Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]

Stella Creasy Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

With the very best will in the world, I think the hon. Lady can do a great deal better than that. As hon. Members have said, this House can legislate. If there are dangerous products, bring those use cases here, and I believe that across the House we will legislate rapidly to protect our constituents’ safety. However, our constituents did not send us here to pass a 15-page Bill full of skeleton powers to give the Secretary of State an unlimited ability to regulate without having to consult this place.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The challenge for many of us who were here during the previous Parliament, when the hon. Member was in office and had the power to diverge, is that we watched what happened and we saw the cost to British business. That is why the previous Government decided in the end to abandon the British charter mark, is it not? Would he care to tell the House how much proceeding with his plans would have cost British business? It was £1.6 billion, in case he does not know. British businesses need to hear that we get it. They do not want more paperwork; they want less.

[Andrew Griffith]

I am genuinely intrigued, and I shall sit here and listen to the hon. Lady’s speech later on. Does she want divergence? Does she want us to use our Brexit freedoms, or does she seek to go back to being a rule taker and converge?

We have not heard a compelling argument from the Secretary of State today as to why these powers should be granted. It is right that we in this House adopt the precautionary principle, and if the Secretary of State, or the Minister in winding up, can give us some more compelling use cases, I am sure we would consider that.

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[Michael Wheeler]

I can think of several—for example, the lack of regulation around the e-bikes and e-scooters on our streets that are causing fires. We are in a fast-moving environment, and we are creating a framework that will future-proof our system.

[Ms Creasy]

I want to help my hon. Friend out, because he was not here when the previous Government introduced the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which deleted more than 4,000 laws and used statutory instruments to replace them. The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who was a Minister at the time, is nodding his head as if that process was acceptable. He is now challenging a colleague who was not here at the time by saying that somehow it is not acceptable now, but it was acceptable then. My hon. Friend is right to be concerned and slightly sceptical about the Opposition’s sudden agreement that statutory instruments are perhaps not the best way forward.

[Michael Wheeler]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. We are dealing with a regulatory black hole that was left behind, and the absence of a framework is letting down the consumers and people of this country—[Interruption.] I was about to say that I am sure we would all agree on that, but that is potentially a stretch in this debate and in this Chamber.

I hope that we do agree that consumers should be able to buy products online without worrying about their safety, and that product standards should not be bypassed or compromised on any platform, digital or otherwise. However, research by the Office for Product Safety and Standards found that 81%—eight in 10—of products for sale on online marketplaces between 2021 and 2022 failed to meet safety standards, which underlines the need for the Bill. We cannot allow companies to circumvent essential safety standards, presenting a public health risk just because they sell their products online.

However, the Bill is not just about safety, critical though that is; it is also about ensuring fairness. We simply cannot continue with a product safety regime that enables online marketplaces to undercut bricks-and-mortar retailers, or that allows rogue traders to out-compete responsible retailers with unsafe, low-quality products. That is unfair on consumers, reputable manufacturers and the small high street businesses that must compete with the online giants. With online sales already making up over a quarter of total retail sales in 2023, we must level that playing field now, providing our high streets with a long overdue boost to their competitiveness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I hope to offer a course correction from the Opposition’s attempts to fight many things today, not least the concept of geography and what is in the interests of British businesses. In this debate, we are watching the last gasps of the Brexit delusions that have fallen on hard contact with the paperwork reality. That is what this piece of legislation is about; it is about making it easier for British businesses who have been harmed by the previous Government’s approach to their basic needs. This is not about free trade. What came about as a result of Brexit was not free trade, but mountains and mountains of paperwork.

I want to focus on that in my speech, but I cannot let go of what the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) said. She was, as she says, a Whip on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023—my goodness me, I welcome a sinner that repenteth. In that Act, the Government were going to rip up more than 4,000 pieces of legislation overnight without any parliamentary scrutiny, simply because they had the word “Europe” in them. That included things like airline regulations, because of course what we needed were our own separate regulations so that a plane would have to take a different course in mid-air. That was the Brexit benefit.

Under the previous Government’s watch, more than 2,000 statutory instruments were laid before the House as a direct result of retained EU law. I welcome opposition parties’ commitment to parliamentary scrutiny, but I simply say that some of us on that Bill Committee tried to offer arguments about the importance of parliamentary involvement in such decisions, and they fell on deaf ears. I will come on to that.

