Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, much of this Bill, as we know, is underpinned by secondary legislation, which has yet to be set out. That, of course, includes online marketplaces. To support the development of effective regulation, the Government, I hope, will set out their timetable for developing such secondary legislation as soon as possible. They should also provide clarification on who those referred to in the Bill as the “relevant authorities” are, particularly in relation to online marketplaces, which have to co-operate with others in Clause 2.

The UK’s fire and rescue services provide front-line response when dangerous products are sold in an online marketplace and catch fire or set fire to other properties and cause terrible burns to anyone who happens to be nearby. The London Fire Brigade, to which I am most grateful for the information it has given me, has seen a stark rise in e-bike and e-scooter fires in recent years. It responds to an incident about every 48 hours now. In this year alone, there were 131 fires from January to September. Given the role of the fire and rescue services, it would be helpful to set it out and recognise it in regulations. That is the reason for my Amendment 23, which is the lead amendment in this group, and Amendment 105, which goes with it.

Amendment 23 would ensure that regulated marketplaces co-operate with emergency services where appropriate to protect consumers from unsafe products and allow fire and rescue services to respond to fire safety concerns about known products. Some online marketplaces already co-operate with fire and rescue services. One of those—which I will not name because I do not think it appropriate to provide advertising—is a major online supplier that does include safety advice from the London Fire Brigade, but unfortunately, not all sites do.

The Bill is a welcome step to protect consumers from harmful products. It has very wide scope, but it needs to cover the online marketplaces that facilitate the sale or giving away of products through private individuals from one to another, as well as those sold as new. That includes the likes of some of the trading websites—again, I will not name them because I do not want to advertise them. From investigations by the London Fire Brigade, we know that products sought from second-hand online marketplaces include e-bikes, chargers and batteries, which have the potential to cause great harm. It has seen examples of incidents such as the Sutton railway station fire in March, when fire crews were called to the station during rush hour as commuters were on their way home. A bike owner had bought an e-bike from an online marketplace four months beforehand and had had no issues with the purchase. The station commander has confirmed that the fire was ferocious, happened extremely quickly and would have been devastating if things had worked out differently. He said that he hates to think of the tragic consequences that could have occurred. It was, in a way, just fortunate that it happened where it did and that no one was injured, but it serves to highlight the dangers when products are purchased or given away for free from one individual to another.

I know that Amendment 32 has already been debated, and I apologise to the Committee that I was unable to be here; I was on an aeroplane, because the railway lines were flooded. But I read Hansard, and the comments there are all relevant to the stark rise in e-bike fires in the capital.

Turning to Amendment 105 and Clause 7, the proposals would give the regulator the power to require companies subject to the regulation to provide information on the products being sold. As drafted, this clause would give the regulator only the power to require the provision of information and does not give them a responsibility to share this with bodies that have a statutory duty or responsibility for public safety, including fire and rescue services. The role of the data from the London Fire Brigade has been really important and has shown us the scale of the problem. Ensuring that emergency services have access to all the data will be welcome going forward in monitoring safety and spotting things—perhaps products that we currently cannot even imagine, which may come on to the marketplace and subsequently prove to be unsafe.

The change to Clause 7 in my Amendment 105 would ensure that regulations make provision for sharing information about unsafe products with the emergency services, including fire and rescue services, and that they have the information they need to respond to these emerging risks. They also run prevention campaigns and can provide accurate safety messaging, which can all be supportive of public safety, so that the Bill can meet its overall and much-needed aims. I beg to move.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I rise briefly to support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness. I also draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that when I moved Amendments 2 and 27 in an earlier group, on the issue of installation, I pointed out that in respect of the potentially very dangerous lithium-ion batteries used in EV charging-point systems, for example, and solar panel array storage batteries, there is currently no requirement on the competent person scheme individual who is installing those systems to notify relevant authorities of the installing of those batteries.

I pointed out at the time that lithium-ion batteries, about which we will no doubt speak a great deal when we come to group 5, can create huge fires at high temperatures and very toxic gases; I also pointed out that, crucially, they cannot be put out by the use of water. That is why it is so important that the relevant authorities, particularly the emergency services, are aware of the current location of such devices. The current arrangements require the individual house owner to make such a notification. My amendment argued that it should be the responsibility of the installer not only to check on the safety of the entire system but to make that notification. For that reason, I am particularly supportive of the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, had I been a little shrewder on the grouping, I would have included in this group Amendment 106, which we will debate in the antepenultimate group of the Bill, as it also addresses Clause 7 and goes after the same objective of information sharing. Whether it is lithium-ion batteries or some other danger, it is important that we learn from the problems that are established and that the right people can get that information, so that learning process can start.

