because business knows how costly it would be to have two forms of a drink being sold in one market here and one market there. Business understands, even if some noble Lords do not, the true cost of having two different regulations. When it can do without them, it does, and the one it chooses is that of the biggest market, which is very rarely in the United Kingdom.

This legislation is an opportunity for the Government, if they move in the right direction, to reduce the red tape and the bureaucracy that the current version of Brexit has created for British business. We should be under no illusion that Brexit has made it much harder for businesses to export into the European Union.

The wording of this amendment does not bind the hands of Government. As noble Lords have observed, there is absolutely the opportunity to diverge and move away from the regulations in the European Union, if that is to the advantage of the United Kingdom. This is a common-sense amendment that provides regulatory certainty for UK businesses by requiring a default of alignment with EU regulations and a process for parliamentary scrutiny, if or when Ministers determine that divergence from such regulation would be in the best interests of the UK. That is what business tells us it wants—and I hope that the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, asked will continue with that. It also seems to be what the public wants. A poll published today in the i newspaper says that when people were asked where was more important to Britain economically, 57% opted for Europe, with 34% opting for the US, for example. There are lots of good reasons for the Government to support these amendments, because they provide a foundation for economic growth by ensuring that businesses can plan and invest with confidence about where the regulatory regime is going and what kind of regulations are going to apply in the United Kingdom.

Before I come very briefly to Amendment 94, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I could not help but be lured into addressing some of the comments made by the noble Lords seated just behind me. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, were very interesting. His comments about the environment and how appropriate it is to take into consideration things such as deforestation were interesting, and I shall be interested to see whether the Opposition Front Bench endorse the comments that he made, or whether they will distance themselves from them—because I think that is quite important.

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Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

5: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) The Secretary of State may also by regulations make provision, in relation to the marketing or use of products in the United Kingdom, for the purpose of—(a) reducing or mitigating the environmental impact of products;(b) promoting sustainable production and consumption;(c) advancing circular economy principles;(d) meeting or exceeding environmental standards set by relevant EU law or other international best practices.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment expressly allows the government to exceed EU environmental standards, and adds circular economy principles to the face of the Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 5 I will also speak to Amendments 28, 30, 50, 115 and 125, which are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I am very aware of the time and the risk of a vote being called, so I am abbreviating this on the understanding that we may be able to have discussions later.

In the interests of time I did not speak on the first group, but the noble Lord, Lord Fox, spoke about this Bill—rather than being a framework Bill or one that is filled with Henry VIII powers—as providing guard-rails. Many will see the amendments in this group as providing a set of environmental guard-rails. The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, said that the Bill needed policy direction, and that is essentially what these amendments do.

I take the Minister’s point about there being a level of detail that is not appropriate to include in legislation rather than regulation. I spent this morning with Westminster Forum Projects talking about deposit return schemes and extended producer responsibility. I learned about RAM—recyclability assessment methodology. Those are things that certainly need to be in the regulations, but they need to be the guard-rails here.

These amendments will be classed as environmental amendments, but they are also amendments about things such as the right to repair and tackling utterly unnecessary planned obsolescence, which is deeply costly to consumers. These are also amendments that start to address the cost of living crisis and are real principles for people today. I was going to go through the amendments in considerable detail, but the arguments for right to repair and against planned obsolescence are really obvious so, given the time, I will address just the circular economy elements, which run as a line through these amendments.

It is worth saying that the environmental improvement plan contains a target to reduce residual waste, excluding construction waste, to 437 kilogrammes per capita by 2028, but in 2022 this figure stood at 558.8 kilogrammes. That was only 2.8% down on 2019. In three years, that was all the progress that had been made towards the target of circularity, which is only three years away.

The noble Lord, Lord Frost, who is no longer in his place, was talking about EU rules on deforestation. In 2021, UK consumption was associated with 30,000 hectares of deforestation, with all the climate and nature impacts that we understand. If we look at the climate aspect, the treatment and disposal of waste resources is separately responsible for 5% of all UK greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of that treatment and disposal of waste is borne very often by the public, when actually a few companies are profiting from the production.

