Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention; he always brings wisdom to these debates. I can absolutely give him the assurance that the Bill makes no decision as to how we should use these powers. The reason we are bringing it forward today is the same reason the previous Conservative Government first proposed a Bill of this kind: having left the European Union, we need the powers to properly regulate these products in this way; without this legislation, we would not necessarily have the ability to do that.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

On that specific point, further to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), that presumably means that the Government will press for recognition of UK standards where they prevail and where we think we are doing the job better. There will absolutely be occasions where we can learn from others, and other occasions where they can learn from us. Is that the Government’s intention? Will the Secretary of State make that clear now?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am more than happy to make that clear. We see that in a number of areas—it is the case across the whole field of regulation. Let us look at AI, which is topical right now: we have chosen a different regulatory path in the UK from the European Union, which is to our economic advantage. I am very confident in the approach that we are taking. I am sure that when I get to the provisions of the Bill, and in particular when it comes to weights and measures, the whole House will be united in being able to say that we believe that traditional British standards are particularly important to us.

I say again, however, that having the power to set standards in itself makes no decision as to how these powers are used. We can all clearly recognise the need to repatriate these powers to our own statute book.

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[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)]

I would like to make two points. First, this House can do what it wants. It does not need this Bill to regulate anything. To say that is does simply is not true. Secondly, on the question of whether the Bill will lead to dynamic realignment with the EU, can the Secretary of State explain what clause 2(7)(a) is for? It seems to me that it could be used to dynamically realign with EU regulations.

[Sir John Hayes]

rose—

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I will give way to the right hon. Member.

[Sir John Hayes]

I wish to give the Secretary of State time to read the clause. He owes me now, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The key thing is that we must not use EU standards as the default. The hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) is right that we have the authority to make our own standards, and we often do so very well. But the risk is that where we have not yet done that, the EU standard will become the default position. The Minister can make it crystal clear to us today that that is not the case.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

As ever, I am particularly grateful to the right hon. Member for his courtesy. To my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), I say that clause 2(7) says:

“Product regulations may provide that a product requirement is to be treated as met if—”.

It clearly says “may” and “if”. Again, I say that there will be times when it is in our economic interest to have a close relationship with the product standards in, for instance, the European Union or another jurisdiction. There will also be times when it is not. That will be our choice. I think we would all recognise the absence of powers without this Bill.

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[Andrew Griffith]

On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), I thank the Secretary of State for intervening. It is important that we legislate with full understanding of what the law says, but the point still stands on the overweighting of references to EU standards versus comparable standards from the United States and Commonwealth friends of this great nation.

[Sir John Hayes]

On that note, the point is the one I made to the Secretary of State: where, as the impact assessment suggests, regulations are moving at pace—the Secretary of State repeated that—we will default to a European set of standards. That is the problem, and that is certainly implied in the Bill’s impact assessment. I sought the Secretary of State’s assurance that that will not happen. If it does not happen, will there be no rules or regulations? How will that work in practice?

[Andrew Griffith]

We are having the proper debate through these interventions that perhaps we should have had when the Secretary of State was introducing the Bill. That illustrates the point about putting a vast amount of ambiguity—even if it is well intentioned—into the law and how things will operate, and for a reason of which we know not. If there are instances of, for example, e-scooters catching fire in people’s halls, this House has the ability to legislate, and legislate fast where necessary, against those particular harms at that particular moment in time. My right hon. Friend, with his many years of experience in this House, understands that point, and I think that was what he was saying.

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

There are three fundamental points to be made about the Bill, and I will make them more briefly than the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), although I am delighted to follow her. First, there is a constitutional issue at the heart of the legislation about the power of this House and this Parliament, and the power of the Executive.

The Bill creates a permissive power for the Executive to introduce by regulation, through statutory instrument, all kinds of measures. Those who have been in the House for a long time, and perhaps those of us who have been in the House for a rather shorter time, will know what that means in practice: a brief debate in a room upstairs that will take a few minutes or perhaps a little longer. It will be thinly populated and the measure will be given scant scrutiny. The Executive should be held to account on the Floor of the House or by a Committee designed for the purpose.

That brings me to my second point about the Bill. We once had a European Scrutiny Committee whose task was to look closely at all kinds of things that emanated from the European Union. The hon. Lady who spoke immediately before me described those of us in the House who are sceptical about the European Union as not being rational; she said these were irrational fears about the European Union. Were that to be true, she would probably have a point, but actually our fears are entirely rational. We know what emanated from the European Union during our membership, and it was endless bureaucracy. I acknowledge that it was often gold-plated here, but none the less it was every kind of rule and regulation, some of which were entirely superfluous to our needs because they were introduced on a pan-European basis. I learned long ago that power is best exercised when it is exercised closest to its effect. When decisions are made, they need to be sensitive to the difference they make to those affected by them. One of the reasons I was a passionate supporter of Brexit is that I want power to return to the place where it has its effect. I fear, therefore, entirely rationally, that if the default position as a result of the Bill is that we end up with European regulation, it will not be sensitive to its effect but instead will be decided upon far from where the businesses that it affects are located.

So, given the second issue is about how the measure is scrutinised, I invite the Government to reinvent some kind of European Scrutiny Committee or similar. Perhaps we can call it a regulatory scrutiny Committee; perhaps it may be a body that allows the full consideration of each of the measures that the Government introduce under this umbrella Bill to ensure the House was happy with them and felt they were appropriate and had been tailored in the right way. That might be an amendment that the Government will accept, given that the Secretary of State said he was open-minded about improving the legislation during its passage.

