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.

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[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.