Patrick Grady
Main Page: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North) Retained EU Law: Trading Standards
Patrick Grady Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I hope to be on my way to Euston station at 5 pm.
I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this Adjournment debate, which allows me to raise a number of points initially brought to my attention by my Garrowhill constituent, Michelle McKenna. As a trading standards officer, Michelle is passionate about her job and ensuring safety and high standards for our fellow citizens. Without her knowledge and expertise, I would never have had the opportunity to learn much more about this policy area, so it is important that I place on the record my sincere thanks to her for raising it to me.
Throughout the 2016 referendum campaign, one of the main debating points was the notion that the European Union imposed onerous and exhaustive regulations on us. Campaign adverts included fearmongering talking points about the endless EU regulations that controlled our everyday lives. Indeed, the former Prime Minister but one, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), was key in perpetuating this utter fantasy, among many others, in his various newspaper columns. The idea that “scary EU diplomats are here with their red tape to curtail your freedoms” was used to persuade the electorate to vote leave, under the slogan “Take back control”, which the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has now shamefully fished out of the political dustbin.
The Conservative party leaned in on its supposed freedom-loving libertarian principles and called for Britain to be freed from these constricting EU regulations, but the reality is that the regulations are not meaningless or frivolous. They are vital to protecting food and product safety and consumer rights, as well as environmental protections and workers’ rights, for people across these islands and the wider European Union—and now they are under threat yet again, which is why I called this debate.
The UK’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016 has left a vacuum for regulations and consumer protections, which I argue is threatening people’s safety and consumer rights. I have significant concerns about the British Government’s ability to effectively review the close to 4,000 pieces of critical EU legislation by December this year, which is the current plan under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. The current timetable leaves only 12 months to complete that Sisyphean task.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He was in a debate with me the other day about the House of Lords. When we started to describe the House of Lords and how it was composed and so on, it started to sound absurd. Does the same not apply to the retained EU law Bill, once we consider what it is actually trying to do? The idea that thousands of regulations can be reviewed in 12 months—it is now less than 12 months—is just ridiculous. The risk of so many important issues, such as the ones that my hon. Friend is going to come on to, being hit by a cliff edge is potentially catastrophic. This is not an example of the legislature taking back control; it is a power grab by the Executive.
David Linden
At the risk of getting into some intra-Glasgow banter, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a reason why his constituents voted 78% to remain in the European Union. The good people of Glasgow North had the foresight to see that extracting themselves from the European Union, particularly in the manner in which the British Government proposed, would be a gargantuan task that frankly was not worth it, particularly to sacrifice on the altar a lot of safety standards. My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on to put that on the record. As he said, it is inevitable that this process will be rushed and we risk losing vital consumer protections.
David Linden
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) was good enough to send me the briefing from the music industry, which hits on that point. I thank the industry for its interest and for continuing to campaign. It is a body of evidence that the Minister should be considering in the context of this debate.
We also have the risk of losing the interpretive effects of EU case law, which could no longer be applied in UK cases. The overarching issue is that, if nothing proactive is done to retain any EU law, modified or otherwise, it will simply disappear from the UK statute book. Some—I would not disagree with them—are going as far as to call this a bonfire of regulations. The British Government are complicit in lighting the flames of that bonfire, and they will be held responsible for melting the very instruments that our trading standards officers rely on every day to protect us.
Countless organisations have come forward with worries about the proposed timetable for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. Just before the debate, I was discussing with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North that there are, I think, 18 pages of amendments for consideration on Wednesday night, and that is just from the Government. Clearly, we are not going to get through all the legislative scrutiny in a considered manner, let alone the civil servants.
Patrick Grady
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; I do not want to keep him. He is absolutely right. That Bill is of major constitutional importance and normally we would expect such a Bill to be dealt with in Committee of the whole House. It had four days in Public Bill Committee, and the timetable motion does not provide a fixed amount of time; it will cut us off at 6 o’clock. It is completely ridiculous and makes a mockery of the kind of scrutiny that the Government said Brexit was supposed to bring to this House.
David Linden
Absolutely. My hon. Friend is spot on to point that out. I am surprised that one of the doughtiest champions of Parliament and its sovereignty, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), was not outraged at the idea that that Bill would be rammed through a Public Bill Committee in the space of four sessions and not dealt with on the Floor of the House. My hon. Friend is right to put that on the record.
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has urged the British Government to scrap the timetable for the retained EU law Bill, warning of a loss of protections across product and food safety, as well as the inhibiting of its ability to effectively stop scams. The institute and a coalition of charities, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Child Accident Prevention Trust, have launched the “Safeguarding Our Standards” campaign to persuade the British Government to scrap the Bill’s current deadline. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on consumer protection, has said that this campaign is
“about ensuring that we have good regulation in place that protects consumers and keeps people safe… Good regulation benefits business and consumers alike. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.”
She is absolutely right. I could not agree more.
