Draft Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Since the referendum decision to leave the EU, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has undertaken a significant amount of work on withdrawal agreements, preparing for a range of potential outcomes, including a no-deal scenario. This statutory instrument has a single, yet crucial, objective to continue to protect consumers and give businesses the clarity that is needed to operate under a no-deal scenario. It will ensure that in the event of no deal, the UK continues to have a robust and highly effective product safety and legal metrology regime.

The UK product safety and legal metrology regime is among the strongest in the world. The toys our children play with, the electrical items in our homes and the petrol pumps on our garage forecourts all rely on the legal framework carried by that legislative regime, and it is vital that post exit we retain such a robust system. This SI will not change the system or approach, which I know are supported by business and enforcement authorities.

The changes made by this instrument to 38 product safety and metrology laws will ensure that the UK’s product safety and legal metrology framework will remain as it is—as followed by the UK as an EU member state—but that it is converted into a UK regime. The changes include: retaining the requirement for conformity assessments to ensure products meet the essential requirements set out in the legislation; retaining the need for assessment by a third-party organisation to confirm that a product can be placed on the market, where it is currently required; retaining the standard systems to give rise to presumptions of conformity with the legislative requirements; and ensuring UK market surveillance systems will continue to work, to limit the number of unsafe and non-compliant goods available to UK consumers and businesses.

Without this no-deal SI, we risk disruption and confusion for businesses and enforcing authorities, limiting our ability to remove a wide range of unsafe or non-compliant everyday and high-risk products from the market, as there will be uncertainty about the extent, impact and application of the existing legislation.

Before I set out the key provisions in more detail, I will explain the approach we have taken and highlight what we have done to make an unusually large SI easier to navigate. We are laying a number of separate product regulations before the House together, because there are many cross-cutting issues that are the same for the majority of products featured. They have similar definitions, obligations and requirements needing similar fixes, and it made sense to group them together into one SI. For example, many of the product areas require third-party conformity assessment bodies to assess the products against the legislative requirements and some require the manufacturer to self-certify and mark the product, as confirmation that the product complies with the requirements. This similarity across the SI makes it easier to use for businesses that have to comply with the legislation and for the enforcement authorities, such as trading standards, which advise and enforce across the wide product safety system.

Another reason for the size of the instrument is the lengthy technical schedules that are included. These are widely used by industry. Including them together removes the effort for business and stakeholders in having to cross-reference separate EU directives and allows them to understand the requirements of UK law, given that they are all set out in one place alongside the related product schedule. Incorporating those annexes accounts for a third of the SI.

Throughout November, after the publication of the technical notices, the draft SI was shared with several stakeholders for information, via a series of reading rooms. The purpose of this exercise was to inform and update stakeholders on our plans for the product safety and legal metrology framework after exit. Stakeholders told us that this was a worthwhile exercise, reassuring them about our approach, which they supported. Furthermore, this engagement has meant that we have been able to understand the main requirements and concerns of businesses, industry experts and enforcement agencies, which were also able to give their feedback on some specifics about the draft SI, and which we welcomed, allowing us to make drafting amendments as appropriate.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I am interested to hear the Minister refer to stakeholders and these reading rooms. It is all very well referring to business, but there are other interests—what about consumers? Were there any consumer organisations at these reading rooms? We do not have a number for how many stakeholders in each area were actually consulted.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I can answer her questions. We consulted with more than 6,000 business, which are quite important in this legislation as they have to understand and implement it, and are ultimately responsible for placing safe products in the marketplace. It was therefore vital that we could confirm that with stakeholders. I can reassure the hon. Lady that organisations such as Which? were invited to our reading rooms and fed into the process, and that consumer groups were given the same amount of access to the draft SI.

I appreciate that there are concerns about the impact of such a significant instrument on business. Despite being de minimis, we have completed and published a full impact assessment given the importance of this SI and in the interests of transparency. During development of it, we have been mindful of the impact on business of the changes to processes as a result of the UK’s exit from the EU. Where possible, we have made specific arrangements, including an 18-month transitional period for importers regarding labelling and a 90-day transition period for notifying a new UK database of cosmetic ingredients. Businesses have welcomed that.

Having touched on process, I move on to addressing some more detailed points about the substance of the regulations, given the issues that cut across many of the individual schedules. The regulations provide for continued recognition of goods assessed against EU regulatory requirements, including continued acceptance of products lawfully carrying the CE marking and of product certifications carried out by EU recognised bodies. This means that products that meet EU requirements in these areas can still be placed on the UK market after exit. In the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal, this is intended to be for a time-limited period and will help minimise disruption to the public and business in the event of no deal. At the same time, the regulations establish an equivalent UK framework to ensure that the legislation functions domestically once we leave.

I will now turn in more detail towards some of the further elements of the framework, including the new UKCA marking and the establishment of UK approved bodies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank both Front Benchers for the way in which they set out the points they made, and the SNP spokesman for his contribution.

I am deeply concerned about this SI. Apart from the fact that it is as thick as a brick and weighs probably more than that, I find it difficult to conceive that anybody who might be affected by it could understand the meaning of it by reading it. It simply is not possible.

Let me give the Minister an example of what I mean: if we turn to schedule 26, which is on page 318 and is something I have picked out at random, it sets out the amendments to the Non-automatic Weighing Instruments Regulations 2016. The schedule goes on to set out what the amendments to those regulations are, but needless to say, the regulations that are being amended are in a different document that, by the way, is not in the room. If I wanted to assure myself that the measures in the SI were doing what they purported to do, it would be difficult for me to do so, because I do not even have the document that is being amended present in the Committee Room.

I know we now have the wonders of the internet, but when I was a Minister it was the practice always to have present in the Committee Room all those documents—primary legislation and statutory instruments—that were being amended, so that if somebody sitting in the Committee wished to consider whether a particular clause was doing what the Minister, in all good faith, said it was doing, they could check that. It is impossible today for us to do that.

It is impossible—and it will be impossible should this instrument pass—for anybody picking it up and reading it to understand, without having a whole library of legislation, what on earth the provisions are doing and whether what they purport to do is what they do do, or whether, because the civil service is so hard-pressed these days from having to produce these documents, there has been some technical error in the drafting. That is a problem that I have referred to in other SI Committees. Not having the documents that are being amended in the room is a problem.