I briefly mention, because I promised to do so, that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who is unable to be with us for this group, wanted to stress the importance of construction. Although it is excluded from that waste target, there are difficulties because so many problems with, and failures of, design are happening in construction. We all know about the safety impacts but they also have huge environmental impacts—and cost impacts, about which many of us know from working with builders.

In the interests of time, I shall stop there. I beg to move Amendment 5.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly on Amendments 30, 115 and 125, which are in my name. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, observed, they are designed to produce guard-rails that significantly strengthen the environmental and sustainability part of the Bill. It seems inconceivable to me that legislation of this kind would not carry these requirements.

Amendment 30, which is the substantive one, would add new subsection (2A) to Clause 2 in order to ensure that future regulations under the Act include provisions that relate to environmental impact assessments, the circular economy and granting consumers the right to repair products. On the latter, despite attempts, the tendency is to continue to find products manufactured with increasingly complex modules that defy cost-effective repair or sensible re-use, which should be an important part of the future economy. This amendment does not dot “i”s or cross “t”s, because that is the role of the actual regulation, but it sets a standard that we should be looking at for the regulation process. That is it; I could go into more detail, but I do not think I have to.

Amendments 115 and 125 are definitions that would help explain what we mean by “circular economy” and “right to repair”. I hope that His Majesty’s Government will find some sympathy with all of this group and find a wording. I am not proud about my words; I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is the same. Let us find a way of putting these proposals into primary legislation because these are really important issues.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been an interesting mini debate and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for their amendments. I want to remark on the miraculous conversion to regulatory purity of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. I can only refer to Luke, chapter 15, which states that

“joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over 90 and nine just persons, which need no repentance”.

I am not a crazed zealot but perhaps in my case, with due acknowledgement to St Augustine, “Oh Lord, make me regulatory pure, but not quite yet.”

We have encapsulated a very interesting debate because I think we all accept the really important point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox. On the other hand, there are issues about the wording of the amendment and the unintended consequences, alongside the fact that we believe that current legislation allows us to do what both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness would require us to do.

Amendments 30, 115 and 125 are intended to reduce waste. They promote recyclability, repair and reuse of products, and seek to mandate that all product regulations made under the Bill would require an environmental impact assessment and provisions related to the right to repair and the circular economy. Amendment 50 of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seeks to achieve similar by making it a requirement that regulations made under the Bill include provisions to promote circular economy principles. The noble Baroness’s amendment then goes a step further, requiring the Secretary of State to issue guidance on such principles within 12 months, and to review and update that guidance at least once every three years.

Under the duty set out in the Environment Act 2021, Ministers and policymakers must already consider the environmental impact of all new government policies. I certainly empathise with the whole concept of the circular economy, on which both the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, spoke with such eloquence. The Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has set the reduction of waste by moving to a circular economy as one of Defra’s top five priorities. In fact, the Secretary of State has convened a small ministerial group on the circular economy and asked his department to work with experts from industry and academia to develop a circular economy strategy. I will feed this debate and noble Lords’ contributions into the ministerial task force.

I understand the importance of the right to repair. The product regulations made under the Bill will cover many types of products, some of which may be inappropriate to repair. That is really part of the point; for instance, cosmetics is one example—the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, made. The Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information Regulations 2021 introduced measures including requirements for repairability for the first time in Great Britain. Those regulations contribute towards circular economy objectives by increasing the lifespan, maintenance and waste handling of energy-related products. Our aim is to introduce further right to repair measures when regulating individual products under the ecodesign for energy-related products regulations, where appropriate. That is probably the best way in which to approach it, rather than putting a generic requirement in this piece of legislation.

With regard to Amendments 5 and 28, I reassure noble Lords that the provisions in the Bill do not prevent the UK introducing new environmental regulations. Should we wish to set out broader regulations that exceed or differ from EU rules, we already have powers under other legislation to introduce wider environmental protection rules.

