Draft Consumer Protection (Enforcement) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 General Committees

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your excellent chairmanship, Sir David.

Labour supports the regulations on the whole because, as the Minister outlined, these technical changes to update the 2019 exit regulations are required to ensure that the Northern Ireland protocol is properly enshrined. While we are happy to support the general thrust of the statutory instrument, I want to raise a couple of questions with the Minister.

As the Minister said, the Enterprise Act 2002 is being amended to ensure that consumer protections are enforceable across all four nations. That is okay in principle, because we support the idea that the UK Government are the ultimate arbiter of the UK internal market, meaning that laws need to cover the four nations and the devolved Administrations of the UK. However, I do have concerns—the Minister and I are familiar with this conversation following our recent debates on the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill—that the devolved Administrations do not necessarily have a voice in any consultation on outlining frameworks for consumer protection.

Will the Minister say a little more about how we will ensure that, unlike under the Internal Markets Bill, the UK Government will not legislate for all four nations without the devolved Administrations having a voice, and the right to be consulted and included? I am talking about not a veto, but the right to a voice and inclusion, because we believe that the devolution settlement is precarious as we leave the EU. It was promised that all the powers coming back from the EU would be devolved and passed down but, unfortunately, that is not quite what we see in some of the Government’s statutory instruments and the Internal Markets Bill.

The Minister knows that the consumer protections enjoyed by UK citizens when we were part of the EU were a reason why citizens valued that membership. Such protections included measures on data roaming, travel compensation and addressing unscrupulous trading practice. We still have not heard much from the Government about how consumer rights will be protected as we leave the EU to ensure that we have unfettered access to the single market and consumer rights, with standards driven up rather than being diminished. I hope that he can respond to those points.