The third problem that this Bill has at its heart is the assumption about harmonisation. That term is often used and one should always be terribly fearful when it is, because it’s usually not about creating harmony but about accepting control from elsewhere. I worry that that process will snuff out some of the measures that might more usefully be adopted by Government and impose on businesses and others blunt measures that are insensitive to the particularities that prevail in our country. I do not say that is with intent, as it seems to me that the Secretary of State made clear it was not his intention, but I just fear that it will.

The regulatory impact assessment and the explanatory notes that we already had seem to imply that. They say, and the Secretary of State repeated this in his opening remarks, that there are all kinds of changes—new rules, new regulations and new restrictions—happening at a pace that require the attention of Government, and that pace is so great that it is hard for the Government to keep up. My fear is, therefore, that they will adopt very broad measures rather than ones that are sufficiently tailored and sufficiently refined to meet domestic needs.

With that constitutional problem of the balance between the Executive and Parliament; with that lack of scrutiny and oversight that comes from not having a body that can look at these things on a one-by-one basis; and with that tendency to produce broad-brush measures emanating from the European Union, as implied both in the Bill and in supporting documents, I have grave doubts about this legislation.

It is true that we should regulate where necessary, of course; it is right in the public interest that we do so. However, we must always do so with care, because when that regulation becomes burdensome, when it frustrates innovation and when it tempers the ability to produce goods that meet popular demand, rather than becoming helpful to either customers or those that supply them, it inhibits the very things that support those businesses and aid those customers. I simply invite the Minister when he sums up to re-emphasise that the Government believe, as I do, in light-touch regulation and in regulation that only applies when there has been appropriate discussion with those affected by it, that there will be a proper dialogue between business and business representatives before new measures are introduced, and that all that is introduced will have the character that I have set out: tailored, specific and in the British interest.

Our role in this place is to defend the national interest. I know that a kind of heady internationalism permeates particular parts of this Chamber—I look to my left towards the Liberal Democrats—but I have always thought that it was more important to stand up for the British people, to represent my constituents to the best of my ability and to be, as I described earlier, sensitive to the particularities of the locale that I represent and the country that I love. Is that too much to ask of Members of this House?

So, I do not regard my fears about this Bill as irrational, contrary to the hon. Member for Walthamstow’s assertion; they are deeply rooted in a rational fear of the worst this Bill could bring.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Good regulation is basically the immune system of our nation, and it is often unseen. When regulation is working well and having the desired effect, we rarely see it happening because it is keeping us safe and protecting us from those harms that we outsource to the Government to keep watch over for us. It is taking the necessary steps and measures to make sure that we are safe, the things we buy are safe, the interactions we have in our communities are safe and our children are safe. That regulation is a protection, essentially, and this Bill gives the scope and the agility for the Government—any Government—to respond quickly and in a timely manner to new and emerging potential threats that regulation is required to protect us from.

I worry when Governments of any colour—including, unfortunately, that of my own party of late—seek to suggest that regulation is inherently a bad thing, an inhibitor of growth or the heavy hand of the state stopping the illustrious bounds of enterprise, because it often is not. Often it is about a level playing field. It is about creating the circumstances where competitors in Stoke-on-Trent have as much opportunity to compete with their competitors around the country or around the world in a way that we understand to be fair, balanced and proportionate. To me, this Bill sets us on a course where we are able to do that.

There are some areas where product regulation and the safety that comes with it are lacking. If the House will indulge me, I would like once again to talk about ceramics and the ceramic industry because I believe that the product regulatory framework and the existing protections for ceramics—in terms of the quality of goods that are purchased and also the protection of the level playing field—could benefit hugely from actions that the Government could take through the powers in the Bill.

We have discussed online drop-shipping platforms many times in this House. These are websites that bulk buy things and sell them into the UK, often at a fraction of the price that people could buy them for in this country, and often faking and forging the identities and brands of British companies, without any consideration for what people are actually buying. I was shown a great example by a company in Staffordshire, Dunoon ceramics, which makes a very particular style of ceramic mug. The mugs cost about £28 to make and they retail at about £35, sometimes up to £50.

An online drop-shipping website was selling a fake version—with the same artwork and the same “Made in the United Kingdom” sticker and backstamp on the base—into the UK for about £10. We have no idea whether that product was meeting the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012 that it is required in this country to meet in order to be considered safe. We had no idea of the levels of lead or cadmium in the paint, no idea what the glaze was made of, no idea where the clay had come from and no idea of the conditions under which it was made, but it was sold into the UK thousands at a time, undercutting the British company. For clarity, I have no idea whether the product was defective, but it could have been, thereby putting people at risk.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman may not know this, but I collect ceramics, by the way, so I am extremely interested in them. He is right that we should support and, indeed, revere the British ceramic industry, but many laws already prevent the kind of counterfeiting he describes and other laws prevent illegal substances from being used and sold in the manufacture of goods. There is a lot of existing statute that protects consumers from the kind of practices he describes.

[Gareth Snell]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct that there are existing protections for some of the things I have mentioned that, if enforced properly, could take those products off the market, but the enforcement of many of our regulatory frameworks in this country is quite weak. Funding for most enforcement agencies across this country was—not to make a party political point—reduced under the last Government. I hope this Government will reconsider that because a regulation is only ever as good as the enforcement regime sat behind it.