I understand the desire of noble Lords to have something in the Bill in relation to these important issues, but there is a problem of imposing requirements where they cannot reasonably be met or duplicate existing policies. I know that is not the intention, but we think that would be the effect of the amendments before us. We clearly want to avoid conflicting or duplicating regulations. In essence, we agree with the principles put forward by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. We think we are covered by existing legislation and regulations, but I am grateful to them for bringing them forward.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and noble Lords who have taken part in this time-constrained debate. I take some encouragement from the expressions of at least general support. Like the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I look forward to further discussions with the Minister on this issue. That is part of the reason why I tabled a number of amendments taking different approaches and going into different parts of the Bill because of the different ways of approaching it. We are very open to anything that might put in some kind of guard-rail.

If I may say so, the Minister gave a classic Civil Service response: “But it is covered by other legislation”. I point him to the figures I cited about how little progress has been made on waste reduction towards a target that is only three years away. What we are doing now is clearly not enough, and it is not working.

We are talking about the product regulation Bill, and on the point about right to repair and cosmetics, there are obviously different rules to be applied to different products. That is true of any Bill that covers product regulation.

I wish briefly to pick up the points made the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, who suggested that these amendments might produce a further burden on consumers. If consumers found that their fridge lasted longer, for the kind of period that fridges used to last, that would be not a burden but a considerable advantage. If they were able to fix their mobile phone instead of having to pay a multinational company a large sum of money for a new one, that would certainly not be a burden on consumers. It would perhaps be a rebalancing of the Government acting in the interests of consumers rather than those of giant multinational producers.

We can see clearly that this is a debate that will continue, but in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 5.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I say at once that I pay due regard to the Civil Service and the advice I receive, but these are the words of Ministers. There is a judgment here that you do not want to add legislation where you already have it. The point the noble Baroness makes is that the legislation is not being used effectively. The whole point of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s task force is to look at the progress we are making and to refocus in relation to the circular economy. I hope the noble Baroness will not think that this is a damp squib of an answer because we take what she says very seriously. Of course, we will be happy to meet her and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to discuss this important matter further.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Baroness that my fridge is more than 20 years old, and I have a very good mobile-phone repairer.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I guess the noble Lord has chosen his products well and been extraordinarily lucky. I am afraid some of my fridges have not lasted anything like so long.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, and to commend the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for a very clear introduction to three amendments. The Green group is very happy to support all of them. I apologise to the Committee that was I absent for the last two days of Committee. Once I was stuck in the Chamber and the other day I was unavoidably away, so I apologise for missing some of my own amendments, but I really wanted to speak on these amendments. I will start with Amendment 79. We have just heard a very useful argument for it and I will briefly add to it.

Inclusive by design is talking about going beyond accessibility and beyond saying, “We have this thing. What do we do now to make it accessible?”. This starts from the very beginning and takes us back to the social model of disability. Our society and our products are designed to be non-inclusive. That is what we are doing now and that is wrong in terms of allowing so many people to fully participate in our society. It is also always important to make the argument that it is better for all of us, not just those who may have a disability, now or in the future, if products are made to be easy to access so that you are able to do things. There is wrestling with opening a jar or that terrible rigid plastic packaging on toothbrushes and other things that many people struggle with. If you made those things inclusive by design, they would be better for all of us.

Following the technological arguments already made, I thought back to when I helped an elderly man attempt to access his banking. It was certainly not accessible to him and, as a friend, I knew his password and everything else because I had to. The machine he had to press was about the size of a matchbox; the keys were on it and I struggled to press them. There was two-factor authentication, and I could not understand the text message or work out which numbers in the text message you were supposed to put in, and I have been using technology for many decades. This is so important and could be a real advance.