Now that Opposition Members have suddenly discovered that statutory instruments might not always be the best way to look at such things, I hope they will be able to focus on what really matters here, because British business needs us to do that. British business needs us to clear up the mess created by the previous Administration and their approach to Brexit. That is what this legislation does. It is common-sense politics.

[Mr Holden]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Creasy]

I will, if the right hon. Gentleman can tell me which of those 2,361 statutory instruments he now regrets forcing through this House.

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting point. The key point with that carry-over of EU law is that all the regulations had already been debated and had already gone through Parliament. All we were doing was replacing like with like. With this Bill, the Government are introducing huge Henry VIII powers to create brand-new legislation, perhaps around production regulation, but on who knows what else? Who knows what impact it will have, and on which countries? That is the difference. We are removing parliamentary scrutiny, rather than just carrying over old EU laws into current UK law.

[Ms Creasy]

There are so many things to unpack there, not least the right hon. Gentleman’s recognition that our previous regulations as part of the European Union were perhaps not that bad. With rules on bicycle safety, for example, perhaps it was pretty sensible to say that if something was safe in the UK, our colleagues in Europe might also be looking at it and we could share the burden of working out good regulation. That is not what happened with the retained EU law Act or with divergence, and it does sound like he needs to look at divergence. Thankfully, I have some statistics for him—I know he will be delighted to hear them.

Before we move on, let me just say this. Opposition Members have not spoken for British business today, although I accept that the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), did try, and I recognise his expertise in toy manufacturing. He will recognise that we are talking about thousands of British businesses that are affected by regulations. What rules will those businesses have to follow to be able to sell in a market that makes their business sustainable? Some 12% of businesses in this country will be affected by this legislation, not because there are new rules, but because if we start to diverge from existing regulations, they will face a choice. Do they continue to follow European legislation so that they can sell into a larger market, or do they try to follow UK legislation, EU legislation and maybe Japanese legislation as well, with all the paperwork that comes with that?

[Graham Stuart]

rose—

[Ms Creasy]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman; I can see that if I do not, he will have a heart attack.

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but I shall survive. Given the time that she has spent in this House, I am surprised that, like some newer Members, she may have been taken in by the Government’s wording. The Bill gives Ministers such blanket powers. Sure, they can align more with EU regulation, as she desires; equally, another Government or Minister could go the opposite way and do all the damage she is talking about—needlessly differing from Europe purely out of ideology—and the House would have no say in it. Surely, the hon. Lady must be more like the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) and share with her colleagues the need to restrict Ministers’ powers.

[Ms Creasy]

I tried in vain to make exactly such arguments to the right hon. Member when he was a Minister telling me that European legislation was not good enough for this country. [Interruption.] I now ask him to let me finish my speech, because I want common sense in this legislation, as I think Ministers do. We need to stand up to those who puff and spout about Europe as though somehow it is a bad thing to make it possible for British businesses to trade with our nearest neighbours post Brexit. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not an argument about rejoining the European Union.

[Jerome Mayhew]

rose—

[Ms Creasy]

I will, if I may, continue with my speech, but I shall take an intervention a bit later.

Our colleagues in Northern Ireland know the practical consequences of divergence—the obsession with the concept that somehow we have always to be different, which is somehow believed to be sovereignty. They will know what the “not for EU labels” mean. They will know, too, the impact that that has had on them and their colleagues. Neil Johnston, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, recently told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee about just that. He described how suppliers have to have separate print runs for labelling, and how the requirements in shops for posters and edge-of-shelf labelling are massively burdensome for small businesses. We end up with a sausage roll that we cannot take across the border between Castlederg and Castlefin simply because of the way that the previous Government undertook Brexit.

[Sammy Wilson]

I wonder whether the Member has read the schedule to the Bill. Agri-food products are not covered.

[Ms Creasy]

I hope the right hon. Member can understand that my point is about divergence—about what happens when we try to ask businesses to run two different regulatory regimes out of a mistaken ideology that somehow we cannot find a way forward. That is what this piece of legislation will do. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield wanted to tell us that British businesses were better off as a result of the “Brexit freedoms”. Well, the numbers and statistics tell us the exact opposite. I am talking about not just the fall in GDP or the fall in trade that is predicted, but the thousands of businesses—16,400 of them—which have given up exporting to the European Union because of the additional paperwork and the additional regulatory regime.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am so pleased to have eventually got through to the hon. Lady. She heard the Minister at the Dispatch Box say that this was not about dynamic realignment. Am I right in understanding that her view of this legislation is that it is 100% about EU dynamic realignment?

