Retained EU Law: Trading Standards

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I hope to be on my way to Euston station at 5 pm.

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this Adjournment debate, which allows me to raise a number of points initially brought to my attention by my Garrowhill constituent, Michelle McKenna. As a trading standards officer, Michelle is passionate about her job and ensuring safety and high standards for our fellow citizens. Without her knowledge and expertise, I would never have had the opportunity to learn much more about this policy area, so it is important that I place on the record my sincere thanks to her for raising it to me.

Throughout the 2016 referendum campaign, one of the main debating points was the notion that the European Union imposed onerous and exhaustive regulations on us. Campaign adverts included fearmongering talking points about the endless EU regulations that controlled our everyday lives. Indeed, the former Prime Minister but one, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), was key in perpetuating this utter fantasy, among many others, in his various newspaper columns. The idea that “scary EU diplomats are here with their red tape to curtail your freedoms” was used to persuade the electorate to vote leave, under the slogan “Take back control”, which the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has now shamefully fished out of the political dustbin.

The Conservative party leaned in on its supposed freedom-loving libertarian principles and called for Britain to be freed from these constricting EU regulations, but the reality is that the regulations are not meaningless or frivolous. They are vital to protecting food and product safety and consumer rights, as well as environmental protections and workers’ rights, for people across these islands and the wider European Union—and now they are under threat yet again, which is why I called this debate.

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016 has left a vacuum for regulations and consumer protections, which I argue is threatening people’s safety and consumer rights. I have significant concerns about the British Government’s ability to effectively review the close to 4,000 pieces of critical EU legislation by December this year, which is the current plan under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. The current timetable leaves only 12 months to complete that Sisyphean task.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He was in a debate with me the other day about the House of Lords. When we started to describe the House of Lords and how it was composed and so on, it started to sound absurd. Does the same not apply to the retained EU law Bill, once we consider what it is actually trying to do? The idea that thousands of regulations can be reviewed in 12 months—it is now less than 12 months—is just ridiculous. The risk of so many important issues, such as the ones that my hon. Friend is going to come on to, being hit by a cliff edge is potentially catastrophic. This is not an example of the legislature taking back control; it is a power grab by the Executive.

[David Linden]

At the risk of getting into some intra-Glasgow banter, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a reason why his constituents voted 78% to remain in the European Union. The good people of Glasgow North had the foresight to see that extracting themselves from the European Union, particularly in the manner in which the British Government proposed, would be a gargantuan task that frankly was not worth it, particularly to sacrifice on the altar a lot of safety standards. My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on to put that on the record. As he said, it is inevitable that this process will be rushed and we risk losing vital consumer protections.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about the importance of consumer protections. Does he agree that there are equally important protections for the environment and workers’ rights, and many of those are deeply felt across our communities across these islands?

[David Linden]

I am immensely grateful to the hon. Member. He is spot on. We have had a bit of a taster from this Government as to what they want to do with environment standards and workers’ rights. This afternoon, we have been having that debate on the environment, and there were plenty of questions at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions this morning about sewage spilling into rivers. We have the UK Government saying that Brexit was about taking back control and strengthening rights, but the only thing they have done so far on employment legislation is to table the immoral Bill that would reduce the fundamental human right of workers to withdraw their labour. I suspect that what the Government are doing with workers’ rights and environmental rights is just a taster of what they intend to do.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

There is also what the Government are doing in areas such as intellectual property rights and copyright, particularly as that affects the music industry, which is an enormously important industry for the country in terms of employment and exports, but also in creating an attraction for the UK from around the world. The proposals to dramatically reduce copyright in favour of the internet giants is clearly undesirable but, irrespective of the regulations, is this not also about some of the regulators, which seem gripped by an out-of-control free market approach?

[David Linden]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) was good enough to send me the briefing from the music industry, which hits on that point. I thank the industry for its interest and for continuing to campaign. It is a body of evidence that the Minister should be considering in the context of this debate.

We also have the risk of losing the interpretive effects of EU case law, which could no longer be applied in UK cases. The overarching issue is that, if nothing proactive is done to retain any EU law, modified or otherwise, it will simply disappear from the UK statute book. Some—I would not disagree with them—are going as far as to call this a bonfire of regulations. The British Government are complicit in lighting the flames of that bonfire, and they will be held responsible for melting the very instruments that our trading standards officers rely on every day to protect us.