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[Gareth Snell]

I do not think anybody would disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s assessment that if there is no enforcement of regulation, there is no benefit, but we are not saying in the Bill that there should be less enforcement. The Bill produces a framework in which the Government can take action to respond to create the good regulation necessary. I will freely admit that what has to come with that are the enforcement arrangements to ensure those new regulations are enforced properly, penalties to deter people seeking to circumvent the regulations, and the proper resourcing of enforcement agencies so they are equipped to take action against those people and companies seeking to circumvent the laws. Without that, I fully accept that regulation for the sake of regulation is no good any more than regulation being cut or diverged for the sake of divergence and reduction is any good. It comes down to enforcement.

To go back to the comments of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), there is one area in this Bill where Government action could bring in a new product protection regulation that would have a huge impact on the ceramic industry. That is around the backstamp on the bottom of a piece of ceramic or pottery. As an avid collector, he will be aware of the importance of those backstamps. In this country, if we turn over any plate, cup or anything made from good-quality British ceramics, we will normally find the words “Made in England” and the pottery name underneath it. Consumers then know they are buying a premium piece of British-manufactured ceramics that has been made to a suitable product standard that we accept in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the best in the world. It is perfectly plausible, as has been done with some of the fakery, to replicate that phrase when it is not true.

The other challenge we have is companies that import things into the United Kingdom augmenting the wording of that particular backstamp to suggest it has been made in the UK when it has not. It may have been bisque-fired overseas, imported and then decorated and glazed in the UK, but it will normally have a company name, the word “England” and the date upon which that historic brand was established. It gives consumers the idea that they are buying a piece of British-made ceramics that would therefore be protected by the normal product regulations when in fact it is not.

There is the potential for the Minister to use the new powers in the Bill to produce new regulation that says anything produced in the UK that is considered to be ceramic has to have a proper mark on the base that demonstrates where it was made and where it has come from and to demonstrate that it was made in the UK. If a company is not making it in the UK, they become prohibited from putting the words “England” or “Made in the UK” on it.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time—it is very generous of him. I think that we should jointly sponsor a Bill, Madam Deputy Speaker—the hon. Gentleman and I, not you and I, although we would love for you to be involved. He and I could jointly sponsor a “Made in Britain” Bill that would do exactly what he describes. I am not sure that this piece of legislation is necessary to do that, for we have that power in this House as it stands. Let us get little crowns printed on eggs again, let us have “Made in Britain” printed on everything, and let us go back to “Foreign made”, which was formerly widely used. I would love to see “Foreign made” stamped on imported goods—then people would not buy them!

[Gareth Snell]

I am very sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, but I and a number of my colleagues have already presented the Ceramics (Country of Origin Marking) Bill. He is more than welcome to support it should it ever be given its Second Reading. However, because of the nature of this place and the way private Members’ Bills work, I am realistic about the fact that if we are to see that regulatory protection for British ceramics, it will have to come through a different mechanism. The mechanism in this Bill, which allows the Government to make those protective arrangements through secondary legislation, could increase the protection of British ceramics.

My final point is about a level playing field for exports. I take the point that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made, after I had intervened on the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), about our regulatory regime and where we want to export. The bulk of the ceramics made in my constituency are exported to the EU. We could diverge from the EU food contact materials regulations and have a secondary system in this country, but all that would do is create a separate set of regulatory regimes for small companies with small margins, requiring them to make products twice. We simply could not stand that burden. Before I get attacked for being one of those horrible remainers, I urge Members to check my voting record during the 2017 to 2019 Parliament. There are times when sticking with what we know—the European regulations—absolutely makes sense. We should control that, but it makes sense to align ourselves where we should.

I support the Bill. I hope that the Minister will, as one of his first actions with his new powers, consider my points about ceramics. If he does not, perhaps he would like to support my Ceramics (Country of Origin Marking) Bill.

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[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Anyone listening to the debate would think that it is all about saving children from choking on toys, buildings not burning down because of defective batteries in bicycles, saving lives, safe products, and even the internal market and safeguarding the Northern Ireland economy, but it is not about any of that. It is nice to dress it up like that, and I suppose using that kind of language is helpful to make the Bill relevant to constituents, but the Bill is nothing to do with that.

Time and again Members have spoken about those kinds of issues—batteries catching fire, defective toys and so on—but they can and have been dealt with already in law. Indeed, we have even heard Members talking about illegal products being sold, so we do not need some Minister to change the law; we need someone to ensure that the laws in place are enforced. We already have a mechanism to make things illegal, so if there are gaps in the law, we can just use that mechanism.

Let us not obscure what the debate is all about. It is not about gaps and the need to safeguard people. It is all about the Bill’s agenda, which is to give Ministers additional powers. The public see a Government with a majority of over 200 who have been able to drive through legislation that has frustrated and angered them, whether it is taking money off pensioners for winter fuel or the legislation that was driven through last week to meet the net zero agenda, which failed to prevent us from buying solar products from China that are made by slave labour. I could go through all the other things that have made people angry, but a Government with a majority of over 200 now want to take on additional powers to allow a Minister to avoid having to come to this House to ensure product safety.