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Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

57: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Clothing safety: regulations and requirements(1) Within three years of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must, by regulations under section 1, make provision to reduce risks as defined in section 1(4) presented by clothing.(2) For the purposes of this section, clothing means items of fabric, leather, plastic and similar materials usually worn on the human body.(3) Within three years of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must also make provision about clothing product requirements by regulations under section 2. (4) Regulations in accordance with subsection (3) must set out product requirements for the production, use, marking, marketing, testing, approval and provision of information (including information about risk) of clothing.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment intends to probe whether the Secretary of State will use powers under sections 1 and 2 to regulate clothing products, given the human and environmental health risks they represent from artificial fibres and chemical constituents.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 57, I will also speak to Amendments 58 and 59 in my name.

I feel I must begin by offering credit to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I was looking at the Bill and thinking, “How do we address particularly pressing issues of safety and environmental concern around products, addressing particular types of products?” The noble Earl put down an amendment on building products, and my drafting owes a great deal to his amendments, so I feel I should acknowledge that. I note that my amendments mirror each other in many ways, although noble Lords will notice that there is a difference: the clothing safety amendment suggests a three-year period before action is taken, while the single-use plastics amendment suggests two years and the period products amendment suggests one year. That is a reflection of capability, scientific understanding and the importance of having the ability to take action as quickly as possible. Viable timeframes have been carefully selected in each one.

These three amendments fit together very well because all of them address the way in which we are exceeding the planetary boundary for what are known as “novel entities”, as identified by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. These are substances made by humans and previously unknown in the natural world. Generally speaking, the natural world has no capacity to deal with, process or get rid of them. In talking about the natural world, I am also talking about the bodies of human animals—all of us. These products, chemicals, plastics and other substances are accumulating in our environment day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year. They are not going away. It is the people in the most disadvantaged communities and situations who are most exposed to these products and their increasingly understood health effects.

Amendment 57 concerns clothing safety. I suspect that there was probably puzzlement in some quarters when people saw this: “Unsafe clothing?” I have to pay credit to a new independent feature documentary by the fashion designer Jeff Garner, called “Let Them Be Naked”. I went to a London Fashion Week showing of this documentary, which focuses on the use of toxic chemicals in fabrics and the harmful impacts on human and environmental health. Clothing worn next to our skin for long periods exposes us to chemicals that can cause short-term and long-term health effects, including cancer and fertility issues. Repeated testing of clothing such as socks, school uniforms and work uniforms has found harmful quantities of toxic chemicals well above legal limits and standards. It is worth noting that, whether it is school pupils or workers with a uniform, people have no choice in these matters. Of course, this issue affects not just the people wearing this clothing but the people who make it, where the material is dumped, et cetera.

I will briefly bring in some detailed information. Laboratory research commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation showed that, out of 38 samples of clothing and accessories, one in five contained high levels of harmful chemicals such as lead, PFAS—known as “forever chemicals”—and phthalates. A North American lab study of stain-resistant school uniforms identified high levels of PFAS—of course, these uniforms are worn by often very small children, so the ratio of the amount of PFAS to body weight is very high. Another chemical of concern is bisphenol A. Research for the Center for Environmental Health found that over 100 popular brands of socks contained up to 31 times California’s legal safety limit for BPA. There is a famous case of Alaska Airlines, which introduced a new uniform. Staff who were forced to wear it reported symptoms of chemical sensitivity, sore throats, coughs, shortness of breath, itchy skin, rashes and hives, itchy eyes, loss of voice and blurred vision.

I will pick up one chemical and cite some interesting British research from just this year, published in the journal Environment International. This was a real break- through piece of research. Previously, it had been said of PFAS, these forever chemicals, “Don’t worry—they don’t cross the skin barrier, so you can be wearing them, but they won’t harm you”. But this research demonstrated that that is simply not true. It is of course already known that PFAS can enter the body through being breathed in or being ingested in food or water, and it is known that, by those routes, it causes a lower immune response to vaccination, impaired liver function and decreased birth weight in babies. In this study from the University of Birmingham, 15 of 17 PFASs tested showed substantial absorption through the skin. Remember that it had been said, “No, no—this does not happen. It’s fine”. But 15 of the 17 tested were being absorbed through the skin and at least 5% of the exposure dose was being absorbed. For PFOA, which is one of the most regulated ones—it is regulated because it is considered dangerous—13.5% was absorbed through the skin. This is on people’s clothing, effectively being injected into their bodies.