I turn now to the fact that this is the Tyrannosaurus rex of SIs, or the Giganotosaurus—one of those enormous dinosaurs that got really, really large—and the impact assessment tells me in annex A that 38 pieces of legislation are subject to amendment by this SI. Some of them are extremely important bits of legislation in terms of public and consumer safety. They are also extremely varied, from the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 through to specific regulations such as those on toy safety, the making available on the market and supervision of transfers of explosives, aerosol dispensers, gas appliances, cosmetics and cosmetic products, intoxicating liquor, consumer protection more generally, weights and measures, and all kinds of things. I could read out all 38 pieces of legislation, but that would detain the Committee for too long. However, that is an illustration of the problem.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful and appropriate point. Those 38 measures include ones on offshore installations: the Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 and the Offshore Installations (Offshore Safety Directive) (Safety Case etc.) Regulations 2015. What business do those have being in a document with cosmetics? That is not to diminish the importance of regulations about cosmetics, but those on offshore installations are vital and should have had specific time dedicated to them. Is not the reality that we are in such a rush and a dash to do something that might never even need to be used that such things are being rushed through without proper scrutiny?

[Maria Eagle]

I cannot but agree with the hon. Lady. The scope and range of the legislation subject to amendment by this one SI are extensive and startling. Many of those pieces of legislation do not have obvious connections to others being amended by the same instrument.

I must agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough about the assessment of the costs of implementation. I bear in mind the fact that the Minister has said, in total good faith I am sure, that the aim of the draft regulations is to keep things as they are in the envisaged circumstances of no deal. I do not suggest for a minute that there is any bad faith in any of this, but it is impossible for us to consider properly whether what the Minister seeks to ensure happens will actually happen. The extent and size of the regulations, and the way in which the legislation is written, with the powers that Ministers have given themselves to change legislation, is impossible to scrutinise properly.

In answer to my intervention, the Minister told us about stakeholder reading rooms and the 6,000 businesses involved. That sounds like a lot until one turns to page 21 of the impact assessment: the number of manufacturing industries covered by specific product safety regulations amounts to 24,255. Just over the page, in table A1.2, we see that other manufacturing industries producing consumer products amount to 38,614. The wholesale industries affected consist of some thousands more and the retail industries affected consist of very many thousands more businesses.

I also note that paragraph 87, on page 17 of the impact assessment, states:

“Based on data from the ONS…around 95% of manufacturing businesses and over 96% of distributors in the industries affected by the SI are small or micro businesses.”

Those are exactly the kinds of businesses that simply do not have the time or capacity—if they are to stay in business—to buy this statutory instrument; to look in it to cross-reference it to the EU directives, other statutory instruments and primary legislation that it amends; to understand and interpret the legal language, of which there is a lot; and therefore to understand what their obligations are.

I, too, will vote against the draft regulations because they are too large a piece of legislation, with too wide a scope to enable those of us scrutinising it in Committee the appropriate opportunity to do so properly. Not only that, but even after the SI passes, it will be almost impossible for anybody who is bound by an element of it to pick it up and understand what on earth it is that they are bound by.

The Minister says that the SI is not intended to make any changes, but changes may have been made, even inadvertently, through the language it uses. We have been unable to check that; I certainly could not check that in Committee today, in respect of even one of the pieces of legislation it amends, never mind 38 of them. It is an exceedingly bad way of making law, it is to be deplored, and I will not be supporting it.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank Committee members for their contributions. I will correct a statement I made to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood. I said that over 6,000 businesses had been part of the consultation, but the number was 4,000—I knew that, but I was thinking about a figure for something else. I apologise.

The reason the SI is 600 pages long is purely to allow us to bring changes across a number of pieces of product safety together into one bundle, to make it easy for businesses, trade associations, enforcers and consumers to go to one place to find all the legislation that affects similar and cross-cutting issues, in a no-deal scenario. There is absolutely no intention to use this process as an opportunity to reduce transparency or the amount of scrutiny that SIs receive.

The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood is quite right that the intention of the SI is absolutely not to change policy; it is about making the statute book function from day one, were we to leave the European Union without a deal. As a Minister responsible for this area, and having spent my whole life prior to entering the House working with products, whether in the European Union or the UK, I would not want my legacy to be to have done something detrimental to consumers or businesses in a no-deal situation.

[Maria Eagle]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. I accept that the regulations are all in one place, but does she accept my point that if a fictional local businessman from a microbusiness were to come along and think, “Well, I need to check what I am doing if there is no deal,” he would be unable to understand what on earth this meant. It refers to documents that are not attached to it. Anyone would need to have the House of Commons Library available in order to get all the documents together to cross-reference them and understand what on earth any of it means

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, but the majority of the changes in this SI are fixes. I take her point; she is an experienced parliamentarian who has been a Minister in the past. I understand that I am doing things in a way that are not really up to the standard that she would have expected from me. However, on the issue of establishing a framework, businesses are keen to have all the information in one place, where it is simple to access. I know from my previously work that having to keep up to date with EU regulation, which changes every other week, can sometimes be a challenge. The beauty of this arrangement is that it is a UK framework. It does not make a policy change; it concerns a functioning statute book after exit.

We have consulted businesses and trade associations because, in the event of no deal, they are fundamentally responsible for product safety. We have engaged with business. I do not know whether members of the Committee have been lobbied directly by firms, but I have had MPs ask me when the mega-bundle is going through and the SI coming to the House, because they want assurances on EU exit, particularly on conformity. I know that what I am saying might not alleviate some of the Opposition’s concerns, but I want to make it clear that these provisions are about making the process easier for enforcers and businesses, so that we are able to maintain the high standards that we currently have in the UK.

I mentioned that there are no significant changes to elements of product safety. The measures are about fixes and making the process workable. Many of the businesses that will be interested in the SI, or need to understand its content, will not need to refer to all 600 pages. They obviously include the 38 different sets of regulations that cover different areas. We have put the schedules in with those 38 areas, alongside the changes, so that people can turn to the specific areas in the UK framework that interest them.

As for business impact, there will of course be an impact on business when moving to any new framework. In the event of a no-deal scenario, businesses or individuals may have to familiarise themselves with particular changes. To be frank, it is quite within the competence of organisations that are already adhering to the existing legislation to understand where the small changes have been made.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough asked how we will assess the timeframe in which we will continue to maintain or accept the CE mark for products placed on the UK market. The timeframe is yet to be decided. It will be discussed in conjunction with businesses and interested parties. The focus is on making this an easy transition for businesses in the UK and for the flow of products. The intention is to have a UK mark so that UK manufacturers, when they have to place a product on the UK market, can establish that they are certified in the UK and meet the necessary requirements.