I have no doubt that the real reason Ministers wish to retain that power is that the Government have already set their mind on resetting our relations with Europe. They know it is unpopular with many of their supporters. They do not want to have constant scrutiny in this House on a weekly or monthly basis of new regulations that align us with Europe, so it is far better to give Ministers the power to do that quietly, without consultation or a vote in this House. As a number of Members have said, the Bill gives Ministers the power to do that.

Indeed, some of the Government’s own supporters in the House of Lords made the point that the Bill contains the potential for dynamic alignment. The Government have been ambiguous about whether the powers will be used to do that, but I am fairly sure that is the main reason. There is little enough opportunity for this House to look at and challenge legislation, but I believe it is wrong for a Bill to allow Ministers, under the cover of darkness, to take us back into arrangements that we have escaped from.

Members have mentioned Northern Ireland. We know the impact of the EU general product safety regulations already, because they apply in Northern Ireland. Businesses in the rest of the United Kingdom that want to sell their products in Northern Ireland will have to have agents in Northern Ireland. The EU makes these laws to try to tie other countries and companies to its regulations. I suspect the excuse the Government will use for pursuing dynamic alignment will be, “We’re doing it for the good of businesses in GB as well as Northern Ireland, because if we’re aligned to EU rules, we escape some of the restrictions on trade that the EU has imposed.” But why did we leave the EU in the first place, and why did many businesses support leaving the EU? First, the EU introduced costly regulations that did not even need to apply to many businesses because they never traded with the EU, but they still had to adjust their products to meet the regulations, which incurred costs.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am listening with intent to the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution. It may be that the Government are more innocent than he suggests and that there is not this hidden agenda he is describing, but in the words of a Northern Irishman, C. S. Lewis,

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”

Even if there is not a hidden agenda, in the end, in the name of the victims—the customers—this will end up being regulatory, bureaucratic and costly.

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[Adam Thompson]

Certainly. It is not a new word as far as I am concerned; I believe it was brought into common parlance in the Victorian era.

I will move on to some more examples. There is the James Webb space telescope—something more modern than the pyramids. It takes images of our universe more than 13 billion light years away that are deeper, more brilliant and more beautiful than anything we have ever seen. Behind that, there is the construction of a 6.5-metre mirror, flat to within just a few tenths of billionths of a metre from its highest top to its smallest valley. If we were to expand the size of the 6.5-metre mirror to the size of the Earth, the distance from the highest mountain to the deepest valley would be of the order of the height of my hip.

Behind the discovery of gravitational waves, there is a series of interferometers, kilometres in size, which can detect signals from noise at levels considered unachievable throughout human history until the past 20 years or so and which are capable of listening to the collision of black holes across spacetime.

[Sir John Hayes]

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, because he is making a wonderful contribution to our affairs, which is indicative of the beauty of science, about which we hear too little. Before he rushes—hurtles, one might say—into the future, can he say a word about the peculiarly British measurements that informed my childhood? I mean things such as pecks, perches, rods and bushels, for each of those was rooted in the way that he described.

[Adam Thompson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I am happy to explain. Those particular forms of measurement are not in common use any more, but of course many right hon. and hon. Members of this House will have grown up with them. Broadly, the ones that are still in use are defined in the modern parlance, but it is important to remember that the modern metric system accounts for all of those heritage measurements. The common inch, for example, is formally defined as 25.4 mm, and while I apologise to Members across the House, it is important for me to let them know that the pint is formally defined as 568 ml. Those heritage measurements and, indeed, the entire imperial system are now referenced on to the metric system; defined very simply, the imperial system is the metric system. There is no reason why we should not use those historical measurements—where they are useful, they are perfectly valid—but they are formally defined with reference to the modern metric system. I will talk more about this shortly.

Metrology lies at the heart of everything we know, from telescopes to speed cameras and from knee replacements to jet engines. Every single thing made by human hand was designed first, constructed second and then checked by a metrologist to ensure it met its specifications—if we cannot know it, we cannot improve it. However, ensuring that parts meet their specifications is not simple, as each measurement, dimensional or otherwise, has an associated measurement uncertainty. That is a non-negative parameter characterising the dispersion of the quantity values being attributed to the thing being measured, based on the information used. Estimation of measurement uncertainty is a complex procedure—one that formed much of my career prior to coming to this place—and is usually performed in line with the “Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement”.

Uncertainty estimation is generally performed by making measurements that are traceable to the definition of the SI metre—when we are concerned with the metre. Again, the “Vocabulaire international de métrologie” defines traceability as a property of a measurement result whereby the result can be related to a reference through a documented, unbroken chain of calibrations, each contributing to the overall measurement uncertainty. Traceable measurements allow for the successful estimation of uncertainty and are generally a base requirement for the verification of manufactured goods. Traceability is considered by the international community to be the only means by which evidence can be provided towards a given product fulfilling the requirements set out by its designer.

To provide an example, let us consider a length measurement made between two faces of a manufactured part, such as a Rubik’s cube. Imagine that I am holding a Rubik’s cube—I could not possibly have brought a prop, Madam Deputy Speaker. The length between two faces could be measured by a calliper. That calliper would be calibrated using a measurement artifact, most commonly a metal cuboid called a gauge block. That gauge block would in turn be calibrated by a more accurate instrument, which itself is calibrated using a more accurate gauge block. That more accurate gauge block would then be calibrated with reference to an optical interferometer using a laser source. That laser source is finally calibrated against the iodine-stabilised laser that is used to realise the definition of the metre, so traceability is established from the shop floor measurement all the way up to the definition of the metre by an unbroken chain of calibrations.