I suggest that, whether it is the process set down by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, which we support, or something like my Amendment 106, or something that the drafters sitting behind the Minister can do much better than we can, there needs to be a point in this Bill about a process of information sharing, whether it is set out in detail, as in my amendment, which talks about who or what those bodies are, or whether it is a more general duty, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has set out. We support these proposals, and I hope that we can have a debate next time. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the need to understand dangers, learn from them and move to be able to prevent them.

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Reliance on penalties alone will not solve the funding shortage being felt at local level, but it would ensure direct support for enforcement. It would bring about enhanced consumer safety and level the competitive field, benefiting high street retailers by ensuring that online and overseas sellers faced equivalent compliance standards, so creating fairer competition across sales channels. I look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s response to the amendments.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments deal with a range of issues concerning enforcement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, said, I have signed and fully support the numerous amendments she has tabled, and I do not intend, other than very briefly, to touch on those at all.

I said at Second Reading that improved safety will come about through this legislation only if there is effective enforcement of the various regulations that are going to be laid. As I understand it, the thrust of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, which he will describe in more detail later on, is that they seek clarification on who is going to be responsible for enforcement and what their responsibilities will be.

My noble friend Lady Brinton, who is unable to be with us today, has an amendment that in part suggests that trading standards officers should be the ones responsible since, frankly, they have the expertise and skills and are best placed to take on the role. Indeed, I am pretty sure—although obviously, we will have to wait until we hear the Minister’s response—that trading standards officers are going to play a crucial role in enforcing the Bill and, much more significantly, the as yet unknown contents of regulations arising from it.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which I fully support, assumes that trading standards will be the ones who will have the key responsibility, but my noble friend’s amendments and my own Amendment 64 seek to ensure that whoever does the enforcement also has the necessary resources, including financial, to carry out the work.

When I raised this issue at Second Reading, the Minister talked about improved enforcement capability, which he said would come through the more efficient use of time, better notices, better data-sharing opportunities and the support that will be offered, such as support on technical queries from the OPSS—but not a whiff of a promise of additional funding.

At the very helpful meeting then organised by the Minister, I asked how the new burdens principle fitted into all this, whereby the Government will be expected to fund costs arising from new burdens placed on other bodies. The Minister promised to write to us, and indeed he did. He stated:

“No new burdens are being imposed”


by the Bill. He went on:

“The principal enforcement activities currently undertaken by local authorities and delivered by trading standards are not changing”.


Clearly, that is not the case, if we take into account all the regulations that will flow from this skeleton Bill. In fairness, to some extent the Minister acknowledged that. He said that there is a “potential”—an odd choice of word since we know it will happen—for the regulations to bring new burdens. He promised to continue dialogue with a new burdens team, and he pointed to the cost- recovery powers in Clause 8, clarification of which has rightly been sought by the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, in her Amendment 109.

However, we should surely be acutely aware of the current position faced by trading standards officers around the country. Frankly, they do an excellent job. Over the last year, 2023-24, trading standards prevented more than £905 million of consumer detriment in England and Wales, equating to £8.39 saved for every £1 spent. But despite that really good value for money, over the last decade, spending on trading standards has been cut by more than 50%. Over the same period, staffing levels in local authorities have fallen by between 30% and 50%. Frankly, many local authorities no longer have sufficient resources to enforce all the consumer protection legislation for which they are responsible. Therefore, without additional resources, they certainly will not have the capability to cope with more, which might—or rather, will—come as a result of this Bill.

Whoever takes on the enforcement responsibility will need additional resources to do the job, and that will not be achieved by things such as better data sharing and support on technical queries by the OPSS. I hope the Minister can give us far more assurances than he has so far that the Government are alert to this issue. I hope that he will provide us with assurances that extra resources will be made available, as proposed by my noble friend’s amendments and my own.

