Construction Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I sympathise with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, about the volume of statutory instruments that we have to consider, the lack of time to consider them and, thereby, the lack of time to do justice to them. I shall, nevertheless, comment on the statutory instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has raised a number of crucial issues on the possibility of divergence to which we need to be alert.

As the Minister said, the statutory instrument is to come into force only if there is a no-deal outcome on 29 March. It aims to preserve the current outcomes—that is, properly licensed and tested construction products, tradeable without barriers across all 28 EU countries, as far as possible. However, the only one it can actually guarantee, it does: that any approved EU kitemarked products will continue to be recognised as compliant under UK law.

It gives the Secretary of State the power to set new UK standards for products in future, either those that are purely UK-tested or by simply adopting future EU standards. Given that up to a quarter of all components and materials used in construction are imported from the EU, it is clearly hugely in the interests of the UK industry to maintain common standards, and it is unlikely that it would ever welcome a divergence from whatever was the current EU standard. In practice, any UK manufacturer wanting a test certificate for a new product would want it to comply with the EU version of the testing and carry a kitemark, so that it was accepted across the EU and the UK thereafter, whereas there is no automatic right for our tests to be accepted across the Channel, limiting our export potential. Inevitably, the Government will have to set up a UK system, but in real life nobody will want to use it. It is therefore wrong to say that there is no impact and so no need for an impact assessment, although that is the conclusion the Government seem to have reached.

It is not that there are deficiencies in the drafting of the statutory instrument; it is yet another shocking example of the complete waste of time that all this work on no deal is producing—for the Government, for Parliament and for the industry. If, by any chance, there was no deal, the additional cost of setting up a system parallel to the EU which practically no one would ever volunteer to use is certainly not a minor matter. I hope that when he responds, the Minister will comment on that and, I hope, express his agreement with that conclusion.

I raise one further issue, which relates to the responsibility for enforcement before and after. It will lie with trading standards, mostly decimated by funding cuts. What estimate have the Government made of the increased workload for trading standards as a consequence of the introduction of the proposed new regime?

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I concur with many of the points made by preceding speakers about this process and this instrument as an example of the secondary legislation on which we are having to spend so much time.

In the light of the Grenfell disaster, the subject of these regulations assumes greater importance than might otherwise have been the case. It is therefore even more unsatisfactory that no impact assessment has been published. What assurances can the Minister give that, in the absence of a deal, there will continue to be comparisons for industry and the public as to the performance and safety of products from other countries? Will the Government ensure that EU regulations are constantly kept under review and that steps will be taken to ensure that our standards keep pace with increased safety considerations applied within the EU? In the absence of an impact assessment, has there been any conclusion on the potential cost to businesses as a result of the change? The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made that point.

What will be the process for designating standards under the new regime? Will parliamentary scrutiny of such new or amended standards take place? If so, will that happen under the “made affirmative” procedure? What form of consultation will be applied? In particular, will the British Standards Institution remain a member of the European Committee for Standardization? The Explanatory Memorandum declares:

“Existing European harmonised standards will become UK ‘designated standards’”,


and will be “identical”. Is that to be a permanent position? If not, what timescale is anticipated within which they may be reviewed or changed? What cognisance will be taken of any changes in the EU standards during that period, and by what methods?

Finally, is it to be a requirement that manufacturers must affix a UK mark to products? If so, to what extent have the Government received assurances that such a mark will suffice to satisfy buyers in the European Union or elsewhere?