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[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

I do not think I can; I thought that was an absolutely brilliant speech. I feel like a party-pooper, because I am going to drag the debate back to the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, and I can only apologise. I was going to assert boldly that I was the only Member of this House who had sat on a standards committee and drafted European regulations, but I stand corrected. There are now two of us.

At first glance, the Bill looks tiny. There are just four clauses on product regulations and four substantive clauses on metrology. There is a reason why it is so tiny: it does not actually say anything. There is no description of the changes anticipated by this legislation. There are no examples of what needs to be addressed. There is no indication of the direction behind any future decisions—nothing. Members, particularly those on the Government Benches, have referred to e-bikes and e-scooters, electrical safety, defective toys and lithium-ion batteries, to name just a few, but not a single one of those things is in the Bill. They could be. This could be a regulation Bill trying to fix the problems that have been identified, but none of that is there.

Worse than that, there is no explanation for the silence. The Bill simply makes a request of this House—of us, as parliamentarians—by saying, “Please give me, the Minister, the power to change primary legislation through regulations, including the power to create new and novel criminal offences.” This is the very definition of a skeleton Bill, where almost all the substance is left to regulations. That is contrary to an established convention in this House and the other place that the principal aspects of policy should be in a Bill, and only its detailed implementation left to delegated legislation. That is an established principle of our legislature. If we wish to depart from that, there needs to be a very good reason.

In exceptional circumstances, there are good reasons, but are there exceptional circumstances here? The issue was picked up immediately in what proved to be a hostile reception in the other place on Second Reading on 8 October last year. That was followed by a review on 15 October by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which is not some right-wing conspiracy theory group. This is not “Brexit or die”; it is chaired by Labour. It is chaired by Baroness Ramsey, and it is a cross-party Committee. By the way, in another role, she is the senior adviser to the Labour party on standards and ethics, yet her report has been entirely ignored by this Government, because it was damning in its conclusions. It said that Government guidance was that skeleton legislation should be used only in the most exceptional circumstances, but that test was “failed” by this draft legislation. As a result, that cross-party Committee, chaired by Labour, made the recommendation that clauses 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9 all be removed. Those are the substantive clauses right through the Bill, on both sides. That is a stinging indictment of this category of draft legislation.

However, the Committee members were so concerned that they did not leave it at that. The following day, they took the exceptional step of summoning the Minister and his officials to give oral evidence. That is very rare, and it was the first time for three years that it had happened. The Committee members were clearly unimpressed by the answers—the attempted explanations —that they were given, because in a subsequent report, on 28 October, they reported that the Minister and his officials had

“failed to provide a convincing justification”.

As a result of that second damning indictment of the Government’s approach, there was some movement: the removal of some Henry VIII powers, and the addition of a duty to consult, at least in the first instance. However, other Henry VIII powers remain, and the duty to consult refers only to the first instance, not to any secondary attempts.

The Committee then produced a third report, on the Bill in its current form. It said that

“the delegation to Ministers of law-making powers in this Bill involves legislative power shifting to an unacceptable extent from the democratically appointed legislature to the Executive”,

and also that

“the Government have failed to provide a convincing justification for the inclusion of skeleton clauses in the Bill”.

Actually, I think the Government did understand what they were doing, because the Bill gives Ministers the power to make politically contentious decisions about the degree to which domestic law on product regulation and, indeed, on metrology should be aligned with EU laws. That is the real reason behind the Bill: the fear of EU alignment by the back door.

[Sir John Hayes]

My experience in this place—I am mindful of what my hon. Friend has said already—is that there are two types of Bill to beware of. The first is the Bill whose provisions are so permissive, so broad, lacking the tailored approach that I described earlier, as to allow law to be applied in a way that is not expected by those who debate it as it passes through the House. The second is the Bill that makes specific provision for delegated legislation—for subsequent action by the Government. Those two types of legislation are legislation to beware of, and I say that to Members on both sides of the House, having seen Governments of all kinds introduce such Bills which became, in the end, bad laws.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Of course I agree with my right hon. Friend, and that comes to the nub of what I want to say. Yes, inevitably we are party politicians. We have the official Opposition, we have the Government, and we have those who sit on the left-hand side of the official Opposition. Above that, however, we are parliamentarians, and some of us are quite new. I may look old, and indeed I am, but I was first elected in 2019, and an awful lot of Members in the Chamber who may be voting tonight are even less experienced than me. It takes a while to begin to understand the difference between the role of the legislature and the role of the Executive, and my profound concern is that we are at risk of handing very significant powers from ourselves, the legislature, to the Executive.

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[Jim Allister]

Absolutely. If the Government are not—as many of us suspect—following a deliberate approach of circumventing debate in this House on key realignment issues, and is seeking rather to channel it through statutory instruments, then call our bluff, change this Bill in that regard. But this idea of skeleton legislation, which sets up the powers that have been taken from Parliament and given to the Executive, is something which, historically, this party of Government have railed against.

Indeed, within a week of Second Reading in the other place, the Attorney General gave the Bingham lecture. He said:

“excessive reliance on delegated powers, Henry VIII clauses, or skeleton legislation, upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law values…but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty. In my view, the new Government offers an opportunity for a reset in the way that Government thinks about these issues. This means, in particular, a much sharper focus on whether taking delegated powers is justified in a given case, and more careful consideration of appropriate safeguards.”

