Chemicals (Health and Safety) and Genetically Modified Organisms (Contained Use) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome the regulations before us and thank my noble friend for moving them so eloquently. If she would permit me, I will put a couple of questions to her.

My noble friend explained the role of the Health and Safety Executive in becoming the regulatory authority for Great Britain under these regulations. We heard this week from my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, in connection with the REACH regulations that we considered in a similar statutory instrument Committee, that the department has recruited only 30 of the 300 staff needed to act to bring in GB REACH under this new regime, albeit that is a separate statutory instrument. Given the enhanced role that the HSE will play in setting up GB REACH, will my noble friend confirm that there will be sufficient staff in the Health and Safety Executive and that it will have sufficient resources to take on this additional role? Presumably it will already have been involved in liaising with ECHA or whichever EU body is concerned with this, but I have grave concerns that we will overtask the Health and Safety Executive with new responsibilities and find that it is understaffed and underresourced. I would be very grateful to have an assurance in that regard.

My next concern relates to paragraph 2.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which refers specifically to the fact that the biocidal products regulation

“sets timelines for Member State evaluations, opinion-forming and decision-making.”

It goes on to say that it

“promotes the reduction of animal testing by establishing mandatory data sharing obligations and encouraging the use of alternative testing methods.”

I am fully signed up to and very much support the mandatory data-sharing obligations and the use of alternative testing methods. What checks does my noble friend envisage there will be on these mandatory data-sharing obligations? I presume she will reassure me that we have come a long way from certain shops, which I will not name, that claimed that none of their products were tested on animals, only for us to find out after we had all bought them that in fact they had been. How do we know this data is tested and accurate?

Secondly, I am fully signed up to and would encourage the use of alternative testing methods, but can my noble friend explain what these alternative testing methods are and what regime is in place, and how these are monitored to ensure that they are fit for purpose? Again, this is an area that captures the public mood. The public want to buy products—cosmetics or whatever—that have not been tested on animals. This is something that captures the public imagination, so what alternative testing regime is in place?

Finally, paragraph 2.5 on page 2 of the Explanatory Memorandum to these regulations, to which my noble friend referred in her introduction, talks of

“measures for the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms with a view to protecting human health and the environment.”

I feel that we still need to know a lot more about, and understand better, the use of GMOs. My question to my noble friend is a simple one. We were covered by the EU regime in this regard, and are now transitioning out and will, after 31 December, have left the European protections that we have previously enjoyed. Will my noble friend give a commitment today that any future use beyond the contained use which we currently understand will be brought forward by legislation—most likely, I presume, secondary legislation? Will she give a commitment that there will be no change to the current contained use, as set out today, without a further chance to have scrutiny of the necessary regulations ?

Having put forward my concerns, I hope that my noble friend will be able to give me the reassurance I am seeking.