I have a couple of other amendments to touch on briefly. In a sense, my Amendment 70 builds on Amendment 98, which I have signed, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley. When buying a product online, the buyer is often aware who the seller is. Amendment 98 would place a duty on the fulfilment houses that store all this stuff before it goes out to the consumer to ensure that appropriate safety legislation has been taken into account. Other amendments suggest that there should be a responsibility on online market- places to ensure that appropriate safety regulations have been met by all the products available on their platform. My Amendment 70 goes a little further and suggests that we should therefore give the consumer the right to bring a claim against the online marketplace, regardless of who the original provider of the product was, if this has not happened and they suffer as a result of the product not having met the appropriate standards.

Finally, Amendments 63 and 87 seek to expand enforcement powers by giving the relevant authority or an inspector the power to require a person to attend an interview to answer questions, a power usually known as an interview notice. In similar legislation, authorities including regulators have that power. In the Data (Use and Access) Bill that is currently before your Lordships’ House, the Government seek to give the Information Commissioner that power to give interview notices. The Government are also seeking to give the Security Industry Authority that power in the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, and the new independent football regulator, in the Football Governance Bill currently before your Lordships’ House, will be given the same power. Yet it is omitted, bizarrely, from this Bill. That means that, on the one hand, the relevant authority would have the power to enter and search premises and seize items but, on the other hand, it would not have the power to question persons about the related entry, search and seizure of those products. I find that particularly bizarre. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge this point and either accept the amendment or offer his own way forward.

I began by saying that the Bill and the regulations that flow from it will, frankly, be pretty meaningless without proper enforcement, so we need clarity about who will be responsible for that enforcement, we need to be assured of what those responsibilities will be and we need assurances that they will be properly resourced to carry out those responsibilities. On all counts, we are at present unaware of any answers to those questions, so we hope that the Minister will shed some light on this when he winds up.

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Moved by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

44: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Regulations relating to lithium-ion batteries(1) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statutory instrument containing regulations relating to lithium-ion batteries within six months of the passing of this Act.(2) Before laying the statutory instrument referred to in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult with the relevant statutory consultees including the fire services, and with relevant consumer, industry, manufacturing and trade bodies.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment seeks to clarify the issues relating to the regulation of lithium-ion batteries, including the increasing numbers of fires, deaths and injuries as a result of lithium-ion batteries.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

Amendment 41 was tabled by my noble friend Lady Brinton but, as I have explained, she is unable to be with us today. Her amendment and others in this group, including my own and those of my noble friend Lord Redesdale, seek to address an issue that I have frequently raised in your Lordships’ House: safety issues in connection with lithium-ion batteries. Indeed, I have already done so on a number of occasions in earlier groups, particularly in the previous group, where I used lithium-ion batteries as an example of why we need specific regulations regarding high-risk products.

Whenever I have discussed these issues, I have always recognised the vital importance of lithium-ion batteries. They currently provide a crucial role in our drive towards low carbon or zero carbon. After all, they can store more energy than any other commercially available battery at present. However, they have their dangers.

If incorrectly constructed—an issue that is picked up by Amendment 46 from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, which I support—or if they are damaged or misused, not least through incorrect charging, there can be a thermal runaway, reaching enormously high temperatures of many hundreds of degrees. These fires give off toxic and dangerous gases and, as I pointed out in an earlier discussion, they cannot be put out by using water.

Amendment 44 recognises that this is a framework Bill and new regulations are going to come at a later stage, but it argues that the particular urgency relating to the dangers, especially of fire and explosion, of unregulated lithium batteries, which are often purchased from abroad, requires urgent action from the Government. It therefore proposes that the Secretary of State must lay regulations relating to lithium-ion batteries within six months of the passing of this Act, and that in the period prior to doing so the Secretary of State will have consulted all the statutory consultees, including the fire service and relevant consumer industry bodies and manufacturing and trade bodies. My Amendment 49 seeks to place a duty on online marketplaces to take all reasonable steps to ensure that products containing lithium-ion batteries sold on their platforms comply with the UK safety standards that will be developed.

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[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have spoken, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for speaking on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. The issue of lithium-ion battery safety is rightly getting a lot of attention and I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss it. I also mention the work of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, who has tabled a Private Member’s Bill on this same topic and with whom I have had valuable discussions during the passage of this legislation.