A new survey of trading standards experts—I know some on the Government Benches are not a big fan of experts and would use some expletives about them, but I believe that experts should be listened to—that includes the likes of my constituent Ms McKenna, finds that an overwhelming majority, 92.5%, believe that the Government should consider dropping their commitment to sunset legislation by the end of 2023. Almost three quarters of respondents said that an arbitrary timetable to sunset all EU-derived legislation should be abandoned all together.
Another survey revealed that the public think that the Government, and indeed Parliament, should prioritise their time by dealing with the cost of living crisis, closely followed by action to tackle NHS waiting lists. The translation of EU legislation into UK law was ranked last by the public in a list of the Government’s priorities. John Herriman, the chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, said:
“Rushing to overhaul vast swathes of UK legislation, particularly when the country faces such an unprecedented set of other challenges, is not something that those of us working in trading standards or consumer protection want, and there is clearly concern from the public that the Government should be focusing its precious parliamentary time on other matters.”
I agree wholeheartedly with the position set out by Mr Herriman.
It would be fair to say that most of us can see that Brexit has not exactly been a roaring success—to put it mildly—but this desperate attempt to be seen to create a bonfire of EU regulations will serve only to shoot ourselves in the foot once more. I urge the British Government to, at the very least, explore a phased approach to the sunsetting of legislation, based on specific legislative areas, and not leave our trading standards officers such as Michelle without the tools required to protect our constituents. That would give Ministers enough time to sort through and review the close to 4,000 pieces of EU legislation that greatly impact the general public, to whom we are accountable.
For those watching today’s debate, this may seem like an incredibly dry subject, but regulation and a baseline for safety standards really does matter. Let me paint a picture of how this matters in practical terms. The week before Christmas, North Lanarkshire Council’s trading standards department took action to remove more than 1,800 unsafe light-up toy rings from an online marketplace. The toy rings were assessed to pose a serious risk to young children due an easily accessible button cell battery that can cause injury or death if ingested. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) has campaigned on that, and I fully support it. Without the relevant regulatory powers to inspect, test and take corrective action, trading standards would not be able to remove unsafe toys or electrical or mechanical goods from circulation. It is precisely those types of interventions that are potentially at risk from the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.
I will give another example. A consignment of over 150 e-scooters, e-bikes and hoverboards was recently stopped at the ports by Falkirk Council’s trading standards. A sample was sent for testing, and the battery of one of the scooters exploded during the test. The battery management system failed to protect the battery pack and it was thrown out of the battery pack. Shockingly, cells were found around 7 metres away and flames were over 2 metres high. The testing identified a range of other safety concerns and, as such, the consignment was not permitted to be released for free circulation. In layman’s terms, the thing could literally blow up while being charged in someone’s living room.
The Minister for Energy and Climate (Graham Stuart)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) on securing this important debate. I listened to his contribution and the interventions of other Members with interest.
I begin by assuring the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, Michelle that we take these concerns seriously and that the aim of the Government is not to reduce consumer protections or the effectiveness of the trading standards regime of enforcement. I applaud the sterling work done by trading standards departments and services across the UK, including those of Michelle and her colleagues in Scotland, and the Government will continue to ensure that those departments and services have access to the information, and the regulations, they need to continue their important work. It was ironic that the hon. Gentleman, who I thought spoke very well, started his speech by making accusations of fearmongering, before going on to suggest that this Government were going to remove the very standards upon which trading standards rely. The scaremongering in this debate was clearly his.
The Government introduced the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill on 22 September 2022. The Bill is an important step closer to the culmination of a journey that began on 23 June 2016, when more than 17 million citizens of the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, including more than 1 million in Scotland, voted for the UK to leave the European Union. Retained EU law was never intended to sit on the statute book indefinitely. There will always be other priorities and challenges facing the country and the Government at any time. The idea that we should just leave that law there makes no sense. What we should do is make sure we have law that is fit for purpose and fit for the needs of this country.
The time is right to end the special status of retained EU law on the UK statute book on 31 December this year. The Bill will abolish that special status and enable the Government, via Parliament, to amend more easily, repeal and replace retained EU law, precisely in order to improve the agility with which we respond to things such as scooters with exploding batteries or children’s toys with dangerous button batteries. The Bill will include a sunset date by which all remaining retained EU law will either be repealed or assimilated into UK domestic law. It provides the impetus to ensure that the regulation that stops those things is properly fit for this country.
Graham Stuart
I will move on.
By ending the special status of retained EU law, we will reassert the sovereignty of Parliament. I think that is what makes the separatists so unhappy: they hate the idea that the Ministers of an elected UK Government in this sovereign Parliament should be the ones to ensure that we have a regulatory regime bespoke to the needs and interests of consumers and businesses in the UK.
I will now turn to standards and consumer protections. My Department has responsibility for a number of pieces of retained EU law that we are in the process of reviewing.
Graham Stuart
We have heard enough fictions and untruths already, and we do not need any more.