In a no-deal scenario, however, any UK business wanting to place a product on the EU market would still have to comply with certain regulations there. Currently, the EU has said that it will not recognise or accept the UKCA mark. Quite rightly, the EU has the CE mark to indicate conformity. Any acceptance of a UKCA mark would be part of further trade negotiations, into which the Government may or may not enter, regarding acceptance of our product standards in future. That would be usual in any trade deal as a third country, when operating not just with the EU but with any other country in the world.

The shadow Minister rightly pointed out the concerns about access to European databases. I must give her some comfort that we will still have public access to the RAPEX database, and we are already developing the three databases to do that. Market surveillance is carried out in a number of different ways, and is not reliant just on those databases; it also comes from border and customers, and we hold our own data. I am confident that we will be able to continue carrying out the same level of market surveillance, and it is in the UK’s interests to ensure that unsafe products that should not be here are not placed on the market.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough asked whether I could give her details of the meeting on the consultation that was carried out. I would be happy to write to her about that. With regard to trading standards enforcement, we have had the debate about trading standards enforcement many times in the House in recent weeks. Although the shadow Minister is right to challenge me, I hope that she accepts that trading standards enforcement is a particular interest of mine as a Minister. I would therefore like to give the Committee some comfort by pointing out that the Office for Product Safety and Standards has trained over 600 local trading standards professionals in 200 local authority areas, and at no cost to the local authorities. They will ensure that we are preparing our enforcers in the event of no deal, and for the wider aspect of when we do leave the European Union.

With regard to planning and the future direction of the Office for Product Safety and Standards—as well as what we are doing on data and increasing surveillance—we are bringing in more investment: the £12 million is focussed directly on the Office for Product Safety and Standards and the work going on with the border project. I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough has looked into this in great detail.

On the impact on business, labelling is a key concern. That is one reason why we have given organisations 18 months to comply. As a Minister, I have taken an interest in the matter, as Committee members would hope and expect, and have challenged officials in many of these areas, including by asking them how we could do things better or give businesses more opportunities. We have struck the right balance there. It is feasible for even a small business to be able to comply with what we have been able to do, including by familiarising themselves with the legislation.

Again, I thank Committee members for their contributions and I understand their concerns. I reiterate that this is about ensuring that we are in the right place if we leave the European Union without a deal on day one. The regulations are essential to ensuring that people across the UK continue to have confidence in the safety of the products they buy and use every day. If this legislation is not in place, the UK’s product safety regime simply would not work if the UK leaves without a deal agreed by both sides.

Without regulation, unsafe products could more easily be placed on the market, with no effective mechanism for removal, with the result that the British public would have less protection from unsafe and non-compliant products than they do today. The UK product safety and metrology regime is currently among the strongest in the world, and it is vital to ensure that we continue to have an effective product safety and metrology legal framework post exit. Without this, we risk disruption and confusion for businesses and enforcement authorities. Most significantly, we would limit our ability to remove unsafe or non-compliant products from the market. I am disappointed that the Opposition will be voting against the SI today. Many stakeholders out there will be looking for the Committee to approve the SI so they can have assurances on the requirement if we leave the European Union without a deal.

Question put.

Draft Package Travel and linked travel arrangements regulations 2018

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 General Committees

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I agree very much with what has already been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk and, indeed, some of what was said by the Minister. The intention and implementation of these regulations are welcome across the Committee, although I seek one or two further points of clarification from the Minister, which I am sure he will be able to provide.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough has already raised the issue of enforcement and the extent to which those who will be responsible for enforcing these new, more complex and extended regulations will be able so to do. She asked whether there will be specific moneys given, in particular to local trading standards departments, to ensure that they can enforce these new and more complex regulations. I want to reiterate that point.

My experience of local trading standards departments is that they are very hard pressed to meet their current statutory obligations, not to mention having to take on new and complex obligations. I wonder whether the Minister can be precise about the extent to which his Department will, under the new burdens principle, provide some resource to those hard-pressed organisations for them to be able properly to meet the new obligations they are to have under these regulations. He did not say that there would be new money, or give us any idea of how much was going to be available.

In similar vein, the CAA is the new central contact point. Clearly, it will also have new obligations under these regulations and a new function to fulfil across the country, and will therefore have to incur extra costs properly to carry out that function. Will the Minister be clear as to whether it, too, will receive commensurate extra resource to carry out the extra responsibilities that the regulations impose on it? The explanatory memorandum says that there is no impact on the public sector, but there are certainly impacts on those two organisations—local authority trading standards and the CAA—which will be expected to carry out further functions.

The directive’s new requirement for mutual recognition of insolvency protection arrangements across borders aims primarily at ensuring that cross-border trade is stimulated, and that when people are booking packages and putting together visits online in various ways, they can be assured and confident that, if there is insolvency around, they will be protected by whatever the arrangements are and that there will be mutual recognition of those arrangements across borders.

The Minister, to his credit, made some reference to Brexit, which is more than some of his colleagues do when considering the issues that face us in the coming reality of Britain leaving the EU. He expressed some hope that it will all be fine when we get to that point, but we need more information about the extent to which his Department has so far succeeded in making plans for after the UK leaves the EU, to ensure that the mutual recognition requirement is ongoing and can still be effective. He did not really give us any detail about the point that his Department has got to in the negotiations or the state of contacts with our EU colleagues. Although Labour Members note that he is hopeful, I am afraid that he has not given us any reason to be hopeful that the arrangements will be carried over in reality. Perhaps he will say more about that before he asks us to agree the motion.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank all Committee members for their positive contributions. I hope that I can shed a little more light to clarify some of the concerns and to reassure the Committee that we are in a good place in relation to protecting the rights of consumers when travelling in the UK and abroad.

I am grateful to the Committee for its consideration of the regulations. We all agree that booking package holidays and ensuring that people’s rights are protected, whichever way they book, can be a significant issue for consumers, and one on which we need to offer extra protection.

I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough for the positive way in which she engaged in the debate, as always. It is always a pleasure to debate with her. She asked a number of questions, first about analysis of the effect of organisations in the EU selling into the UK under the mutual recognition principle. The directive will raise the level of insurance protection across the EU and give greater protection. The new directive is far more robust about what insolvency protection must legally be in place. In addition, the central contact points, which I will come on to in a minute, and about which there were several questions, will provide a mechanism for us to monitor other member states’ insolvency regimes, so, in effect, there is extra protection as a result of these regulations.