That was the Attorney General. Where did that go to?

[Sir John Hayes]

I am interested in the Attorney General’s view, and we should take it seriously. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman recognise that primary legislation in this place metamorphosises in its passage through scrutiny? I have been involved in many Bills, as shadow Minister, Minister and Back Bencher, and that is precisely what happens. Ministers listen to argument, and as Bills return to the House, they reflect that argument both from here and in the Lords. Secondary legislation does not go through that process. That is why it is so important that the Bills we pass here do not contain the kind of permissive powers that facilitate so much secondary legislation.

[Jim Allister]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right. If one wanted to realign the United Kingdom with the EU, the easiest passage would be by statutory instruments. That is why that is the chosen mechanism here.

I have one final point. This Parliament traditionally and properly makes the law on criminal offences. We set the tariffs. Sometimes we say what the minimum penalty for a criminal offence is, but we always say what the maximum penalty is. We say what the content is of the criminal offence—what are the actus reus and the mens rea. But amazingly under clauses 3(9) and 3(11) and clauses 6(9) and 6(11) of the Bill we are going to make criminal offences by statutory instrument. Surely we have lost the run of ourselves if we think it is appropriate to make criminal offences in that essentially uncontrolled manner. It deprives this House, and therefore those we represent, of the very careful scrutiny that should always go into making something a crime. That is but another of the fundamental flaws of this undeserving Bill.

Employment Rights Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Yemm]

I absolutely agree; my hon. Friend has spelled out why enforcement is so important.

I would happily speak further in support of so many of the amendments that have been tabled, but I am acutely aware that we are at the end of the debate.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is coming to his exciting peroration, so I just wanted to say that he is absolutely right about the feckless behaviour of corporate businesses that disregard the interests of their workers, and I share his view of trade unions. However, does he recognise that there is a world of difference between the burdens we place on those organisations that can happily deal with them and the effects that some parts of the Bill will have—perhaps unintentionally—on very small businesses? I imagine that the businesses he started were such business, at least at the beginning. This Bill has caused fear among small businesses and microbusinesses. There is a real distinction between those heartless corporates and the hard-working SMEs in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine, is there not?

[Steve Yemm]

As a small business founder and someone who has grown a business, I recognise the need for balance. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for raising that point. In my concluding remarks, I put on the record how proud I am of my unions, the GMB and Unite, for the work that they have done with this Government to help deliver this groundbreaking legislation. I will therefore be voting with pride to support the Bill in the Lobby later today.

“Chapter 4A

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

If the hon. Lady will allow me to continue, it will become clear why we take such a position; I will give some concrete examples in a few moments of where the law of unintended consequences will kick in on this provision.

A 2022 study by the Higher Education Policy Institute found that quiet no-platforming, where students decide not to invite otherwise suitable speakers to an event because of their views, was more common than reported cases of no-platforming. Speakers quietly no-platformed include Alex Salmond, Liam Neeson, Harry Enfield, Tony Blair—one that those on the Labour Benches might blink at—and Peter Hitchens. Although this clause is well meaning, it is likely to make matters worse. As James Murray, the legal director of Doyle Clayton, has pointed out, this clause could well cause difficulties for universities in offering a platform to discuss issues on which those listening may have differing views.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the problem in universities. It has particularly found form in no-platforming speakers deemed to be unacceptable or to make people feel uncomfortable because of their views on transsexuals, for example. Kathleen Stock, a distinguished academic and a feminist, was no-platformed in exactly that way because of her view that sex is a biological fact. This clause needs to be examined in that context. I welcome much about this Bill—particularly on trade unions and zero-hours contracts, as it happens—but I feel that this one area needs to be looked at again by the Government, for the very reasons that my hon. Friend made clear.

[Greg Smith]

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend that this area needs to be looked at again to ensure that those unintended consequences that challenge freedom of speech in this country are not allowed to come through. I double-underline that we have no truck with harassment: we absolutely believe that it should be stamped out, using criminal law where necessary, to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice. This Bill opens the door to unintended consequences.

Terms and Conditions of Employment

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Let me begin by referring to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the debate, and for making the necessary amendments to primary legislation so soon after the code of practice was approved. It has taken us more than two years, but today we see the first actual legislative change to tackle the blight of dismissal and re-engagement—or fire and rehire, as it is more commonly known. We will not oppose today’s motion, but we are clear that the order does not go anywhere near far enough towards ending this cruel practice, or meet the promises made by the Government.

During the two years since we witnessed those disgraceful scenes at P&O, it has continued to benefit from taxpayers’ cash through Government contracts, and fire and rehire hasusb continued to toxify our industrial relations landscape. While the P&O Ferries case itself did not entirely constitute fire and rehire, it bore many of the hallmarks of the practice and exposed the gaping holes in our law—holes that continue to be exploited; in the wake of the pandemic, there has been a jump in the number of instances of employers choosing to fire and rehire workers.

According to research conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, between August 2021 and 2023, the proportion of firms that conducted fire and rehire almost doubled. What was once a seldom-used device has become a mainstream practice, and part of the wider pattern of growing insecurity at work. In short, it has become a first choice, rather than a last resort. A TUC investigation found that about 38,000 employers were still using fire and rehire as a tactic. However, when we were finally given the code that we were promised would tackle this Dickensian practice, we found instead a vague, weak and disappointing document that would not actually prevent another case as egregious as P&O. On that basis alone, the Government have failed to keep the promise that they made more than two years ago.

