Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, was in full flow. He may resume on Amendment 3.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I was not in full flight; I was merely jogging along the runway.

I have talked to Amendment 3 already. Amendment 95 also focuses on safety, and simply spells out some considerations for future regulations to be made under the Act—namely, that they must have regard for consumer safety and well-being, and environmental sustainability. As I said before, how could anybody disagree with that comforting thought?

Looking forward, we could leave it there and deal with the second part of the amendment in a different way, but I chose to add some specific points around the disposal of chemicals and of lithium-ion products. Given that this is Committee, I want to probe the Minister on how he regards the issue of disposal within the context of the Bill, which is why I included those parts. In a sense, there are two ways of looking at Amendment 95. One is the writing in of an undertaking that consumer safety, well-being and environmental sustainability will be a key part of future regulation. The other is to understand a little more how the Government regard disposal. There will be other times when bits of this are debated, but I am clear in my mind that we must consider the end of life of products that this Bill will eventually regulate. The hardest part of that is what happens to chemicals and batteries.

I hope the Minister will agree, but I fear he may suggest that this should be managed through regulation that we have not yet seen. It would be helpful at least to understand how the Government would go about these things. Regulation is where details lie. I come back to the idea that we need guard-rails to indicate how regulation will be developed and otherwise. That is what we would expect in primary legislation. The principles, in this case for the safety of marketed products, should be set out in primary legislation. I beg to move.