[Ms Creasy]

The hon. Member is completely wrong. I hope that he will give me a chance to make my speech before getting too excited about the word Europe.

He should try to understand what we are talking about here, which is British businesses and the regulatory certainty that they need from their Governments. My goodness, if we think how a Tory hard Brexit has hit British businesses, we should also consider how it has hit small businesses, which simply could not afford to comply with multiple regulatory regimes. We do know that we live in uncertain times, and that the threat of tariffs will kill what little business our firms might have left.

As the OBR pointed out to us last week, if global trade disputes escalate to include 20 percentage point rises in tariffs between the USA and the rest of the world, it will reduce GDP by a peak of 1% and reduce our current surplus. In that environment, we owe it to British businesses to talk common sense and to talk about what they actually want, which is a reduction in the Brexit red tape that they have had to deal with. We have been here before—on the practical insanity that Brexit generates. There was the obsession with blue passports, which came at the expense of being able to trade and keep a business going.

We have also been here before with the previous Government, which is why all those Conservative Members who were here before 2024 need to hang their heads in shame at some of the arguments that they are making about this. The previous Government wanted us to have our own UK charter mark. They wanted British businesses to run two separate charter mark arrangements. Undertaking testing requirements for both the UKCA and the European CE to allow a business to be able to sell in both markets was costing businesses hundreds of thousands of pounds. The costs could go as high as £200,000 per product range. I am actually quoting from the previous Government’s own impact assessment of the legislation, and I am happy to send that document to the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), who is chuntering from the Opposition Benches.

UK conformity assessment marking covered goods worth £109 billion. It is little wonder that after four years, and I believe the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham might have been on that very Committee when it happened, those obsessed with the Brexit freedoms were hit with cold, hard reality and had to climb down and say that British companies that had met European standards had also met the British charter mark. They had to roll over the charter mark, because if they had not, their own impact assessment would have shown that it cost British businesses up to £1.6 billion in the decade. That is the Brexit bonus of which Opposition Members are so proud—billions of extra cost to British businesses because they are trying to fill in two forms at once to sell the same item to different sets of consumers.

The Bill is about so much more than just kitemarking. We need to be clear that it does not mean that we have automatic access to the EU market. It means that British businesses can see what the regulatory landscape might look like ahead of them. That is very important in these uncertain times. It also prevents the UK becoming a dumping ground for goods that are no longer considered safe in the European Union. I certainly believe that my constituents need to be confident that we will not be flooded with cheap goods that are bad for them.

It also does not mean that we have to align automatically, and I hope that answers the question from the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham. I am not here arguing for automatic alignment. After all, there are examples of where we have taken a different approach. The vaping legislation was something that Conservative Members opposed, but it put us ahead of European product legislation. The Bill has protections for the British pint. The Lords wrote those in.

It is also clear that choosing not to participate does not mean that UK consumers are not affected. We saw that with mobile phone charging cables. Even though we are too small a market to influence Apple, the European Union acting together made Apple stop selling us multiple cables. As somebody who was carrying around multiple pieces of equipment, I am very grateful for that.

We may also want to look at examples where we might learn from our colleagues. Right now the European Union has been taking the lead on carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—basically what is in a synthetic football pitch. Our kids right now in the United Kingdom play on pitches that have dangerous chemicals in them, but our European colleagues’ kids are not playing on those. When we talk about alignment, sometimes we are talking about sharing good practice on how to make our kids safer—the consumer regulations product safety that we were talking about.

I suspect that is why the previous Government, in the end, with all their obsession with Brexit freedoms and with all the powers they had, did not diverge very much. Indeed, under their watch, there were only five cases of active diversion. There were 15 cases of passive divergence, where basically they did not update regulations. For all the huffing and puffing, when faced with the cold, hard reality of having different regulatory regimes for goods in this country from those of our next door neighbours, where we might also want to sell, the previous Government took the better approach; they did not look to make British businesses try to double up on their paperwork. Indeed, where we have diverged there are clearly problems being stored up. Anybody watching the court case about sandeels knows what is coming down the line.

This Government are not going to mess British business around in the way that the previous Government did with their huffing and puffing about whether previous Governments in other countries were friend or foe. We need to make trade work. British businesses need less paperwork. That means being clear about where we will diverge, where we will align, why that makes a difference and what that means for product standards.

