Animal Health, Plant Health, Seeds and Seed Potatoes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Animal Health, Alien Species in Aquaculture and Invasive Non-native Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 General Committees

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich has laid out, the Opposition will not be opposing the SIs, because they fix the Government’s own mistakes.

Regular watchers of these SI Committees on the parliamentlive.tv website—I am sure there are many—will know of the concerns shared by my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Dr Drew), for Workington (Sue Hayman), and for Ipswich—the shadow Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs team—that these SIs are being rushed through with mistakes, or gremlins, as I called them in our last SI debate, being inserted into the statute book. There is too little time for scrutiny. There is widespread and understandable stakeholder fatigue: so many of these problems, which might otherwise have been spotted by stakeholders, are not being highlighted, because there is such an avalanche of them on their desks.

This raises a number of concerns in relation to the Animal Health, Alien Species in Aquaculture and Invasive Non-native Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, because time and again, when the elements of these instruments have been considered by SI Committees, the Opposition have raised concerns that poorly drafted and hurried secondary legislation is polluting the statute book. Those concerns have again been proven valid, because we are being asked to correct the mistakes of a Government who got Brexit badly wrong, and got these SIs badly wrong.

The purpose of this SI is to amend mistakes to the four EU exit SIs rushed through by the Government ahead of the 29 March deadline. In discussion on each of those SIs, the Opposition raised concerns about the breakneck speed at which we were asked to wave the provisions through. We know that at least 515 Brexit-related SIs have been laid before Parliament since 26 June. What we do not know, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich said, is how many of those have errors in them. In Committee, the Opposition warned about the lack of scrutiny. We are now using precious additional parliamentary time to pass legislation that was poorly drafted and approved in a rushed manner only a few weeks ago.

The fact that we are being asked to approve corrections to these errors highlights the concerns that were raised repeatedly about the lack of proper scrutiny. Before I come on to those concerns, I would like to say that I am grateful to the Minister for today apologising to the Committee for these errors. I assume that it was not his pen making these typographical errors, but I am grateful for his admission of them. Will he reassure hon. Members that any other errors found in these SIs or additional ones will again be brought to the House, so that they can be clearly and transparently admitted to and corrected, and so that no errors or mistakes, inadvertent legislation, surprise provisions or curious interpretations due to spelling and grammar errors will stand on the statute books in perpetuity?

The Import of and Trade in Animals and Animal Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which are contained in this SI, correct the imports instrument in respect of Commission decision 2006/146EC, on certain protections and measures regarding fruit bats, dogs and cats coming from Malaysia and Australia. Dogs and cats are certainly something that a number of my constituents have written to me about; they have largely written about ensuring that these animals are not eaten in the UK. Sadly, that is not what this provision does. The imports instrument revokes the decision. A single article from this decision, article 5, was intended to be revoked, but instead the entire decision was revoked in error. Regulation 5 of this SI fixes that mistake, which should have been spotted in the sifting process.

This instrument also corrects the imports instrument in respect of Commission decision 2007/275, concerning the list of animals and products to be subjected to controls at border inspection points. The explanatory note says:

“The Imports instrument was intended to remove lists of commodities subject to checks at border inspection posts from the annexes of this Decision so that they can be published elsewhere and amended more easily, but they were left in the legislation in error.”

I am glad that such errors have been spotted, and that we have the opportunity to fix them.

In regulation 5(11)(b) in the instrument before us, which replaces 2006/65 with 2006/605, a number of errors have been corrected, including the one I mentioned. I am glad that it has been spotted. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud took the instrument on invasive non-native species through Committee last time; he said the major objective was

“taking out the words ‘Member State’ and sticking in their place the words ‘appropriate authority’.”

However, the Government failed to do that, which is why the instrument before us sets out to do this under regulation 2(3)(b). Microsoft Word’s find-and-replace tool is useful; I suggest that the Minister familiarises himself with it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud also said:

“someone has had to do an awful lot of work, and I do not know whether they have done it well or whether they have covered all the bases.”—[Official Report, Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, 29 January 2019; c. 5.]

It seems he was correct to say that all those bases were not covered by the previous Minister.

The invasive non-native species instrument is important, and it is legislation that we cannot afford to get wrong. From foot and mouth disease to agricultural diseases, we need to ensure that our laws are correct. There are 1,820 notifiable tree diseases that affect various species in this country, and we know disease is ever present. Ash dieback and the oak processionary moth have taken out major trees in this country, and we must ensure that the regulations on their protection, and actions against diseases, are up to date. That is why this legislation is so important, and why it is fundamental that we get the detail of these SIs right, and not confuse the word “biogeographical” with “biographical”—a basic error that seems to have slipped through the system. That relates directly to the concerns I raised in my opening remarks about the breakneck speed at which these SIs have been pushed through. It is embarrassing for the Government to have to correct such basic errors in this SI, but I am glad that they have ’fessed up to their mistakes and are correcting them.

The preamble to much of the European regulation on invasive alien species was not included in this instrument, yet the Minister will know it is quite an important element of the way we lay down how such species are dealt with. On the concerns raised my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, have the Government considered whether they could include the preamble in a future SI, to ensure that that really important part of the legislation is not lost? It is quite detailed and a bit techy, but it is important for the overall setting of this SI.

I turn to mistakes in the aquatic health SIs, addressing regulations 3 and 4 of the instrument before us. These SIs were approved through the negative procedure and were not subject to scrutiny in Committee. Although they had only minor typographical errors, such errors could have an impact on how the law is operated and enforced. I will repeat the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, but in relation to this SI. How can we be confident that there are not more errors, especially in SIs that have been approved through the negative procedure? Does the Department intend to review SIs that have come through the negative procedure—in a similar way to this SI, with this mistake—to ensure that no further errors are polluting our statute books?

My final point is on the impact assessment of these SIs. The Minister will know, because I have said it once or twice in SI Committees, that I am not a fan of the phrase

“no, or no significant impact”

in explanatory memorandums. I encourage him to work with the House authorities and the Leader of the House to try to correct that. There is a big difference between no impact and no significant impact. We should not allow that catch-all phrase in explanatory notes, because it reduces their validity. It reduces the information by which it might be determined that there is no impact. “No significant impact” implies that there is some impact.

As we have said, the Opposition will not oppose the instruments. The situation is embarrassing for the Minister, but I am grateful to him for coming to ’fess up and correct the mistakes. I should be grateful if he offered a commitment that any future mistakes spotted in these hurried and rushed SIs will be corrected in a similar manner.