Product Safety, Metrology and Mutual Recognition Agreement (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Lords Chamber

We have no intention of opposing this instrument, but I would welcome any attempt by the Minister to clarify the Government’s intentions on some of my previous questions. As the House again finds itself debating legislation that will enable a no-deal exit, which Parliament will not sanction, will the Minister offer an estimate of how many further redundant instruments it will be asked to consider?

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, once again I associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, about the necessity for this debate, but now that it is here it is important to get it right so I am happy to have it.

I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register of interests. I am not actually sure whether I have any interests which coincide with this instrument, but it seems impossible for there not to be, given that it covers ear-plugs to aftershave and toy trains to industrial pumps via explosives. The breadth of this SI is its weakness, because it is trying to bring together a compendium of things that need to be cleared up. I have complete respect for the team that has worked hard on trying to do this, because it really has a very broad remit. It seems unlikely to me that there is not another issue or two in here, so I welcome the Minister’s undertaking to continue to be vigilant on it. Perhaps he could undertake, in the event that further issues are uncovered, that further versions of this will be brought forward.

The point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, about stakeholder involvement is absolutely right. The threshold of monetary value used is not always the right threshold when we are dealing with statutory instruments of this complexity; the problems and issues it creates for business are hard to monetise, and in this case the Government would have been best advised to err on the side of involving as many people as possible. I suspect that there is still a need to do that.

I shall make a couple of general comments and then focus on one particular issue—I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, is in his place, because it crosses over into the next instrument, and he will guess what it is about. My first point concerns the Explanatory Memorandum, which talks at paragraph 2.3 about manufacturers having to have either self-certification or third-party conformity assessment. It is not clear whether that is a change from the current situation—in other words, what was acceptable for self-assessment, will that remain, or will people either have to have increased or indeed, decreased third-party conformity assessment as a result of this change?

My second point mirrors exactly what the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, said about paragraph 2.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum and,

“substantially the same essential requirements”.

That means that not all of them are, yet there is no list of what is materially different. I think noble Lords should be aware, in detail, of what is actually the difference between this andwhat it seeks to replace.

I come to the issue I want to talk in some detail about. Regulation 8 talks about CMR chemicals; those which are,

“carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction”.

Much of the change the regulation makes is around labelling, but the reference to Schedule 34 talks about “historic animal testing data” and starts to stray into issues that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, will know we have discussed around REACH and the rollover use of historic data. It seems strange to me that we are trying to cover similar issues in two separate statutory instruments. What consultation has gone on between BEIS and DEFRA in the drawing up of this, and why should it all not be covered in one instrument?

That also causes me to raise, yet again, that in essence the SI brought by DEFRA, the REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019, which has yet to be tabled, has very severe financial consequences for the chemicals and cosmetics industries in this country. In the case of the chemicals industry, the relationship is managed, I think, by BEIS, rather than by DEFRA, so it seems to me that there is a lot of crossover here which is not necessarily finding its way through in the statutory instrument.

So there is work to do. First, it must be explained how this has come about as a separate part of a different SI, whereas it is not part of the one that dealt with that the substantive issues of chemical regulation. What awareness does BEIS have of the scale of costs that will be imposed on the chemicals industry by the implementation of the chemical regulation statutory instrument brought by DEFRA? We need an overall look at the process of delivering a sensible statutory instrument that is able properly to use existing data. There are extreme issues around the portability of potential data that seem to have been overlooked and will cause problems for the industry, and indeed for consumers who use the chemicals that are made by the chemicals, cosmetics and consumer chemicals industries.

Therefore, I ask the Minister—who I see is talking to his colleague—to undertake to do something that actually brings these together and gives us some clarity.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as chair of National Trading Standards, which, as far as I know, is not involved in any of these regulations—but for all I know it might be.

I would like some clarity on two specific points. First, the Minister said that no specific impact assessment was drawn up for this statutory instrument, but that it was covered by the previous impact assessment and that the main impact would be in explaining these changes, which we all look forward to, to the businesses affected by them. Did that assessment also look at the role of explaining these changes to those who are responsible for enforcing the regulations and for ensuring proper compliance? It seems to me that this is quite an important area, particularly when we are talking about product safety.

Secondly—I hope this is not frivolous—as I understand it, according to the report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, there is an error in the instrument. The reference to regulation 15 should have been to regulation 18. The department accepts that this is an error but says that it probably does not matter—I am paraphrasing. I think it is implying that there will be a 24-hour gap during which the mutual recognition agreements will not be in force. If that is the case, will the Minister tell us how frequently the mutual recognition agreements referred to in this SI are in fact employed in this country, and whether an issue really is unlikely to occur during the 24-hour gap?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My Lords, this suite of regulations is quite technical, as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, said. The original suite was a bundle, and anyone who has managed to carry it around will recognise that it could be measured in depth of inches. The important thing to stress is that I have recognised what a challenge it is to face such a large document. I would not wish to see us go forward on that basis again, for the very reasons flagged here today. I am very happy to say that, as far as I can influence the situation, I will do that very thing.

It is also important to stress—this comes back to the notion of why we are where we are—that the date changes which were necessitated by the change in the exit date were necessarily made in the document we are debating. It has now been—I am going to use the term—Brexit-proofed, in so far as we will not have to revisit these dates because of the manner in which they have been drafted. I reiterate, however, that it is the Government’s policy to leave the European Union on 31 October and noble Lords would expect me to say that, so I am saying it again.

I will go through some of the points raised in the order they were made. The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, again raised the issue of “substantially” versus “exactly”. My team tells me that broadly they are the same. Noble Lords might notice that I used the word “broadly” in that particular context, but they are the same, so they should not be interpreted as being in any way different. As to the question of the stakeholder feedback—

[Lord Fox]

“Broadly” and “substantially” are broadly the same phrase, but why is that phrase being used? Is it because the department is not aware that there are any differences but thinks that there might be unintended differences, or is it aware that there are actual differences between the two situations?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My team has helpfully provided a note on that, just in case someone was querying whether they were indeed the same. On “substantially the same” and an essential requirement, certain essential requirements require the involvement of notified bodies. Post exit, these same essential requirements will require the involvement of UK-based approved bodies, in line with the UK-only system developed under the no-deal legislation. We are therefore at that stage of approved versus notified. There will be differences, in essence, but the substance of those differences is textual rather than meaningful in that context—I hope that is helpful and makes sense.

[Lord Fox]

We are getting there, but I am not sure that I know the difference between an approved and a notified body. Perhaps the Minister could write to me and the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and place a copy in the Library, explaining what difference the word “substantially” makes regarding which organisations are involved in future versus those involved now.