Countless organisations have come forward with worries about the proposed timetable for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. Just before the debate, I was discussing with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North that there are, I think, 18 pages of amendments for consideration on Wednesday night, and that is just from the Government. Clearly, we are not going to get through all the legislative scrutiny in a considered manner, let alone the civil servants.

[Patrick Grady]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[David Linden]

I am happy to.

[Patrick Grady]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; I do not want to keep him. He is absolutely right. That Bill is of major constitutional importance and normally we would expect such a Bill to be dealt with in Committee of the whole House. It had four days in Public Bill Committee, and the timetable motion does not provide a fixed amount of time; it will cut us off at 6 o’clock. It is completely ridiculous and makes a mockery of the kind of scrutiny that the Government said Brexit was supposed to bring to this House.

[David Linden]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend is spot on to point that out. I am surprised that one of the doughtiest champions of Parliament and its sovereignty, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), was not outraged at the idea that that Bill would be rammed through a Public Bill Committee in the space of four sessions and not dealt with on the Floor of the House. My hon. Friend is right to put that on the record.

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has urged the British Government to scrap the timetable for the retained EU law Bill, warning of a loss of protections across product and food safety, as well as the inhibiting of its ability to effectively stop scams. The institute and a coalition of charities, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Child Accident Prevention Trust, have launched the “Safeguarding Our Standards” campaign to persuade the British Government to scrap the Bill’s current deadline. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on consumer protection, has said that this campaign is

“about ensuring that we have good regulation in place that protects consumers and keeps people safe… Good regulation benefits business and consumers alike. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.”

She is absolutely right. I could not agree more.

A new survey of trading standards experts—I know some on the Government Benches are not a big fan of experts and would use some expletives about them, but I believe that experts should be listened to—that includes the likes of my constituent Ms McKenna, finds that an overwhelming majority, 92.5%, believe that the Government should consider dropping their commitment to sunset legislation by the end of 2023. Almost three quarters of respondents said that an arbitrary timetable to sunset all EU-derived legislation should be abandoned all together.

Another survey revealed that the public think that the Government, and indeed Parliament, should prioritise their time by dealing with the cost of living crisis, closely followed by action to tackle NHS waiting lists. The translation of EU legislation into UK law was ranked last by the public in a list of the Government’s priorities. John Herriman, the chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, said:

“Rushing to overhaul vast swathes of UK legislation, particularly when the country faces such an unprecedented set of other challenges, is not something that those of us working in trading standards or consumer protection want, and there is clearly concern from the public that the Government should be focusing its precious parliamentary time on other matters.”

I agree wholeheartedly with the position set out by Mr Herriman.

It would be fair to say that most of us can see that Brexit has not exactly been a roaring success—to put it mildly—but this desperate attempt to be seen to create a bonfire of EU regulations will serve only to shoot ourselves in the foot once more. I urge the British Government to, at the very least, explore a phased approach to the sunsetting of legislation, based on specific legislative areas, and not leave our trading standards officers such as Michelle without the tools required to protect our constituents. That would give Ministers enough time to sort through and review the close to 4,000 pieces of EU legislation that greatly impact the general public, to whom we are accountable.

For those watching today’s debate, this may seem like an incredibly dry subject, but regulation and a baseline for safety standards really does matter. Let me paint a picture of how this matters in practical terms. The week before Christmas, North Lanarkshire Council’s trading standards department took action to remove more than 1,800 unsafe light-up toy rings from an online marketplace. The toy rings were assessed to pose a serious risk to young children due an easily accessible button cell battery that can cause injury or death if ingested. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) has campaigned on that, and I fully support it. Without the relevant regulatory powers to inspect, test and take corrective action, trading standards would not be able to remove unsafe toys or electrical or mechanical goods from circulation. It is precisely those types of interventions that are potentially at risk from the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

I will give another example. A consignment of over 150 e-scooters, e-bikes and hoverboards was recently stopped at the ports by Falkirk Council’s trading standards. A sample was sent for testing, and the battery of one of the scooters exploded during the test. The battery management system failed to protect the battery pack and it was thrown out of the battery pack. Shockingly, cells were found around 7 metres away and flames were over 2 metres high. The testing identified a range of other safety concerns and, as such, the consignment was not permitted to be released for free circulation. In layman’s terms, the thing could literally blow up while being charged in someone’s living room.

