Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (UK (NI) Indication) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Friday 27th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am sorry for this confusion; it is not my doing. I will give my contribution now.

I thank the Minister for his explanatory remarks and his letter concerning product safety when the UK leaves the EU. I note that the statutory instrument before Parliament makes amendments to the product safety regulations 2019, but they have yet to come into force. They will implement the Northern Ireland protocol and the withdrawal agreement, and correct deficiencies caused by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. All this is in the interests of ensuring that an effective product safety regime continues in the UK, in that it removes unsafe or non-compliant products from the market. This is of course very laudable, providing protection to the public from the unscrupulous and giving certainty to consumers.

To illustrate the point, will the Minister offer some examples of products that are currently deemed safe under the EU CE mark but could be deemed unsafe in future without the corresponding UKCA or UK(NI) mark? In a similar vein, could he provide examples of deficiencies that might need to be corrected in goods and products that might be traded between the UK and the EU, between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK, or between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland?

The factsheet that accompanied the Minister’s letter makes it clear that the department has not undertaken a public consultation on this instrument for the reasons given. Unfortunately, errors or omissions in the same paragraph obscure its sense. On the subject of insensitivities, the instrument regularly refers to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland while reducing the description of the Republic of Ireland to the diminutive “Ireland”. The factsheet estimates that more than 100,000 businesses may need to familiarise themselves with these changes; around 85,000 are UK retailers/wholesalers, notified bodies and local authorities. Will the Minister say how those figures were arrived at and what are the estimated costs of their introduction and subsequent policing?