There is also the important issue of plastics. It is starting to be understood—but still little understood—that, as the marine conservation organisation Plastic Soup Foundation pointed out recently, 69% of fashion is now synthetic materials. Noble Lords have heard me talking before about how microplastics are being found in human testes, placentas, breast milk and brains. But it is not just the microplastics themselves. At the Future Fabrics Expo in London earlier this year, it was pointed out that nylon in particular is very detrimental to our lungs, especially in terms of repair and growth. It is not the fibre itself that is the primary culprit but the chemicals associated with it. I was looking around this Committee and thinking that I cannot see a lot of artificial fibres, but we are a very privileged group of people; if you looked at a different socioeconomic group, that would not be the case. That is my clothing introduction.

I turn to Amendment 58, which of course is closely related because it is about single-use plastics. We mostly hope that clothing is not a single-use item, but in our environment today there is an enormous amount of single-use plastic that is sometimes used for seconds and then will exist in our environment for hundreds of years.

Here I pay credit to City to Sea, a campaign group that I am sure many noble Lords are aware of. If noble Lords have not seen its briefing, I would be delighted to share it. Some 220 million tonnes of plastic waste were created in 2024. Globally, the average is 28 kilos per person. That is a 10% rise since 2021. Although we have been talking about plastics and having a UN plastics treaty, the amount of plastic being produced and put out into the world is still going up.

As we referred to on the previous group, so many of the products we are talking about have unnecessary single-use plastics wrapped around them. If we are to be serious about making a safe world for people to live in, we need product regulation that drastically slashes this amount of single-use plastic. In the UK alone, households throw away an estimated 90 billion pieces of plastic packaging. That is nearly 70% of our plastic waste. If we are regulating products, we need to think about the packaging as well.

Thinking again about the health impacts, a letter by the Plastic Health Council and signed by a range of doctors, including from the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Queen’s University Belfast, Doctors Against Harm, and NHS trusts, calls for action. This was in the UN context, but it also applies to the Bill. The letter recognised that endocrine-disrupting chemicals in plastics can impair sperm quality and fertility, and cause cancers, endometriosis, early puberty, neurological and learning disabilities, abnormalities in sex organs, altered growth and nervous system and immune function, and diverse respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. I note that there has been a global decline in sperm counts of more than 60%. Leading scientists have suggested that most couples may have to use assisted reproduction by 2045.

I am aware that noble Lords may feel I am battering them over the head with a whole lot of statistics, but we are talking about people’s lives, health and future. I have talked about things that apply to us all—clothing and single-use plastics—but I turn now to the amendment in which I have suggested that we should see action from the Government within a year on period products. Here, I draw extensively on the work of the Women’s Environmental Network, which has a proposed menstrual health, dignity and sustainability Act containing elements of this and much more besides.

I will start with the biology. The vagina contains a very large number of blood vessels, which means that the skin is very absorbent. What is in period products really matters. Yet, as I learned from Helen Lynn at Wen, there are currently more regulations about what can be in a candle than what can be in a tampon. Earlier this year, lead, arsenic and cadmium were all found in a variety of tampons tested in the UK and internationally. Single-use menstrual products have been shown to contain phthalates, bisphenols and parabens, which I have already talked about in other contexts. Despite their apparently cottony appearance, tampons and pads can be up to 90% plastic, meaning they continually shed microplastics during use and afterwards.

Many of these products contain fragrances, which are of particular concern. These synthetic fragrances are compiled from a cocktail of up to 3,000 different chemicals, none of which, of course, is recorded in the packaging or—to pick up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, about transparency—available to consumers, even if they go hunting to find what they are. They contain chemicals that are carcinogens, allergens, irritants and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which I have talked about before. Despite changes in bleaching practices to purify wood pulp, chlorine and dioxin—you really do not want to put dioxin in your body—can still be found in menstrual pads and tampons.