I think we agree across the House that we want high standards. That is delivered not by being not European, or pro-European, but by looking at what the regulatory regimes are. That is why it matters that we have paused some of the current proposals of divergence—on a new recycling label regime, on the “not for EU” labelling, and on the new checks on agrifood imports. We are looking at what works for British businesses so that we can make it easier for them to trade. That is why I wanted to speak in this debate.

What we need to do in the Bill—I hope the Minister will be open to this—is be clear about the direction of travel and the proper, right way and point for Parliament to be part of that process. If we are going to diverge, we should be clear why that would be in the British interest and how we as a Parliament will have that conversation. Where we have information, we should update our constituents, who might have businesses with products that take 18 to 36 months to develop. They need to know the regulatory regime, for example of the toys they want to make, and which markets they can sell into. That is why it matters that we have parliamentary scrutiny.

I welcome sinners who repenteth about the value of that, but I do not want to see British business faced with the idea of us having to consult on absolutely everything. I do not have an erratic fear of the Europeans somehow holding us back if they help us ensure that our kids are not playing football on pitches that have carcinogenic chemicals on them. That is common-sense British politics, and that is what the Bill needs to deliver.

Regulatory uncertainty undermines economic growth. If economic growth is our primary ambition, we need to reduce the amount of times we ask British businesses to be part of consultations, because they need to have confidence about where regulation is going. That is why it matters that we say, “We are not going to start diverging for the sake of it, but only because we can see there is a national interest in it.”

I will finish on this point. It matters to so many of our growth ambitions that construction materials are also covered under the Bill. Construction costs are due to rise much further here than in the European Union. Many of us who want our hospitals rebuilt and house building to happen know that if we spend our time giving uncertainty to British businesses about which way the regulations will go, we will not get the investment that we want. The cold, hard reality of businesses’ decision making is that they do not want to invest on a risk. My question to the Minister is: how can we give British business certainty about the direction of travel and ensure that we have the right consultation and engagement process for Parliament so that, where there are points where we would diverge—like we did on vaping—we can do that, too? It is not an either/or. Frankly, we have to get over the idea that if something is European, it is somehow taking us back. Nine years after we voted to leave the European Union, and six years after the legislation to do that, what the EU is doing still affects our British businesses.

We have a choice in this House. We can continue to peddle fantasies—I am sorry that the shadow Secretary of State is no longer in his place; he seemed not even to know about the capitulation that his Government must have made in his eye over the charter mark—but we owe it to British businesses who are being hammered by Tory Brexit and facing economic uncertainty not to add to the pile of paperwork in their in-trays as the Opposition would. I hope that when the Minister sets out that direction of travel, he will be open to ideas about how we can secure that. British businesses may have stopped listening to Opposition Members, but they will listen to us if we get this right.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 4th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Gardner]

I commend my hon. Friend for his outstanding advocacy, in particular for the workers of Moorcroft. I know how hard he has been working for them, and I agree that they are a testament to the great skilled craftsmen and women in British manufacturing.

Stoke-on-Trent, the Potteries and Staffordshire are globally renowned for our chinaware and tableware. We stand tall among the likes of Limoges in France and Delft in the Netherlands, and we must ensure that we protect that status. We are celebrating Stoke-on-Trent’s 100th anniversary this year and working towards UNESCO creative city status. I hence urge Ministers and the Government to demonstrate their pride and support for this globally renowned industry by supporting new clause 1.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow my colleagues from Stoke, who have so powerfully advocated for their local communities. It is also an absolute pleasure to be part of a debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), who I genuinely believe should be knighted for his services to explaining what metrology is to all of us. At the very least, he should have some kind of BBC Four series, possibly with my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) as his sidekick.

I am here because I have tabled new clause 15, which has cross-party support. It is designed to be a probing amendment—I hope the Minister is reassured about that—because these are important parliamentary matters. I agree with Opposition Members that this Bill is an important piece of legislation, although I come at it from a different perspective, because I see it as being at the sharp end of Brexit.

