Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]

Debate between John Hayes and Sammy Wilson

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.