Finally, I come to a fast-developing and crucial issue that is a real illustration of how a lack of regulation lets us go horribly wrong. Because of environmental concerns, we have rightly seen a shift towards reusable menstrual products. Broadly, that is obviously a good thing, but there is a stigma around menstrual products and period blood. These products are often advertised as tackling menstrual odour—which is not a thing; it is an advertising construction—and contain silver or nanosilver. This applies not just to menstrual products; see also socks, T-shirts and other clothing. That causes direct toxicity to the human body and negative impacts on the vaginal microbiome—known as microbiotoxicity —which can lead to bacterial infections and even problems with pregnancies.

Of course, noble Lords have heard me talk many times before about antimicrobial resistance. The silver washes out of these reusable products and down our drains to join the cocktail of other antimicrobial-inducing products swilling around in our drains, where there are microbes that will be influenced by them and develop resistance.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I very much remember the debate because we worked closely on it. We will look into this and get back to the noble Baroness with a detailed explanation of the issues so that everyone is clear.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank everyone for their kind words about my introductory speech. I thank the Minister for his detailed response. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that I also worked on the Medicines and Medical Devices Act. Well done for picking up that cross-reference, because my understanding was that tampons, pads and reusable products were not medical devices under that Act. There is a complication there that we need to address.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we are still but just over five months in office. Clearly, we have to think very carefully about the actions we are going to take. What I seek to demonstrate to the noble Baroness is that we have the powers and determination. There are a lot of areas that we have to look at, but I think that the Written Statement I read out in relation to plastics shows where we want to go. We want to see real progress in the areas that she has developed.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I think he perhaps misunderstood where I was going with that. It was not meant to be a criticism of this Government—I fully take the point of five months in power. What I was criticising or questioning was the legal framework, which allows the Government to act, whereas in these amendments each proposed new subsection (1) says that the Secretary of State “must” regulate. This is proposing a different kind of framework. It is asking the Houses of Parliament whether they are prepared to direct, within a certain timeframe, that the Government have to take action. I am questioning not what the Government are doing but whether we as a society and a Parliament want to say, “There is a real problem; the Government must take action and that is what the legal framework should be”. That is what each of these amendments does.

While I fully acknowledge that the Minister expressed some good intentions, I have to pick the noble Lord up on the reference to the straws, cotton buds and stirrers regulations. I am afraid that, when I was responding to that regulation, I was accused of being rude. I pointed out that, in 100 years’ time in a plastic- choked world, the generation then will not say, “Oh but they banned straws, stirrers and plastic cotton buds back then in the UK”. It is a very tiny scale tackling of a very large issue.

None the less, I appreciate everything that has been said. I will note that the phrase “precautionary principle” did not appear anywhere. I think that is very relevant here. We will continue the discussion. I very much appreciate the Minister’s offer of meetings to talk about these issues. I would be delighted to take that up.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting and delaying the Committee, but I did say that we would use our powers to identify products and sectors that require action and that this work would be evidence-led and proportionate.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Proportionate is not precautionary principle. Anyway, I am not going to pick up that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 57 withdrawn.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, Clause (5)(1) states the following:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the units of measurement that are used to express quantities (whether of goods or other things), including provision about … (a) how units of measurement must or may be calculated or determined … (b) how units of measurement must or may be referred to”.


Subsection (2) goes on to state:

“The Secretary of State may also by regulations make provision about … (a) the quantities in which goods must or may be marketed in the United Kingdom, and (b) the units of measurement that must or may be used to express such quantities”.


Subsection (4) states:

“‘unit of measurement’ means any unit of measurement, including measurement of length, area, volume, capacity, mass, weight, time, temperature or electrical current ... ‘goods’ means tangible items”,

and

“‘quantity’ means quantity expressed by number or a unit of measurement”.

Yet again we have a set of provisions that, while seemingly innocuous, give a relevant Secretary of State incredibly wide powers to do pretty much anything they like about pretty much anything they like.