The element that many people found most offensive about the P&O case, which today’s motion seeks to address, is the fact that the P&O management were able to look at the sanctions for which they were potentially liable and then decide whether or not they wanted to abide by the law. In effect, the cost of breaking the law was considered to be just another business overhead to be factored into decision making, and, as we saw, the management decided that those sanctions were not a strong enough deterrent to prevent rule-breaking. In its response to the consultation, ACAS said that a 25% penalty

“may not always present a significant deterrent when calculated against the financial costs and risks of an alternative approach.”

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I raised exactly those concerns at the time in relation to P&O. The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful argument—and, incidentally, I congratulate the Minister on the motion—but the critical factor is the size of the business involved. A very large business can absorb all kinds of costs that a small local firm cannot. That has been the change, and the regulations that we put in place need to reflect that change, because otherwise those large businesses will behave with impunity.

[Justin Madders]

I will refer to other comments made by ACAS in response to the consultation, which I think will pick up some of the right hon. Gentleman’s observations.

We now have a clear indication that unscrupulous employers cannot get away scot-free with breaking the law, but there are concerns that a 25% uplift will not be enough to deter bad employers who are determined to do what they feel is necessary. Once P&O had calculated the maximum penalty that it could face in compensation for each employee, it priced that into its decision. In effect, it was able to treat the law on consultation—a law that is there to protect workers’ jobs and their dignity—as optional. Today’s motion means that breaking the law will remain an option; it just might be a slightly more expensive one now.

Laws are only as strong as their enforcement. We believe that sanctions should reflect the egregiousness of the transgression. If an employer decides to break the law, the sanction should not be capped, but instead should be decided on the basis of the facts. That would mean that any employers who were tempted to brazenly flout their legal obligations, having calculated the cost of breaking the law, would no longer be able to do so, because the cost of the sanction could, in the most serious cases, be much higher than the cost of complying with the law. Smaller transgressions would be treated accordingly by a tribunal. As things stand, the most egregious abuses have a cost ceiling, so those with ill intent can still price in the cost of acting unlawfully.

In its response to the consultation, ACAS said that there were

“grounds for considering whether additional or alternative financial disincentives might help…the government’s policy objectives”,

including

“greater uplifts of awards where this is just and equitable”

or

“where there are especially egregious breaches of the Code.”

It also suggested—this is relevant to the intervention from the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes)—that when deciding appropriate awards, courts and tribunals might be required to consider, for example, whether the employer ought to have known better than to breach the code, the degree of legal advice readily available to it, and its financial resources. We agree with those suggestions. The arrogant, uncaring and deliberate trampling of workers’ rights requires a stronger message from this place that those actions will no longer be tolerated. Bad employers should not be able to buy their way out of doing the right thing, but instead we see the status quo preserved.

Thankfully, many good employers understand the importance of working collaboratively with unions. We commend those employers, and we know that they already go above and beyond the legal requirements, but there is no evidence that the 25% uplift is likely to prove a deterrent to those who do not. The Government do not know how often the compensatory uplift is used in other areas of employment law where there is a similar penalty for transgressing a code of practice, which prompts us to ask on what basis it has been decided that this measure will be effective in preventing employers from failing to follow the code of practice.

We welcome the fact that the order extends the scope of compensation to any situation in which a protective award under section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 is applicable. I understand that to mean that more traditional redundancy situations will be covered, but there are limitations. There must be 20 or more employees at the same establishment for the obligations to be activated, which means that many smaller employers—and, probably more pertinently, many more employers whose workforce may be spread across many different settings, retail being an obvious example—can still be excluded. The measure also only protects “employees”, which means that some of the most insecure workers in the labour market will not benefit one jot; and, of course, the Government intend to reintroduce employment tribunal fees, which, as we know from experience, inhibit people from enforcing their rights.

The regulations also provide for a 25% reduction in compensation when an employee unreasonably fails to comply with the code of practice. During last month’s debate on the code, I asked the Minister what elements of the P&O case, or indeed any recent mass redundancy exercise, had led him to believe that such provisions were necessary. I am afraid that I did not receive a satisfactory response then, so I will ask the question again. Is it not the case that nothing in recent high-profile examples of fire and rehire redundancy has made it necessary to give tribunals the power to take away compensation from employees?

We will not oppose the motion, because it is a step, albeit a small one, in the right direction, but let me make it absolutely clear that what is before us will not prevent another case as egregious as that of P&O. It has taken us two years to reach this point—two years in which we have seen growing insecurity at work, and have come no closer to providing the protections that workers in this country deserve. When the Government committed themselves to responding to the outrage of P&O, there was a moment of consensus across the business world, across the political spectrum and indeed across the whole country that this disgraceful practice should be consigned to the history books. Epitomising that consensus, the then Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), said:

“we will not allow this to happen again…where new laws are needed, we will create them…where legal loopholes are cynically exploited, we will close them, and...where employment rights are too weak, we will strengthen them.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 840.]

Those legal loopholes remain as open as they did two years ago, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to prevent the outrage of P&O happening again. That is yet another example of the long list of wrongs that will need a Labour Government to put them right. It is time to end the race to the bottom. It is time to end fire and rehire.