The Government have already taken significant steps to protect people from the dangers posed by products containing lithium-ion batteries. The Office for Product Safety and Standards has been working with colleagues across government and industry to identify the root causes of safety issues associated with lithium-ion batteries and to ensure that steps are taken to protect consumers and remove dangerous products from the market. We are also working with UK businesses to ensure that they comply with regulations. In addition, we have collaborated with fire and rescue services to identify products involved in incidents and have taken the appropriate action when unsafe products are identified.

Since 2022, efforts have resulted in 20 separate product recalls and 22 other enforcement actions for unsafe or non-compliant e-bikes or e-scooters. The OPSS has issued 26 withdrawal notices to eight online marketplaces, two manufacturers and 16 separate sellers to halt the sale of two dangerous e-bike battery models manufactured overseas by Unit Pack Power—UPP—that were discovered during fire and rescue investigations.

In terms of regulatory change, we need to ensure that any regulation is effective at stopping harmful products reaching the market. We also need to make sure that good businesses, which are in the majority, are not undercut by these unscrupulous traders.

The Bill is designed to provide powers across a broad range of products, including lithium-ion batteries. It does not highlight particular sectors that are in need of regulation. Noble Lords will appreciate that a very large range of products are covered by the Bill; therefore I would be hesitant to draw out lithium-ion batteries or specific measures in it. That would also limit our flexibility to work with all interested groups to identify the most effective way to tackle this issue. Today it may be lithium-ion batteries, while tomorrow it may be magnesium batteries, sodium batteries, salt or seawater—all of which may pose some safety features. So we need the flexibility to identify those new products on the marketplace.

Indeed, during Second Reading of the Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, a number of Peers highlighted that battery technology is changing. That is part of the reason why the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill works in this flexible way, as I stated earlier. It is to ensure that future regulations are able to take account of developing technologies.

We are, none the less, considering what change will make a meaningful difference to lithium-ion battery safety. My department has commissioned extensive research from the Warwick Manufacturing Group to better understand battery safety, including compatibility issues. This research is being finalised and we expect to publish it in due course. This will help us identify the root causes of battery risks and options to better protect consumers.

We want to take action about these unsafe products. We cannot commit to a timescale as we want to take the right action—but we do want to take action. One area where we have been very clear about the need for action is products sold via online marketplaces. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for his Amendment 49—and his well-informed advocacy in this area—that would require online marketplaces to take reasonable steps to ensure that products containing lithium-ion batteries sold on their platform are compliant.

In addition to the action I just mentioned, the OPSS wrote to major online marketplaces earlier this year, expressing concerns about the availability of unsafe products online. The OPSS has issued online marketplaces with legal notices that prohibit the supply of unsafe products. However, while much has already been done to keep people safe, our product safety regulations could go further.

As mentioned at Second Reading, we will use the Bill to clarify and modernise the responsibilities of online marketplaces in secondary legislation. These requirements will build on best practice to create a proportionate regulatory framework where online marketplaces take steps to prevent unsafe products from being made available to consumers. This will help prevent unsafe goods, including unsafe lithium-ion batteries, from reaching UK consumers.

The enforcement provisions in Clause 3 enable the introduction of enforcement powers for the purposes of monitoring and investigating, and securing compliance with product regulations. A requirement for the production of safety certificates that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, seeks as part of Amendment 49 could be implemented using the Bill’s powers as drafted. As I said, we are keen to continue working with noble Lords and others to identify the regulatory work that would be most effective.

Specifically on Amendments 55 and 56 on bikes, e-bikes and lithium-ion battery products sold on online marketplaces, we agree that online marketplaces should take steps to provide relevant information to consumers so that they can make well-informed purchasing decisions. This is also important to bridge the gap between the information consumers see before a purchase online, compared to the high street, where they can see the product and packaging.

In general terms, the Bill would enable us to introduce requirements on online marketplaces, including the provision of specific information, for the purpose of reducing or mitigating risks presented by products or ensuring that products operate effectively.

I thank the noble Lord for raising another important issue where consumer information can be beneficial to provide product traceability. As he discussed with me previously, this might help to deter the sale and assist the recovery of stolen bikes. The Home Office works closely with policing and academic leads to examine what more can be done to tackle the disposal market for stolen goods. We will therefore engage with the Home Office on this topic to explore whether product regulations could contribute to crime prevention. I will ask my officials to organise a meeting with the noble Lord and officials from the Home Office and other relevant authorities.