[John Spellar]

Is it not also the case that, apart from dramatic cases such as that, ordinary businesses need to be able to plan their work? There are so many uncertainties normally, and even more at the moment if they are not able to plan against a fixed set of regulations. Those regulations may need to be improved and changed. We should not just be stuck on certain regulations, because some of them need changing. Businesses need some degree of certainty so they can plan and invest.

[David Linden]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am sceptical, but it may well be the case that the UK Government want to strengthen the regulations. We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let us not rush this; let us make sure we get it right. He is spot on.

If we have no standards, we have no way of protecting people from potentially catastrophic injuries. That is why trading standards matter, and that is why the Government cannot—indeed, must not—proceed with the repeal of these regulations in the timescale outlined.

I have other concerns about the decline in the workforce of trading standards officers and the ticking time bomb that exists, with nowhere near enough TSOs coming into the workforce. Councils all across these islands have, over many decades, seen their trading standards departments practically hollowed out. In many respects, removing from statute the regulations they enforce would, I fear, be the final nail in the coffin.

To recap, Members across the House, trading standards experts and a coalition of charities have all said that that the timetable is unachievable and dangerous. In fact, trading standards officers have said that changes to legislation would affect their ability to carry out their enforcement work, which, in turn, would affect ordinary people and businesses right across these islands. If Brexit was about taking back control, frankly, I do not see how sacrificing the safety standards and regulations that protect us and our constituents delivers on that promise.

The public have also made clear that this should not be the Government’s priority; instead, they should be focusing on the multitude of crises they face, not least the cost of living crisis. Instead of listening, the British Government appear to have their fingers in their ears, and they are kidding themselves on that this near impossible task will be completed by the end of this year. That will be the legacy of Tory Britain: an isolationist, populist, short-term thinking Government who would rather rush ahead with their dangerous plans than adopt a careful and considered approach.

In his response, I want to hear the Minister acknowledge the concerns, if not mine then certainly those of the experts, who are genuinely fearful of a bonfire of trading standards legislation. If the electric scooter story tells us anything, it is that a bonfire of these regulations will only result in many other things needlessly catching fire, and that, I would humbly suggest, is not taking back control.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart]

We have heard enough fictions and untruths already, and we do not need any more.

[David Linden]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is “untruths” in accordance with “Erskine May”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart]

I happily and quickly do so. I am sure any misrepresentations were, in the parlance, inadvertent.

There is retained EU law that underpins various areas of consumer protections and trading standards work. The list of retained EU law that BEIS is responsible for can be accessed via the retained EU law dashboard, which is publicly available on gov.uk. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill means that Departments will need to review their policy areas to determine whether existing regulations inherited from the EU are fit for purpose in the UK, or whether reform is needed ahead of the sunset date. These are entirely common-sense approaches as we assert ourselves as an independent country. They will allow Departments to take an active decision on whether this retained EU law is a good fit for the current UK landscape.

The Bill does not mean that there will be a reduction in standards, or that the protections that consumers and sellers enjoy will be reduced. This Government are committed to maintaining high standards and, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East even suggested, seeking where possible to raise those standards, as appropriate, across the UK and ensure high levels of consumer protection. The UK has a proud record and a proud history of excellent trading standards work, which sits independently of our membership of the EU. However, now that the UK has left the EU, it is only right that this Government look at all areas of policy to see where we can innovate and modernise, as well as to capitalise on the regulatory freedoms that we have for the long term. [Interruption.] SNP Members may chunter from a sedentary position and seek to intervene in an Adjournment debate, but I will carry on setting out the reality after we have heard the—[Interruption.] After we have heard the counter to that—thanks so much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will try to stay on the straight and narrow.

We must modernise our regulations where they are outdated, and ensure that unnecessary burdens are minimised and vital protections continue to be upheld. These are all things that everyone across this House should support, rather than getting engaged in scaremongering based on false premises, which I hope I am allowed to say, Mr Deputy Speaker. We will retain our high levels of consumer protections, but deliver them in a way that is less bureaucratic and less costly, as well as ensuring that our rules are properly targeted at the real problems that consumers face.

There may be limited time, but there are a couple of areas we are looking at. For instance, package travel regulations provide an opportunity not only to make sure we continue the protections for foreign travel, but to look at whether they could be extended to domestic situations. That is the kind of agility that we have the opportunity to show. On labelling, there are cumbersome EU laws that dictate labelling on sometimes small products, leading to waste and inefficiency. We now have the opportunity to use e-labelling, which industries have been calling for, and to do so in a way that is environmentally friendly and leads to better and cheaper products for the consumer.