Conversion Practices

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. Men and women are peculiar. All of us are characterised by as many particularities, preferences and preoccupations as can possibly be imagined. When we look from a distance, the beach looks uniform; when we get closer, every pebble is different, and so are we. Yet there is a constant in all our lives, and that constant is change, with all its joys and sorrows.

Change is at its most profound when we are growing, maturing and developing, as the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said. Some changes are permanent and some are ephemeral, but coping with both means learning from others—often others who know much more. Sometimes we need to ask; sometimes we need to question. If, in the secret garden of love, which is adorned with flowers of all kinds, some blooms are perpetual and some fade, and if we are told that what we choose is no longer permitted and that we need to be forced to grow a different flower altogether, can that be right? Can that be squared with the eclecticism, the strangeness and the particularity of life? For me, it cannot.

Exploring desire is a journey that we all travel. Being guided, counselled and advised sometimes helps us to navigate our way on that difficult journey. Prohibiting guidance, in my judgment, is a short step from a ban on friendship—friendship, which may make burdens lighter and suffocate the fire of fear. Could we, in conscience, really want to make consensual, quiet conversations illegal? No one in this Chamber and no one who contributes to this debate wants cruel, inhumane and spiteful interventions in people’s particular and very different lives. Surely, we cannot ban the freedom to speak, to put our case, and to converse.

I glory in our differences in all its richness, and I congratulate in particular the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) on what I thought was an outstanding speech. Life is complicated, and in the mists of its confusion is the torch of free speech and free thought, which burns brightly.

[Florence Eshalomi]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about life being complicated, it is complicated for a number of people, including the many black and minority ethnic people who still, to this day, have not had the courage to come out because of the stigma and fear. Does he not appreciate that those practices make it even harder for those people to speak out and be their true selves?

[Sir John Hayes]

If the hon. Lady is speaking of what I described as cruel and spiteful interventions in quiet, or sometimes less quiet, lives, then yes, of course. However, if she is referring to the kind of conversations that I described, which help people to navigate their way through life, would she really want those prohibited and made unlawful? I cannot think she would.

When we consider cancellations, bans and prohibitions —on whatever grounds, but particularly on the grounds of activists who legitimise them on the basis that they are progressive and that anyone who opposes them is a heretic—I say that if to be part of a crusade against puritanical militant transsexuals is heretical, then sign me up. If it is heresy to say that sex is a biological fact, then count me in. On that basis, I am proud to be a heretic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There are elements that could bring about prosecutions, but we are aware that more work needs to be done on providing the guidance that the police, the CPS and so on need. There have been accusations that nothing has been happening in the past couple of months, but that is part of the work that we have been looking at. What could we do to provide encouragement and confidence to those who are implementing the protections of the law and give them the guidance that they will need? I hope that we will be able to provide more of an update on that in the time to come.

[Sir John Hayes]

The Minister will be aware that many young people go through gender dysphoria and there is some evidence that that has increased over time. Growing up is a confusing time, as I said in my speech. Although I entirely agree with him about prohibiting cruel and spiteful practice, on the business of seeking counsel during that confusion from family or friends, or perhaps from an organisation or a church, we surely would not want to ban that.

[Stuart Andrew]

My right hon. Friend raises a point that I am about to address.

[Sir John Hayes]

Can he hurry up?

[Stuart Andrew]

Absolutely. I think we can agree that we must take particular care in this area when we consider legislative action. Any legislation targeting harmful practices must not affect the wider ability of parents, teachers, councillors, religious leaders or healthcare practitioners to have open, exploratory and sometimes even challenging conversations with young people who are expressing or exploring their identity. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) put it very well when she talked about her church and many people seeking support from that church. Protecting legitimate talking therapies is essential, especially for young people. We must not inadvertently criminalise or have a chilling effect on legitimate interventions and conversations.

I know from personal experience that it was conversations with my mum that helped me get through my period of coming out and realising what my sexuality was. I would not want my mum to feel that she could not have that honest conversation. Despite the fact that I am a big supporter of the conversion practices Bill, I have, as I have got into the detail, recognised that there are complexities that need to be addressed to ensure that those honest conversations can be had.

UK Concussion Guidelines for Grassroots Sport

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the guidance. Prevention is important. It is up to each of the national governing bodies to draw up plans, and in every meeting I have with those bodies I will keep asking what they are doing in that area. We will ensure that we monitor the success of the guidance. Just last week, we were talking about how we will measure success and ensure the messaging is delivered effectively.

If research suggests that we need to amend the guidance, then we will amend it. We will keep up with the latest available medical research and take evidence from all over the world. Indeed, medical experts from around the world helped us to develop the guidance.

On the provision of health services, I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Health and Social Care are taking the issue seriously, as part of a wider brain injury strategy, and I am sure they will make announcements in due course.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Brain injury blights thousands of lives each year. The Minister is to be congratulated, as are his immediate predecessors, for taking the issue more seriously than it has been taken by Government for decades. Nevertheless, more needs to be done both on preventative measures of the kind that have been raised already and on aftercare. When concussion occurs, what happens 24 or 48 hours later, or later still, matters too. In developing the next stage of the strategy, will the Minister recognise that this is a matter of what happens before, during and after such an event?

[Stuart Andrew]

I know that my right hon. Friend is vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group on acquired brain injury and takes a keen interest in this area. I hope that the publication of the guidelines shows how seriously we are taking the issue. We want to ensure that the best possible information is available, and we will liaise constantly with the research groups that have been established, so that the guidelines will be updated if needs be.