There were some questions in relation to mutual recognition. Let me be clear: if a UK trader sells a package holiday into another EU member state, he can use the UK insolvency regime, rather than having to comply with the regime of the individual member state. The new mutual recognition principle that is introduced by these regulations makes it easier for UK businesses to sell package holidays across the EU.

[Maria Eagle]

Can the Minister tell us whether that will remain the case after the UK leaves the EU? What assurance does he have that it will?

[Andrew Griffiths]

The hon. Lady will know that, way above my paygrade, detailed negotiations are taking place. She will also know the phrase, “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” which I must repeat. I reassure her that the UK has a great reputation and tradition of being at the forefront of protecting consumer rights. We do not need the EU to tell us how to protect the rights of our citizens and our consumers. We were at the forefront of the free market and of bringing in these protections.

I reassure the hon. Lady not only that these regulations will be copied across, as it were, on the day that we leave the European Union, but that ongoing and positive discussions are taking place to ensure that our consumers are protected when travelling abroad and buying packages or linked travel arrangements across the EU, and that European tourists can have confidence in buying packages from UK operators in future, knowing that their rights will be protected. UK consumer protection rights are based on EU law and they will be retained wherever practical.

There were a number of questions in relation to trading standards departments and their adequacy in providing the resources to support consumers in future. The hon. Lady will know that, through my Department, trading standards receives an annual budget of approximately £40 million, which has been pretty static in recent years. I agree that there are increasing demands on trading standards in a more complex world, in relation to package travel as well as consumer protections and safety. That is why the Government took the bold decision to set up the Office for Product Safety and Standards, which we debated last week, to give extra resource to trading standards across the country and act as a repository of information and expert advice. This year, the Government are putting an additional £9 million into that office and, in future, that budget will be £12 million. I reassure the Committee that the Government are putting extra resources into supporting our trading standards officers across the country.

Office for Students: Appointment

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

As I have said, the competition through which Toby Young was appointed was rigorous, open and fair. Like all the interviews, his was conducted by a panel consisting of the three people I have mentioned. It was an apolitical and independent-minded board of panellists who deemed Toby Young worthy of appointment.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Minister really is seeking to defend the indefensible. As a former Minister for Disabled People, I am appalled at some of Mr Young’s recently expressed views about the place of disabled people in our society. The Minister has said that many of Mr Young’s misogynistic tweets were from many years ago, but his views about disabled people are very recent indeed. How can the Minister appoint somebody who thinks so little of the contribution of disabled people to our society to such an important position? Does he not agree that it is indefensible?

[Joseph Johnson]

As I have already said, Mr Young has been a champion of the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream education. Not only that, but outside his work with schools, he is a patron of the residential care home in which lives his brother, who has learning disabilities of his own.

Vauxhall (Redundancies)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

rose—

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Ah! A sisterly contest. I call Maria Eagle.

[Maria Eagle]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; it is not helpful to call it a contest.

The Minister keeps saying that she wants frictionless access to the single market, but most of her colleagues in Government, in particular many in the Cabinet, are talking up the idea of leaving with no deal and walking out of the single market and the customs union. Given that the Ellesmere Port plant is weakened by going to a single shift and by losing skilled workers, as is inevitable, does she not understand that the general uncertainty caused by the lack of progress in the Brexit negotiations puts the plant at even greater risk in future of being fully and totally closed?

[Claire Perry]

I am not sure who the winner was in that contest, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right. She should not listen to the noises off, which people seem to be obsessed by, that are reported to come out of the Cabinet. There is an absolutely obvious view that we have to get a deal. We will get a deal that works for the UK and for businesses such as this in the UK, and we will have the opportunity over the next few days and weeks in the debate on the repeal Bill to show that we are unified on this and want to stand up for the businesses and those they employ in our constituencies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

We are gaining international respect and attention, including from some of companies that have been mentioned, for our commitment to research and development of battery storage. That is why, through our industrial strategy, the Faraday challenge to make us the best in the world in battery storage is so important. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to mention charging points. We want to make it possible for people to plug in and charge their cars. We have over 11,000 publicly accessible charge points. That is the largest network in Europe, and we want to expand it further.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is taking to ensure the security of the UK’s energy supply after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)]

The British energy market is one of the most liquid and developed markets in the world, and it provides security through diversity of supply. We enjoy cordial links with the EU in this field and expect that to continue after EU exit.

[Maria Eagle]

Does the Minister accept that it is vital that we stay in the European internal energy market after Brexit in order to facilitate tariff-free trading of gas and electricity across borders, which we currently have? I know that the Department has been busy trying to find out why 20% of its staff have left without telling it why, according to a report in The Times, but when will the Government reply to the report by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, and when will they announce policy options in this crucial area?

[Richard Harrington]

As the hon. Lady will be aware, the Government are considering all aspects of their future relationship with the EU, including the arrangements for trading energy. Our priority is maintaining affordable, clean and secure energy supplies for businesses and households.

Petroleum Licensing (Exploration and Production) (Landward Areas) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2016

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 General Committees

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Petroleum Licensing (Exploration and Production) (Landward Areas) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 (S.I. 2016, No. 1029).

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. We have before us a statutory instrument purporting finally to put in place protection against surface drilling for hydraulic fracturing in national parks, sites of special scientific interest, areas of outstanding natural beauty and similar areas. It might be worth casting our minds back and considering how we got to a position in which this SI is being presented to us today. During the passage of the Infrastructure Act 2015, the then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), assured us that

“we have agreed an outright ban on fracking in national parks, sites of special scientific interest and areas of outstanding natural beauty.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2015; Vol. 591, c. 586.]

That was assumed to be the outcome of the Infrastructure Bill discussions, but it turned out, at the end of consideration of that Bill, that a separate SI needed to be introduced to give effect to the outright ban. That secondary legislation was laid before us in autumn 2015, but it turned out that it was not an outright ban on fracking in national parks, sites of special scientific interest and so on, because it separated hydraulic fracking underground from drilling on the surface in national parks. Although it indicated that hydraulic fracking would be restricted as far as sub-surface activity was concerned, it appeared to many of us at the time that that was something of an absurdity, inasmuch as a common-sense interpretation of fracking is that it does involve drilling a hole in the ground, and then fracking that hole, so separating the two in the way the SI did might be regarded as somewhat Jesuitical.