I also thank the noble Lord for his Amendment 56, which seeks to require online marketplaces to put in place a return policy for products containing lithium-ion batteries for the purpose of appropriate battery disposal. The Environment Act 2021 provides powers for the Government to introduce new requirements on online marketplaces with respect to the take-back of lithium-ion batteries and products containing lithium-ion batteries. Under the existing producer responsibility legislation, producers of industrial batteries, which include e-bike and e-scooter batteries, must take back waste products free of charge on request. Ministers are currently reviewing proposals to consult on reforms to UK batteries regulation before setting out next steps on battery disposal.

At this point, I wish to mention that I have spoken to my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at Defra. It is clear to me that noble Lords will discuss the issue of disposal of lithium-ion batteries.

I hope this assures noble Lords that the Government take the issue of lithium-ion battery safety extremely seriously. We have already taken enforcement action and are keen to work with all interested groups to ensure that further regulatory change is effective. Consequently, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Foster, to withdraw his amendment.

Before I sit down, I wish to say that my private office has sent an invitation to noble Lords who have expressed an interest in visiting the OPSS. I very much hope they will take up that offer.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Redesdale, I thank the Minister for his kind offer to him. I am sure the Minister will understand that I will want to go and put a wet towel over my head and read very carefully what he has just said in response to this group of amendments. However, I say to him that reading a list of successful examples of unsafe products coming into the UK by the OPSS is something I did myself in a previous debate. It does not indicate that we have got it right. The figures on the number of fires from lithium-ion batteries, for instance, are going up dramatically, so something is not quite right.

The problem, which the Minister touched on both in this answer and the answer he gave to a previous group when I raised the issue of high-risk products, is that the current arrangements are somewhat discretionary, and not at all clear so that we know what they are. For animal products, there is a very clear procedure: everything has to be checked for whether it is low risk, medium risk or high risk. Earlier, I proposed that we do exactly the same for all products. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to meet me and other people about that.

In the light of that and the discussions we will have, for the time being I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. However, I assure the Minister that we will come back to these issues at a future stage.

Amendment 44 withdrawn.

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This is an opportunity for the Minister to explain explicitly where the Government see the role of frameworks going forward. Will this be properly used, as was envisaged at the outset of where we find ourselves now? If frameworks are still in the frame—if your Lordships will excuse the phrase—they need to be explicitly applied to this Bill. If they are not, the Minister needs to explain how these difficult problems will be negotiated in future. It seems that a mechanism is already available, and it would be very helpful if the Minister could explain whether and how frameworks will be used. With that, I look forward very much to the Minister’s response to this going forward.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to follow my noble friend and the two noble and learned Lords, and I am certain that I will not be anywhere near as eloquent in speaking to Amendment 102 as any of them were. Their amendments all deal with the operation of the Bill in the context of the different Administrations that make up the United Kingdom. My probing amendment—it is just that—aims to seek to understand how the Bill will operate in terms of its applicability and its jurisdiction beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. I thought that it might be helpful to noble Lords if I gave an example not of a product but of the issue that particularly drew me to consider this problem, as I see it.

I am the chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform and I have done a lot of work on the issue of gambling. Some time ago, my attention was drawn to an online image which was very clearly identified as coming from Paddy Power. When I looked at this image, I came to the conclusion that it was in breach of our code of conduct in relation to advertising, set by the so-called CAP. I therefore drew it to the attention of the Advertising Standards Authority and asked it to investigate whether this particular image was in breach of the CAP code. It took very many months and several follow-up letters from me before it eventually came back to me and told me that it was somewhat uncertain as to whether it had the jurisdiction to act in respect of that particular image. In the end, it came to the conclusion that it did not have the ability to act—it was something beyond the territorial powers that it had.

When it comes to this Bill, I have to ask myself the question: if somebody acts outside the United Kingdom, what powers do we have for the appropriate body to be able to investigate the activities of that individual or organisation? Will we be able to call for documents or evidence or require it to come for interviews so that an investigation can take place? I appreciate that in many cases we have a situation where we have an internet provider providing this service, and internet service is at the basis of all this. When I look at the Online Safety Act, I notice that that Act defines the internet service in such a way that it has extraterritorial application. Given that an online marketplace is making use of an internet service, one has to ask whether this Bill has extraterritorial powers. In the case of the Paddy Power image, a solution was found because it turns out that we have reciprocal arrangements with the equivalent ASA body in Ireland and it is now going to look into that case—even though the image used pound signs rather than euros, so it was quite clearly intended for a UK audience.