At the moment, there are regulations in EU retained law that cannot cope with new products, scientific advances or—as the hon. Member for Glasgow East mentioned, ironically—e-marketplaces. I would argue that the existing EU regulatory regime is not sufficiently agile to deal with that. That is exactly the sort of thing we are going to sort out and improve, and any right-minded person who was not just trying to make political points for the sake of it would support that. I guess if someone is a monomaniacal separatist, they will use any opportunity to try to make allegations suggesting that things are worse, but we will retain high consumer standards.

As it stands, there are insufficient powers to make subordinate legislation that enables the amendment of standards that are entrenched in retained EU law. In layman’s terms, that means that standards set out for commercial operators, as well as other areas of regulation, do not get updated as frequently as they should. We will be able to update them more frequently, more effectively, and protect consumers in Scotland and elsewhere.

Regulations are currently unable to adapt as quickly as they should. Now that we have left the European Union we must ensure that approaches and methodologies that trading standards uses to enforce regulations are tailored to work best for our local authorities, consumers and sellers, and are able to be consistently updated in consideration of our unique interests. Subordinate legislation that the Government put forward to the House following the review of our retained EU law is not intended to impact or erode core protections to consumers set out in primary legislation, such as the vital consumer rights enshrined in the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Those rights include consumer protections against unfair terms in a contract, protections against faulty physical and digital goods, and a variety of other crucial rights that thousands of consumers depend on every day. Having stated that on the Floor of the House at the Dispatch Box, I hope we will not hear SNP Members suggest the opposite from now on for their own perverse political aims.

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill and the accompanying reviews of retained EU law in areas such as consumer protections will ensure that we use our new-found regulatory freedom to its fullest potential. Is this perhaps what lies at the heart of the frustration felt by some hon. Members? The truth is that there are Brexit benefits, and this is one of them. We are going to have a better system of law that is based on the needs of people in this country, and more agile and effective. A crucial part of the review is removing retained EU law where it is obsolete or outdated—something to which SNP Members are obviously opposed. They want to keep obsolete law. As energy Minister I was personally responsible for reviewing emissions trading scheme law. It turned out that the vast bulk of that regulation is now redundant.

[David Linden]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

Does the hon. Gentleman want to leave that on the statute book, so that we must retain those bits? We have gone through that and come up with a practical solution. That is what Ministers across the Government are doing.

[David Linden]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

If I was going to give way I would have given way by now. The hon. Gentleman may sit down, and I will let him know if I am going to give way.

This Government are committed to ensuring that the burdens of delivering the best regulatory schemes are removed, while ensuring that we maintain the highest standards. We have also been clear that we will maintain our international obligations—something the hon. Gentleman should be able to applaud. Some retained EU law on our statute book is required to continue to operate for things such as the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement, the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. The Bill, together with the appropriate exercise of powers under it, will uphold the UK Government’s commitments to complying with their international obligations.

As committed to at the Dispatch Box by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who did a particularly fine job on the Bill’s Second Reading, the Government will, as a priority, ensure that necessary legislation is in place to uphold the UK’s international obligations. Where retained EU law is required to maintain those obligations, we will set that out through the dash- board, so that the public can scrutinise it. To conclude—[Interruption.] Well, before I conclude, as there is time left, why don’t I let the hon. Gentleman intervene?

[David Linden]

I will go first, and then perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North can go second.

The Minister spoke earlier about things being obsolete. Does he understand the irony of him telling me that things are obsolete, when his party has not been voted for by the majority in Scotland since the 1950s? If anything is obsolete, it is the Conservative and Unionist party.

[Graham Stuart]

What is obsolete, following the decisions of the courts, is the hon. Member’s separatist party’s desire to have a referendum and the false narrative of some partnership of nations being unwillingly held together. What is obsolete is his party’s failure ever to respect the result of a referendum. It does not like what the public decide. Well done to him and his party, who have done quite well electorally, except when it comes to the thing that matters most to him: separatism. That is what he wants, but the Scottish people do not want it. The Scottish people voted against it, and his party rails and rails against the fact that, despite all its efforts to use every single tool that it has available in the Scottish Government, his constituents and those of the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) cannot be persuaded that they wish to leave the United Kingdom. Why would they? This Parliament is able, on a sovereign basis, to provide better standards of protection, better regulation, and regulation that is brought about and driven by a democratically elected United Kingdom Government.