When that SI was laid before Parliament, the then Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), reassured those who had made that point that

“the Government have separately committed to ensure that hydraulic fracturing cannot be conducted from wells that are drilled at the surface of national parks and other protected areas. Members can be reassured that that remains the Government’s position.”—[Official Report, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 27 October 2015; c. 7-8.]

That is why we have this statutory instrument today; it is a third go. It deals at last with surface drilling in national parks and sites of special scientific interest.

One would therefore expect these regulations finally to lay that trail to rest, so that we could say that yes, there is to be an outright ban on fracking in national parks and sites of special scientific interest, which I believe all hon. Members present would want. Elementary research—I will not go into names or places—shows that a number of Members present have those areas in their constituency. What the Minister says about a ban today may give them some succour in discussions in their constituency with people who are concerned about fracking in their area. Hon. Members might have welcomed the regulations as finally indicating that their wishes had come true, and that there actually was to be a ban, and might have thought that we could leave the room this morning safe in thinking that that was what we had voted for. Unfortunately, it appears unlikely that that is what will happen if we vote for the regulations.

In the 2015 Act, there is a definition not just of fracking—surface drilling—but of “associated hydraulic fracturing”, which is fracking that involves

“more than 1,000 cubic metres of fluid at each stage, or expected stage, of the hydraulic fracturing, or…more than 10,000 cubic metres of fluid in total.”

That fluid is the water associated with the fracking process. It is injected into a well, comes back up again, and then has to be dealt with as waste once the fracking has been completed. If a well produces less fluid than that, it is not deemed associated hydraulic fracturing under the Act, although common sense would suggest that it is fracking.

Proposed new clause 22A(2)(c) slightly redefines “associated hydraulic fracturing” as “Relevant Hydraulic Fracturing”, although that has exactly the same definition as “associated hydraulic fracturing” does in the 2015 Act. The regulations define relevant hydraulic fracturing as

“hydraulic fracturing of shale or strata encased in shale which is carried out in connection with the use of a Well to search or bore for or get petroleum, and involves, or is expected to involve, the injection of—

more than 1,000 cubic metres of fluid at any stage, or expected stage, of the hydraulic fracturing, or

more than 10,000 cubic metres of fluid in total.”

Proposed new clause 22A(1) states:

“The Licensee shall not carry out Relevant Hydraulic Fracturing from a Well if the well pad is in a Protected Area in England or Wales.”

There is a clear link between the definition of relevant hydraulic fracturing and whether a licensee can carry out that fracking in a protected area. That is a problem, because if, in legislation to protect such areas, we place a limit below which fracking is not fracking, then evidently, straightforwardly and logically there is a point below which that area is not protected. It is not protected if someone is fracking in it but not producing 10,000 cubic metres of fluid. That is what appears in the explanatory memorandum that accompanies these regulations:

“The purpose of this instrument is to amend the model clauses for onshore petroleum exploration and development licences in order to ensure that licensees do not carry out high volume hydraulic fracturing from a well if the well pad is located in a protected area”.

I emphasise “high volume”, because that is the reality of what is in front of us today. We are talking not about fracking, but about high-volume fracking, and those are two very different things.

I mention this problem because we have expert testimony on what happened with hydraulic fracking in the United States; I am sorry to call on the wisdom of experts, because I know there is some dispute about whether we should listen to experts. In the United States, the amount of water used for fracking in any well is notified to the Environmental Protection Agency. There is still an EPA in the United States, which is good; it monitors how much water is used in each well and publishes the numbers once the fracking is completed. Work by Professor Stuart Haszeldine at the University of Edinburgh looking at more than 17,000 wells fracked in the United States between 2000 and 2010 shows that 43% of wells fracked through gas fracking, hydraulic fracking, and machinery and surface drilling—the whole lot—would not be defined as fracking under UK rules simply because the amount of water they used did not reach the American equivalent of that 10,000 cubic metres overall definition.

In case we do not agree with experts, I—a non-expert—have looked at the EPA’s more recent data from 2011 to 2013 on wells that have been fracked, and not only do they show a very similar picture, but in the majority of states in which wells have been fracked, all the wells are below the 10,000 cubic metre water level. That suggests that to some extent this is an issue of variability in geology, the difficulty of fracking a particular well and so on. In some states in the United States, most of the wells use more than 10,000 cubic metres of water in the fracking process, and in other states, most do not.

Of course, we simply do not know whether the UK is likely to be an Arkansas, a New Mexico or even a Texas as far as fracking is concerned because we have the evidence of only two wells. It may be that all the wells across the UK will have to use more than 10,000 cubic metres of water, or it may turn out that none or not many will. The problem with the statutory instrument is that the outcome is pre-empted and predicted by it stating that protection from fracking in protected areas will be based on a prescribed definition of what it is to frack a well, and what amount of water is involved.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

As everyone on the Committee knows, many people campaign against fracking, particularly in places where it is to take place. How does my hon. Friend think people who campaign because they fear the damage from fracking will react to politicians who have told them that protected areas will not be fracked, if they see wells in those areas because the fracking will involve less than the specified volume of water?

[Dr Whitehead]

I cannot imagine anything other than that those people will feel betrayed, let down and effectively duped when they find that what they thought was the protection of those areas turns out to be nothing of the sort.

Perhaps the Minister can assist me; under the SI, what will be the process for deciding to frack in a particular area? What process will have to be carried out in relation to the 10,000 cubic metre outcome? The SI is pretty silent on that. Taking the provisions at face value, I can imagine that a company wanting to frack in a national park—and, indeed, surface-drill, so that things will be worse than under previous statutory instruments—will merely have to say, “We are confident that this well will not produce 10,000 cubic metres of water, so it is not relevant hydraulic fracking—so we can go ahead, can’t we?”.

It may be suggested that there are other means by which that outcome could be prevented, such as through planning arrangements or ministerial intervention. Ministerial intervention has already overturned a planning decision, in an early fracking case, in Preston, but that is not the real point. The point is that the SI was supposed to be the definitive measure finally establishing protection—on the surface and under the surface—in national parks: protection for national parks with no ifs, no buts and no quibbles. I suggest that the SI simply does not do that. Furthermore, as my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood mentioned, it opens the door to a possible series of national confusions; what people thought was the case may turn out not to be, and we, collectively, will find that we are responsible for that.