I have suggested an amendment to ensure that there are extraterritorial powers for the various measures in the Bill. I have no idea whether that is the Government’s intention, but I hope it is because so many of the products come from abroad and so many of the services that enable us to purchase those products are based abroad, even though the firms concerned may well have offices within the United Kingdom. It is a probing amendment and I hope that when the Minister replies to the important issues that have been raised by the three preceding speakers, he will also help me understand more clearly what the Bill has in respect of these issues outside our borders.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all four noble Lords for their remarks, which I found absolutely fascinating. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, deals with parliamentary matters with considerable skill, diligence and persistence. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord. I am very grateful for the reference to the Constitution Committee, a subject I have laboured on at some length. It is important that we continue to return to the fact that the Government need to heed the comments of both the committees that opined on this Bill.

Before I go on, I say that I perhaps take a slightly different view of the previous Government’s interactions with the devolved Administrations than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and gently remind him, colloquially, that it takes two to tango. When there is a hard-left Government in Wales and a nationalist Government in Scotland they are perhaps not warmly disposed to being enthusiastic interlocutors with a Conservative and Unionist Government.

The first three amendments in this group have a similar theme, so I shall speak mostly to Amendment 96 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which would require the Secretary of State to have regard to Part 1 of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. We are very proud of our record in helping businesses by reducing barriers for them through that Act, and I pay due tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his work on it. The Internal Market Act guarantees that goods, services and qualifications recognised in one part of the UK are automatically recognised across all parts. For businesses, this means certainty, simplicity and reduced administrative burdens, themes that we have explored all evening, and enables them to sell goods and provide services without encountering unnecessary barriers or conflicting regulations. It also allows qualifying Northern Ireland goods to be sold in Great Britain in reliance on the market access principles.

This amendment does not seek to rewrite the principles of the Bill. Rather, it seeks to ensure that its implementation is compatible with the vital provisions of the UK Internal Market Act. The market access principles of mutual recognition and non-discrimination are central to the UK Internal Market Act, as it stops protectionist measures that might favour goods or services originating from one part of the UK over another and safeguards fair competition, fostering a level playing field across all regions.

Our views on prioritising growth and investment and adhering to the provisions of the UK Internal Market Act 2020 are well known; we believe that this measure is necessary to achieve that. I am relatively agnostic as to which of the amendments the Government would wish to look at but some amalgam would clearly be a welcome step forward, so I support the amendments.

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With his interesting amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Foster, has raised an important and quite difficult subject. The Bill is intended to protect consumers from unsafe products regardless of the product’s origin or where a business is based. The powers in the Bill can be used to introduce requirements on online marketplaces based overseas where they are marketing products to UK consumers, but the problem is enforcement. That is a challenge and, standing here today, I just do not have an easy answer. Essentially, we think that the Bill—again, this is the advantage of flexibility—allows us to explore options for taking action against businesses operating from overseas. While we cannot readily enforce in other territories, we will seek to ensure that businesses selling non-compliant and dangerous goods cannot continue to do so in the UK market. The reality is that this is work in progress, and discussions about it are taking place in government. I thank the noble Lord for his input, and we are giving great consideration to this issue.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

Does it not therefore draw attention to the vital importance of very effective enforcement taking place at our borders? That requires us to look very carefully at the funding and resources of whatever body, or bodies, will be responsible for that enforcement. Does it not also mean that we need to have much clearer arrangements for the specification of the level of risk of different products that come in, so that that enforcement can be done relatively smoothly and openly to our total satisfaction?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord always poses his questions wishing me to say “yes”. I am sympathetic to the points he raised but I cannot commit, and I cannot go further than what I said this afternoon except to say that this is a very important area and clearly something that we as a Government need to strongly reflect upon.

Having said that, I hope that I have indicated to noble Lords that I understand the important issues raised. I have given an absolute assurance from the Dispatch Box that we want to make our relationships with the devolved Governments as effective as possible. It is true that four can play but we hope that we will be able to deliver this and that we will get consent. Again, I would like to reflect some more on some of the tricky legal issues that both the noble and learned Lords raised.