To me, Brexit is paperwork, because there are multiple regulatory regimes. Our constituents, and particularly small businesses, must deal with the reams and reams of paperwork that have come from leaving the European Union in the way we did, and we know that has had an impact on them. We know that over 16,000 small businesses have given up exporting to the European Union because of all the extra paperwork, that one in eight small exporters had temporarily or permanently stopped selling to the EU, and that another 10% were considering doing so, because it had become more complicated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

As the hon. Lady appreciates, we come at this Bill from different angles. We have tabled some amendments, including amendment 13, which would require the Secretary of State to come to this House and make a statement. As the hon. Lady says, small businesses are seeing regulatory change happen so swiftly that they cannot keep up. One issue with the Bill is the fact that it will be possible for regulations to be changed even more quickly, at the stroke of a Minister’s pen. That could lead to small and medium-sized enterprises being disadvantaged compared with very large businesses, which can align much more quickly.

[Ms Creasy]

The right hon. Member had the luxury and benefit of being on the Public Bill Committee. I did not have the ability to ask the questions that he is asking, but I look at the evidence under the previous Administration. When there was the ability to diverge, what actually happened? The reality is that very little divergence happened, because it is not in our national interest. We can, and do, fight many things in this place —indeed, in British politics—but geography really is not one of the things that it is worth our time arguing about.

Given that we do five times more trade with our European Union neighbours than with America, China and India put together, it obviously makes sense to have a regulatory regime that makes that trade as friction-free as possible, which is where this piece of legislation comes in. Indeed, under the previous Government, there were only five cases of active divergence—the sort of changes that the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) is worried about—that might affect small businesses. That is with good reason, because if we have a sensible regulatory regime, it makes sense to be aligned. The Prime Minister has talked about that, and it is also what businesses want. The Engineering and Machinery Alliance, which represents over 1,600 firms from 11 different trade associations, puts it very simply. It says that our businesses

“are trading in European markets and are part of European value chains. They have European customers and suppliers. For companies operating in highly specialised, high value markets, the UK is unlikely to provide the mass needed to develop and successfully market their products. They need to be international and that means working to international standards—the EU’s being, almost always, the most appropriate.”

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the Tory/Reform Brexit has been a complete disaster for our economy?

[Ms Creasy]

I cannot even look you in the eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I know I should not be tempted into quite that level of analysis. Very practically, we are trying to deal with the fallout of Brexit. The hon. Member will have heard me say that we need a salvage operation, because of the consequences seen and the damage done as a result of the way that our leaving the European Union was conducted. I see this Bill as part of that salvage operation. We used to be part of writing such regulations with our colleagues in Europe, which we do not do any more, but we need a process to maintain them because of the reality of the supply chains, of how we do business and of where divergence has hit small businesses—and it is small businesses, in every single constituency, that have paid the price for this version of Brexit.

[Mike Martin]

I’ll take that as a yes.

[Ms Creasy]

The hon. Member can take it as yes, but he will know that I am sticking very closely to the amendments, because I want to come on to how we make such decisions.

First, though, we need to be clear that this legislation will affect the lives of our constituents. Let me give one example. I am a child of the 1980s; I remember the Glo Worm. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for looking surprised—I hope it is a look of surprise, but perhaps you are remembering the Glo Worm yourself. The point is that the Glo Worm turned out to be quite a dangerous toy because of the chemicals it contained. Regulations help to keep us safe, so when we are talking about sharing regulatory regimes and being able to promote markets, there is a good reason why we are seeking high standards. I hope that everyone will hold the Glo Worm as an example—it has now been reissued without those chemicals in it, thank goodness, so that children of the 2020s can enjoy those squidgy toys.

What matters is how we make decisions about such regulations, and the debate on this Bill heralds a bigger conversation that we need to have in Parliament about how we can be involved in those decisions now that we are not part of the European Union. Obviously, agrifood and sanitary and phytosanitary goods are not included in the Bill, but the Government have now committed to dynamic alignment with EU rules for a very common-sense reason. As the Prime Minister has said,

“we are currently aligned in our standards, but we do not get the benefit of that. We want to continue to have high standards; that is what the British public want”.—[Official Report, 20 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 894.]

I hope that is the ethos we take in how we use the powers in this Bill. It is certainly what businesses would like us to do.

[Mr Holden]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Creasy]

I will happily give way, although I promised Madam Deputy Speaker that I was about to turn to new clause 15.

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but on the broader issue of dynamic alignment, are there not some issues—for example, animal welfare, which is not covered by the Bill—on which, if we want to maintain higher standards, we will want to go further than our EU allies, not dynamically align with them?

[Ms Creasy]

The right hon. Member seems to believe the regulatory regimes we had were a ceiling rather than a floor. There was nothing to prevent us from having higher standards; they were about maintaining standards. He and I are on different sides of the debate about nutrient neutrality, but the concern was about the high standard when it came to protecting our rivers and seas from algae that was at risk under the previous Government.

