Weights and Measures Act 1985 (Definitions of “Metre” and “Kilogram”) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, those who review Hansard tomorrow may find the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, using words that they never expected him to utter. I think that many of your Lordships have been going back to their science, chemistry and physics lessons to prepare for this debate. As a science graduate, it is a pleasure to hear a bit of science, albeit in this context. I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, questioning the Minister about the unit of time used to measure Members’ speeches. I have been allocated eight minutes for this summation, and I believe that I will use less than that, which will make up for some of the other, more elastic interpretations of the minute.

I join other speakers who have commended the Minister on the clarity of his explanation. This is a challenging piece of secondary legislation, and he has done a magnificent job in explaining it, so much so that I feel that there may be a future in home schooling or suchlike for him, so I congratulate him.

During the Brexit campaign, there were many spurious reports about people campaigning or indeed being told that exit was an opportunity to return to the great British verities of pounds and ounces in our shops; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, reflected a little of that in his speech. I am therefore pleased that the Minister is sticking to his metres, and I am relieved by his reassurance, which I hope will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that this will not change the weight of potatoes in his carrier bag.

The question on reinforcement asked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, is important, and the general enforcement of weights and measures is the sharp end of this Bill.

It is difficult to introduce anything that has not been said around the Bill. However, I have a point around internationalism, which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and my noble friend Lady Northover, were particularly adept at introducing. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, made the point that the metre was originally adopted in 1799, and my noble friend Lady Northover set out the internationalism aspect. In effect, this is a parable of international co-operation, which was to a large extent European. We are dealing here of course with the metre and the kilogram, but the whole suite of SI measurements rests on a foundation of seven defining constants.

The noble Lord, Lord Wei, and the Minister alluded to the role of UK scientists. Looking back, we have the Planck constant: Max Planck was a German physicist; the Boltzmann constant: Ludwig Boltzmann was Austrian; the Avogadro constant: Amedeo Avogadro was Italian; caesium hyperfine splitting frequency—caesium was discovered by the chemist Bunsen and the physicist Kirchhoff, both of whom were German. The luminous efficacy of specified monochrome source is a harder call, but Joseph Fourier from France is an important precursor of the ability to measure that. However, the Minister and others will be pleased that when we come to the speed of light in a vacuum, I name James Maxwell, the brilliant British scientist, who first proposed light as an electromagnetic wave, as its progenitor. That leaves us with the elementary charge—the charge of a proton. Here we have to thank the American, Robert Millikan, for his famous oil drop experiment—I am sure all your Lordships remember it—which helps to measure that.

Of course, this is making a point, and the Minister is right to highlight the role of British institutions and scientists in this. However, the SI system is founded on centuries of international scientific co-operation. This is, therefore, an opportunity to speak up for international scientific co-operation. Long may it continue. These days, never has it been more needed to combat the situation we find ourselves in.

My noble friend Lord Rennard and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, talked about the history of weights and measures. I think the history of science and co-operation is a much more important aspect. Schemes such as Erasmus and Horizon Europe are the basis on which European scientific co-operation were founded. I hope the Minister agrees that these are very important and must continue, so that we can continue to do the important things that this SI sits beneath. I also hope he shares my wish that the immigration Bill is not used to make things harder for scientists, technicians and their families to contribute to the future of science in this country.

I welcome this SI and the debate we have had and look forward to the answers the Minister can give us, particularly on the questions about enforcement. Overall, in a world in which unilateralism is seen to be the name of the game, this is a beam of multilateral light.