There are two possible explanations for the SI taking the form it does. Either the Government consider that all wells drilled in this country will use more than 10,000 cubic metres of water, in which case it would be a good idea to have some evidence on the table to demonstrate that. Alternatively, they do not want proper protection for national parks, despite previous statements, and have produced the SI in accordance with that. I cannot believe that such mendaciousness is involved, however; I prefer to think that either the Government erroneously believe that all wells will have 10,000 cubic metres of water associated with them, or they believe that other mechanisms can protect the national parks, despite what the SI says. If that is the case, I hope that the Minister will be able to explain.

In the absence of all those explanations, I suggest that the right thing for hon. Members to do—this is not a party issue; it is a matter of doing what we collectively said we would do on fracking—is, as we say in our conferences, refer this back. We should not vote for the motion, but should ask the Government to go away and come back with a statutory instrument that produces the result that we all want.

It is unfortunate that statutory instruments cannot be amended, because the easiest thing to do would be simply to delete proposed new clause 22A(2)(c) and let the rest of the SI stand. The rest of it—the protections for national parks—is perfectly okay. It is just the introduction of the concept of relevant fracking that fatally overturns the intention behind the regulations. Unless we receive a bolted-on, cast-iron explanation of why the world is not as we see it, I am afraid we will not support these regulations, and we will seek a Division.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Jesse Norman)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate hon. Members of all parties on coming along this morning at this early hour to take part in this debate.

I start by restating the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the UK has secure energy supplies that remain reliable, affordable and clean. Shale gas has the potential to be a domestic energy source that can contribute to our security of supply, help to achieve climate change objectives, and create jobs and economic growth.

Gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels and still meets a third of our energy demand. We will need it for many years to come. Members of the public are understandably worried about a process that has not been used onshore much before now. I want to use this opportunity to reassure them and provide a clear explanation of why this new industry is in the national interest and will be safely carried out.

First, let me assure the hon. Member for Southampton, Test that the Government are clear that shale development must be safe and environmentally sound. The UK has more than 50 years of experience of safely regulated oil and gas exploration, and we have world-class independent regulators who will not allow operations to go ahead if they are dangerous to the environment or to local communities. We are confident that we have a robust regulatory regime in place. To reinforce those regulations, the Infrastructure Act 2015 introduced a range of requirements that must be met before an operator can carry out hydraulic fracturing, and ensure that they do so in a responsible, sustainable and safe way. They include the exclusion of hydraulic fracturing in protected areas.

The Onshore Hydraulic Fracturing (Protected Areas) Regulations 2016 ensure that the process of hydraulic fracturing cannot take place at depths above 1,200 metres in national parks, the broads, areas of outstanding national beauty, world heritage sites and areas that are the most vulnerable to groundwater pollution. When those regulations were passed, we recognised that concerns had been expressed about fracking from wells drilled at the surface of some protected areas. The Government at the time therefore decided that safeguards should also be applied to surface activities in protected areas. As a result, further regulations were laid before Parliament on 31 October last year and delivered through the petroleum licensing regime.

These landward areas regulations, which were prayed against, serve to strengthen further the protections already in place for protected areas. They should, I hope, assure the hon. Member for Southampton, Test that special protection will be accorded to sensitive areas. The surface restrictions in the landward areas regulations apply to the same areas detailed in the protected areas regulations, as well as to sites of special scientific interest.

[Maria Eagle]

It is excellent to hear the Minister read a speech written before he heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test. Will he address some of the specific points made by my hon. Friend about the volume and definition of relevant hydraulic fracturing?

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for anticipating the point in my speech at which I will address the questions. Let me finish, if I may, the process of not merely introducing the importance of shale gas but touching on the way in which the regulations have been structured and why that is so.

As I said, the regulations serve to strengthen the protections already in place for protected areas and to extend special protection to sensitive areas. The surface restrictions apply to the same areas detailed in the protected areas regulations as well as sites of special scientific interest and Ramsar and Natura 2000 sites. That is further evidence of the Government’s recognition of the importance of protecting key areas around the country. I stress that even outside those areas—the hon. Member for Southampton, Test recognised this point—a company looking to develop shale gas will still need to obtain all the necessary permissions, including planning and environmental permits, before hydraulic fracturing can be carried out. That is in addition to the requirements of the regulations. As part of the licence, permission and permit procedures, the environmental impact of operations and any risks associated with them are assessed by regulators and through the planning system on a case-by-case basis.

All oil and gas sites need permits under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 as well as planning permission from the relevant planning authority. The national planning policy framework and supporting practice guidance clearly state that, in respect of minerals such as shale oil and gas, new development should be appropriate for its location. If the risks of a proposed shale activity are deemed unacceptable, the environmental regulators will simply not allow that activity to go ahead, irrespective of the area involved.

[Jesse Norman]

The Government’s position remains unchanged that there should be no surface fracturing within those protected areas. That is the question raised at present. Of course it is possible to fracture from outside national parks beneath them, 1,200 metres below the earth, which is 800 metres below the normal lowest levels of any water sites. That is at least 1,200 metres below the surface of the national park. That is the form of the protection.

[Maria Eagle]

I wish to press the Minister on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test about the definition of relevant hydraulic fracturing in proposed new section 22A(2)(c). It clearly sets out the minimum number of cubic metres of fluid to be used at any instance or stage, or that a total of 10,000 cubic metres is used. That suggests that if the total is less than 10,000 cubic metres and 1,000 cubic metres of fluid are not used at any stage, that activity will not meet the definition of relevant hydraulic fracturing. Therefore, the regulations do not prevent such activity from taking place in protected areas and even in national parks. Am I correct about that?

[Jesse Norman]

Perhaps I can reassure the hon. Lady. The point of the regulations is precisely to ensure that smaller scale operations meet an equivalent range of safeguards to those set out in the Petroleum Act 1998. In some cases there may be local activities that are subject to all of the usual procedures and, if they are not hydraulic fracturing, they are captured by separate rules. However, hydraulic fracturing in national parks has been banned. That is the Government’s position.

I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that even at the sub-surface level, protections are in place to ensure not merely that hydraulic fracturing using more than 10,000 cubic metres of fluid cannot be done, but that hydraulic fracturing using more than 1,000 cubic metres of fluid at any one stage cannot be done either. That is a comprehensive response to the question.