The right hon. Member is right, though, to raise the question of how we maintain standards, which is where new clause 15 comes in. It is about the concept of how we take back control—which, frankly, was at the heart of all the Brexit debates. I am sure the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) is surprised that I have become the stopped clock for him: this is one point in his political career that I may be right.

There is a challenge here that we need to address, and those of us who came to the Brexit debate from different directions can all agree that it is good and healthy to have such a discussion. I also want to say, as a parliamentarian, that the Government should be directed to do something that has consequences for Parliament as well. That is where new clause 15 is coming from. It is a probing amendment to raise a more general concern about how we make good legislation.

At the beginning of this Parliament, the Government decided not to re-establish the European Scrutiny Committee, which had existed since 1973, to scrutinise European documents that affected UK policy or law. In the debate, the Leader of the House said that

“the principal job of the Committee—to examine the documents produced by the EU institutions that the Government would automatically take on board—is no longer required.”—[Official Report, 30 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 1272.]

The challenge for many of us is that this Bill, and indeed the deal we now have with the European Union, means that that test is being set again. There is now a need for some form of dedicated scrutiny mechanism, with specialist expert staff to consider relevant EU laws and rules. That is not confined to the issues arising from this Bill; it is a broader point about what is happening now.

The ESC worked primarily by examining proposals from the European Commission and giving an opinion on their implications and when they would affect

“matters of principle, policy or law in the UK”.

I recognise that since that Committee was abolished, some work on these issues has been done by other Committees, and that is welcome. However, with this Bill and the reset deal, we are moving to a volume of European law and regulation with such technical complexity that we in this place would be best served by having that specialist expertise. Let’s be honest: many of these things are beyond our individual pay grades and we will want some expert assistance.

Put simply, if PRaM is passed in its current form, where the Government choose to recognise EU product regulations there will again be documents produced by EU institutions that the Government would automatically take on board. The Government’s dashboard of assimilated EU law shows that there are 155 items in the area of product safety and standards that derive from European law and could, under PRaM, be influenced by proposals of the European Commission to update EU law. Clearly, 155 documents alone would likely mean we exceed the ability of any one individual departmental Select Committee to devote sufficient time to the required level of scrutiny given their other priorities.

Many of us had run-ins with the previous Member for Stone. For some reason he never quite welcomed my interest in his work, but my interest and concern in scrutiny in this place is genuine and heartfelt, because I do think that at our best we can help Ministers, although I know that some on the Front Bench—maybe on both sides of the Chamber—will be raising an eyebrow at that suggestion. Aside from the democratic merits of parliamentary scrutiny in its own right and the cry to take back control, there are a number of benefits to the Government of ensuring that regulations derived from EU laws are scrutinised closely, not least because if those regulations deriving from EU law were later the subject of judicial review, the quality of parliamentary scrutiny of the relevant secondary legislation would be factored into a court’s thinking on the adequacy of the Government’s decision making. We might also pick up things in the process that have been missed.

It is indeed the question of perfection, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson) said, to argue that any Government or any individual scrutiny process through a statutory instrument could ever be perfect. I do not believe we should set that standard. As a psychologist, I believe in competing opinions and views; there is always merit in having a second pair of eyes. That is what this process is getting at—that is how we get closer to perfection, if I have understood my lessons in metrology correctly.

The point also fits within the broader debate about how, as we reset our relationship with Europe, we make sure that we show the British public our homework. That is ultimately what good scrutiny does: it defeats the naysayers who claim that there is a backroom fix; it allows the disinfectant of sunlight to be poured on every single document to its dullest degree.

As the Prime Minister told the House in presenting the European deal, we will be taking co-operation with Europe “further, step by step”, and alignment will be an important part of that. I welcome that because it is in the interests of the British public. We are already committed to dynamic alignment on the SPS deal, to free us from those dire border checks and all the extra paperwork that means that there are trucks stuck at Sevington, food inflation has increased and our constituents have paid the price.

We are also looking at dynamic alignment on emissions trading to allow us to remove energy tariffs in key industries including steel. That means that when those deals are completed, there will be much larger volumes of EU rules that directly affect UK law and policy. That will probably be a good thing but it is right for this place to be able to debate, discuss and scrutinise how that works.