Both the noble Lords opposite will shortly argue that the Government have no plans to replace the British pint as a standard measure for beer. They are both honourable and sincere, and I believe them, but this careless drafting confers the power on a Secretary of State to do exactly that. It is not difficult to imagine some point in the future when the office of the Secretary of State is held by a metric maniac or, perhaps worse, an interfering busybody who decides that they know what is better for the health of the nation than those who make up the population of the nation. Perhaps that does not entail a metric replacement for our pint, but something even worse—for example, an Aussie schooner. With apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, this is an abomination of a vessel that is marginally too large for a sensible sherry, but far too small for a sensible beer.

My Amendment 81 seeks to make sure that this can never happen. It will make the pint safe. It will defend a beleaguered and endangered pub industry from more punishment, and it will guarantee a fundamental tenet of our history. A pint of beer is not a bloodless “tangible item”. It is a tangible institution. It is a link to our history and a part of our heritage. It was formally adopted as a measure for beer in 1824, but was probably used well before then—who knows, maybe even by Anglo-Saxon thanes, when they were on a session in their village hall, drinking what they then called beor and no doubt wondering what to do about the dastardly Vikings. I am reliably informed that they may even have had a word used to describe this community and that is—the spelling is tricky and the pronunciation is trickier—ge beorscipe.

I encourage the Government to accept this amendment on the pint’s formal 200th anniversary. It is straightforward and simple. If they do not, we will return to the subject on Report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will be brief. The main point I wish to make initially is that the next time someone complains about your Lordships’ House not giving enough time to pass important legislation, I will reference this debate. However, given the attack that we have just had on the Australian schooner, I have to point out to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, that it evolved organically from the community in 1930s Australia as an unofficial measure. It was a measure of change and of the grass roots making decisions for themselves.

The noble Lord may think that his amendment will save pubs in the UK. I point out to him that, in the first quarter of this year, about 80 pubs closed in England each month. That was a 56% increase on 2023. One of the things that has been suggested might be a saviour of pubs—the noble Lord might choke on his pint at this point—is that we live in a world of change, and sales of low or no alcohol beer have exploded in the past few years. It is very hard to take this amendment seriously.

Despite that, I agree with the noble Lord that there are problems with the Henry VIII nature of the Bill and the way that it allows the Government to do virtually anything. However, picking out one particular small point is not the best way to illustrate that.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it falls to me to respond to this amendment. Unlike the noble Baroness, I think this is a very serious matter. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has a track record in this area. I think the final order he laid as a Minister in the Home Office was to extend the licensing hours during the summer’s Euro 2024 tournament for football fans. I cannot believe it, but I think he said it was to

“get properly on the lash”.—[Official Report, 24/05/24; col. 1281.]

The Government are glad that his devotion to the pint continues in Opposition, despite his seeming about-turn on the appropriate use of executive powers. He may like to know that I prepared myself for this debate by sampling pints of beer in a number of hostelries and restaurants over the past few days. I am happy to confirm that I had no difficulty in ordering a pint of bitter—or, indeed, more than one pint of bitter.

The Government rejoice in the use of pints as a measurement. I am less worried about the loss of the pint than I am about the worrying news of a shortage of Guinness. Noble Lords may have seen reports in the media in the past few days that Guinness is being rationed to make sure there is enough available over the Christmas period.

I have made it quite clear that we value the pint; there will be no change. There is no question of using the Bill’s powers to do anything other than preserve the pint. The specific drafting is to allow for changes to legislation on units of measurement, but the reason is primarily to provide powers to fulfil our international obligations and keep pace with updates to the globally used international system of units.

The argument running through the whole debate is that we want flexibility in order to keep up to date with the sorts of situations that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, outlined earlier, or with changes happening globally. We are not using this—I do not believe any Government would use this—as a draconian effort to get rid of imperial measurements in the way the noble Lord fears. I hope he will take it from me, as the spokes- person for the Government, that the British pint is safe with us.