[Jesse Norman]

No. The position is that “well pad”, as the hon. Gentleman knows, describes the location in which a well is drilled. That term was defined in paragraph 3.33 of the Government’s response to the landwards regulations consultation. Further consideration may be needed of whether a more explicit definition is required elsewhere, but what is in the response is clear. To give him comfort, let me reiterate that a well pad counts as being in a protected area if any part of it is in that area. There should be no ambiguity about that; it is what the response to the consultation says. I take his point, but it has already been addressed.

If I may continue with what I was saying, I should emphasise that the shale gas resources beneath this country have enormous potential, which we as a country should not underrate. We have a very secure regime in place.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jesse Norman]

I have already taken two interventions from the hon. Lady—perhaps she will allow me to complete what I was saying. We have a thoroughly effective set of permitting permissions and governing legislation in place. This country therefore cannot be compared in any fair way to other countries in which fracking may have taken place under different regimes. We have an excellent track record—one of the best in the world—when it comes to protecting the environment. I am confident that the commitment to restrict surface activities, which is being implemented through landward areas regulations and the policy statement, will complement the protected areas regulations and further strengthen the protections that are afforded to these sensitive areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I had not intended to participate; this is not an area in which I am a great expert, and I approach it as somebody who has an ordinary interest in the positives and downsides of the issue. However, I am afraid that in his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test, the Minister was not sufficiently clear, to my satisfaction, about the potential impact of these regulations—if we vote for them—in order to make me happy about voting for them today. I am going to give him one more chance—if I can explain what concerns me, he might be able to satisfy those of us on this side of the Committee sufficiently in his closing remarks so that we do not feel we have to oppose these regulations.

My hon. Friend set out some of the experiences in America. Of course, the USA has had a great deal of fracking. I do not remember the precise percentage that he used but he set out the fact that much of the fracking in the USA is done at below the volumes in the regulations and would not, therefore, count as relevant hydraulic fracturing under them. To my mind he was saying that it is possible in this industry to frack—as most ordinary people would understand the phrase—at volumes that would not meet the threshold the regulations set out. That would, in effect, still be fracking—an ordinary intelligent person looking at what was going on around them would still think of it as fracking—but the regulations would not define it as relevant hydraulic fracturing. That is the point.

As my hon. Friend said, owing to geological issues—there has been only a bit of test drilling; the industry is at a very early stage—we do not yet know what percentage of wells dug will be below the threshold for relevant hydraulic fracturing. It could be anywhere between a few and almost all for all we know, but it is certainly in the realms of possibility that there will be a lot of what an ordinary person would think of as fracking taking place below the threshold for relevant hydraulic fracturing, as defined in the regulations, and therefore below the threshold for the protection that the Minister and the Government seek to implement and the previous Government said they would implement when the original primary legislation went through.

In addition to answering the straightforward question from the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, which ought to have a straightforward answer, will the Minister explain what he will do to reassure people that the definition in the regulations will stop all fracking in sites of special scientific interest and national parks? I can tell the Minister now that if this protection results in wells operating below the defined volume in areas that are supposed to be protected, he will inflame campaigners’ concerns, whether those concerns are scientifically based and accurate or not. He will look shifty. He will look like he has been pretending to provide protections for those areas when in fact he is not.

I am sure that the Minister does not want to look like that, and I am sure that the Government do not want to be seen as cynical and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people who live in those areas and have legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. The best way for the Minister to address such concerns is to be as open and transparent as possible, and to be clear when setting out what this instrument will and will not achieve. I invite him, when he makes his closing remarks, to be a little clearer than he has been so far.

Vauxhall/Opel: Proposed Takeover

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I am very proud that we attract the world’s best automotive companies and that they see Britain as a place to prosper and succeed, so I am always encouraging that level of investment. Of course, it is not only about the major manufacturers; the supply chain is increasingly important in all advanced manufacturing, including the automotive industry. We have an increasingly good record of attracting small and medium-sized businesses either to locate here from overseas, or to grow from the bottom up. My hon. Friend will know that our industrial strategy makes a great focal point of the opportunity to grow our supply chains.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State understands the importance of the plant at Ellesmere Port, and its suppliers and retailers, to the wider north-west’s automotive sector, which includes Jaguar Land Rover at Halewood. What will he do to ensure that we do not lose some of the essential skills, jobs and firms, and that the sector in the north-west does not shrink as a consequence of factors that are completely out of the control of the Government and the people who work at the Ellesmere Port plant?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady knows from the work that we have done together that it is possible to make a case for attracting investment and commitment. She is absolutely right that the plant is important, and not only to the north-west but to the whole country, if the dealership network is taken into account. My ambition, as is the case for the rest of advanced manufacturing, is for our automotive sector to be more successful and to employ more people in the future. That does not happen by accident; it will involve our being engaged with the sector and making sure that facilities for research and development and training establish our reputation as the go-to place in the world for motor manufacturing, as we are for other sectors. I will work with the hon. Lady and others, and I will be vigorous in making sure that that message is very loudly understood.

Intellectual Property (Unjustified Threats) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

We have the ruling: the Government lost by eight to three. The Supreme Court said that an Act of Parliament must be passed in this House and that the devolved Administrations will not have the power to stand in the way of Brexit.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing us the news that parliamentary sovereignty has been upheld.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you, Mr Nuttall. As always, we will follow your guidance. I was seeking not to extend this debate, but simply to acknowledge the great victory for parliamentary democracy.

No Bill can be indifferent to or unimpacted by the UK’s impending exit from the European Union. Brexit will trigger profound changes in how the UK is governed and the ways in which our laws are enforced and implemented. That is no less true of intellectual property law than of any other area. It is therefore not in a partisan spirit that I move the new clause to require a report from the Secretary of State on the impact that the Government’s plans for exiting the European Union will have on the Bill’s provisions.

Exiting the European Union will have numerous impacts on the application of patent law in particular. For instance, it is unclear whether we will remain members of the European Patent Office; I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify that. We would almost certainly not be able to join the new unified patent court, which will be open to participation from member states of the European Union only, and which, under current plans, would be partly based in London. I was involved in lobbying for that office to be based in London, given London and the UK’s leading position in patents and patent law.

It is difficult to see the movement in recent years towards developing a single European patent as anything other than positive, in so far as it renders patent law simpler, more consistent across Europe and therefore more easily accessible for small and medium-sized businesses. It is regrettable that our participation in that project has been thrown into question. Will the Minister commit to taking all necessary steps to ensure that patent law, and IP law more generally, does not take a retrograde step in terms of its coherence and applicability following Brexit?

