Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]

Julian Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I believe I am correct in saying that he is not only a metrologist, but the first metrologist elected to Parliament. I put no heavy expectations on his speech today, but we are all looking forward to it with interest.

My hon. Friend is right that there are areas where we will choose to work with international standards, and there will be areas where we choose to diverge, but that decision is made possible only by having the powers to begin with. No decisions will be made in this Bill, if it becomes an Act of Parliament, as to how we will do that; however, without it, we would not have the toolkit to make those decisions. The essence of these proposed laws is that we are taking back control for the House of Commons and Parliament to make these kinds of decisions.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be aware from the Second Reading debate in the Lords that a number of what I shall gently refer to as Eurosceptic peers have expressed concerns that the Bill is a form of dynamic alignment with the European Union, and that, far from taking back control over which standards are involved and which guidelines are necessary, we will be abdicating control in favour of whatever the European Union decides. Can he set our minds at rest over those concerns? I am sure he would not wish to be diverted along such a dead-end route.

[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.