I hope the Minister will recognise that every single political party in this House has supported new clause 15 because they want not to batter the Government but to engage with the Government on these issues, and that he will talk about how we can see the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny in this piece of legislation. I recognise that not many pieces of legislation will be affected by the PRaM proposals directly, but there is that broader point about how we take back control—how we have that conversation about the way in which we, at our best, can assist the Government to get the best out of regulations so that our businesses can keep trading, our consumers can keep buying and our Glo Worms can keep glowing.

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate; I was not sure that I would, depending on timings of the business of the House. I had the pleasure today of welcoming Doreen and Eric Moyse to Parliament. This year they both celebrate their 90th birthdays and I am sure colleagues will join me in sending our best wishes to them.

There are five MPs from north Staffordshire and we are all here, proud members of the Turnover Club and champions of our ceramics industry. We have all contributed to the debate both through making speeches and in interventions, and I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your guidance on the 33 amendments and for reminding us to speak to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders]

I absolutely agree, and that is one reason why the Bill has been introduced. We absolutely need to keep up to date with developments in the online marketplace world, which is why we have introduced this legislation. It is not, as has been suggested, an unbridled use of powers; it sets out a clear set of principles and provides for the use of the affirmative procedure in most cases. There are already a number of regulations that will be transposed as they stand—there are about 2,500 pages of product regulations, including to do with noise levels emitted from certain types of machinery and the ergonomic design of personal protective equipment. Increasing the list of regulations subject to the affirmative procedure to cover such matters risks miring Parliament in a level of technicality that I think only my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash could follow. I do not think that is a good use of parliamentary time, and I believe the Opposition used to think that too, which is why the powers in the Consumer Protection Act 1987, which is similar to what we are dealing with today, remained in place under successive Governments.

I will deal now with new clause 15, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. She raised some important points, and I thank her for setting out the rationale behind her new clause so clearly. First, I reassure the House that we are not looking at the same level of regulatory change that was necessitated when we left the EU. We anticipate no more than half a dozen uses of the powers a year. That is because the fundamentals of the regulatory framework are already in UK law—thousands of pages, as I have referred to, and many of those provisions have been through previous scrutiny processes. The majority of future changes using the power in the Bill will be smaller and technical.

I recognise the concerns raised, though. When we were a member of the EU, directives enacting major regulatory changes were regularly transposed into UK law using the negative procedure. Our Bill contains many more safeguards than were in place before, meaning that the affirmative procedure will be used far more often, as I have set out. Careful consideration was given in the development of the powers to ensure that we struck the right balance between good use of parliamentary time and the processing of highly technical changes. We listened to the concerns raised by members of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and went further, broadening the areas requiring scrutiny, as I have set out.

As Lord Pannick said, the practical reality is that technical regulations of the breadth and complexity that will be produced cannot sensibly be enacted by primary legislation. If we used primary legislation every time we wanted to do something on product safety, we would have little time for anything else. However, to provide maximum transparency in this space, we also published a code of conduct setting out the statutory and non-statutory guardrails in place before regulations can be made. That included a statement on how we will engage and consult with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that their views are considered. We will continue to review and update the code of conduct, and of course we will be happy to take suggestions on how we can be clearer about Parliament’s role in the scrutiny of regulations.

Given those assurances, I believe we have struck the right balance between scrutiny, the appropriate use of parliamentary time and the flexibility needed to keep our product and metrology regulations up to date. I hope that gives my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow some reassurances.

[Ms Creasy]

I thank the Minister for setting that out. It is incredibly helpful and reassuring to many of us to hear that in this instance just a handful of regulations would be affected. I hope that Business Ministers have heard the wider call for us to look at the issue across the piece; in fact, I am sure that the Minister will want to feed that in. What he said is very welcome and I am sure that all hon. Members who supported my new clause will be reassured accordingly.

[Justin Madders]

I am sure that Ministers across Government will have heard the important points that my hon. Friend has made today.

Amendment 7 on consumer protection could have unintended consequences as product safety is not one-dimensional; it requires consideration of multiple risks and consumer and business needs. For example, we are undertaking a significant programme of work considering furniture safety and the balance between fire risks and the possible effects of exposure to chemical flame retardants. Were the amendment adopted, we would be open to challenge by any interest groups unhappy with how regulations balance those factors. Indeed, when I gave that example in Committee, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson), said that it was a compelling reason for not accepting the amendment, so I hope the hon. Member for Richmond Park will not move that amendment.