As I noted earlier, intellectual property is an essential means of ensuring that innovation is rewarded. That is why we are here today and I think we all recognise the importance of rewarding innovation and creativity. As the UK makes its way in the world outside the European Union, our ability to support a high-wage, high-skill economy will depend on our ability to innovate and create new products and services that are welcomed across the world. IP law provides a crucial source of motivation and reassurance for investors in supporting new products. It is welcome that, through the Bill, the Government are taking steps to ensure that IP law remains up to date and consistent; it would be troubling if the time and effort spent on the Bill were to be undermined following Brexit. I call on the Minister to accept the new clause and to ensure that the law in these areas remains consistent and easily applicable as we leave the European Union.

[Maria Eagle]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I rise, briefly, to support my hon. Friend’s new clause and to give the Minister a chance to show, in view of the judgment that we have just heard about, a new openness from the Government to Parliament about the implications of the UK leaving the EU. He can be the first Minister to explain in detail precisely what the implications of leaving the EU are on the provisions that he seeks to take through the House to become an Act of Parliament. We need to know that the good intentions and good measures contained in the Bill, which have widespread support across the Committee and I am sure will have widespread support across the House, will not be undermined by other things that the Government are focusing on doing in the broader political sphere.

My hon. Friend said that the UK is a signatory to the unified patent court agreement, which establishes the unified patent court, common to all participating states. It deals with disputes relating to European patents and European patents with unitary effect. The provisions seem to demonstrate that the jurisdiction of that court is intended to be pretty wide and to cover a lot of those businesses and entrepreneurs that the Bill seeks to assist by removing the threat of unjustified litigation.

It is tremendously important that the Minister sets out as fully as possible what the implications of us leaving the EU are for the operation of that court. Will we still be members? Do the Government intend to remain in some way opted into that common European provision? To what extent does our membership of the court depend on our remaining a member of the European Union? Will it be possible for us to opt into the operations of the court, which would be a good thing? Even if it is possible, what is the Government’s intention, because the Prime Minister said in her speech that she does not want us to be half in, half out? Does the Minister think that if we remain part of the European patent court, we would be half in, half out of the EU, or are we going to be purists?

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend’s excellent contribution makes me recall my time working as head of market development for an American telecommunications company, which was looking to invest in and roll out across Europe. One of the significant costs that we encountered was related to the need to apply for patents and to consider patent law separately in each jurisdiction of the European Union. Given the Prime Minister’s planned visit to the United States to meet its new President, does my hon. Friend agree that the unified patent court will be part of attracting investment, particularly American investment, to the UK in future?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree that anything that reduces the costs of doing business across jurisdictions—with appropriate safeguards, of course—will be welcomed by businesses and companies that seek to do just that. Given that as we leave the European Union we will have to be more outward looking and focused on trade, immediately acting to impose extra burdens on businesses that might be seeking to invest in this country is not a particularly good signal. However, the Minister may well be about to provide us with every ounce of assurance possible and set out in full the Government’s intention with regard to our participation in the court.

[Joseph Johnson]

I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central again for her new clause and for the opportunity to touch on this morning’s court judgment. It was, however, delivered after the start of our proceedings, so I have not had the chance to look at it in full, although I can tell hon. Members that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union will make a statement to the House at, I believe, 12.30 this afternoon, which will no doubt provide them with more information about the Government’s response.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister enlighten us about the Government’s intention towards the unified patent court agreement?

[Joseph Johnson]

I will happily come on to that in due course. I remind the hon. Lady that the Bill is not part of the ratification process for the unified patent court and we are in danger of straying off topic and beyond the scope of the Bill.

The new clause would require the Secretary of State to report on the impact of the Government’s plans for exiting the European Union on the provisions of the Bill within 12 months of it coming into force. The Law Commission review that led to the Bill was of the existing threat provisions that apply to all patents, trademarks and designs that have force in the UK, including the relevant EU-wide rights. The Bill therefore applies the new threat provisions to EU trademarks and community design rights.

It is important that businesses in the UK are protected against unjustified threats in relation to their activities in the UK, regardless of whether those threats relate to infringement of a UK national intellectual property right or an EU-wide IP right that is in force in the UK. Not to cover EU-wide IP rights in so far as they apply to the UK would leave a large loophole and make the threats regime inconsistent across relevant IP rights.

In answer to the remarks of the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, there is no question of the UK leaving the European Patent Office and the international patent convention that underpins it. It is not connected to the EU.

The Bill also ensures that the threats regime is compatible with the proposed unitary patent and unified patent court, when they come into effect. The Law Commission did detailed work with legal and business interests on that specific point. For as long as we are members of the EU, the UK will continue to play a full and active role. Ensuring that the IP regime continues to function properly for EU-wide rights is an example of that. However, that position and our decision to proceed with ratification of the UPC should not be seen as pre-empting the UK’s objectives in the forthcoming negotiations with the EU. No decision has been taken on our future involvement in the EU IP framework once we have left. That will be part of the negotiations, which have not yet begun.

It is likely that the negotiations will still be in progress one year on from the point at which the Bill would come into force—the point at which the new clause would require us to report. The Prime Minister has been firm that we will not provide a running commentary on negotiations. Publishing the report required by the new clause could well undermine our ability to negotiate the best deal for Britain in this area.

In her speech on 17 January, the Prime Minster set out our negotiating objectives for Brexit. We seek an equal partnership between an independent, self-governing, global Britain and our friends and allies in the EU. The UK has one of the best IP regimes in the world and our work continues to support and develop that. The UK leaving the EU will not change that. We will continue to deliver high-quality rights-granting services, to lead the world in IP enforcement and to be a positive force in the international IP arena. In light of my remarks, I ask the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central to withdraw her new clause.

Nissan: Sunderland

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I am glad that Nissan is continuing to invest in the north-east. Can the Minister give me in Liverpool some comfort—I would accept a letter—that I can pass on to Jaguar Land Rover, Getrag and the other automotive supply chain industries in my constituency to assure them that they will be treated in exactly the same way?

[Greg Clark]

I have been clear about maintaining the competitiveness of the automotive sector. The hon. Lady mentions some companies, and I am meeting Jaguar Land Rover again shortly—I meet it regularly. It is part of the development of our industrial strategy, and it is important that it should be. These are the companies, with their supply chain, that are succeeding and have contributed to our national success. We will work with them to build on that success and achieve even greater success in future.