CONSERVATIVE
New Forest East

DBT – PRODUCT REGULATION AND METROLOGY BILL & CONCERNS ABOUT ALIGNMENT WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION - 01 April 2025

DBT – PRODUCT REGULATION AND METROLOGY BILL & CONCERNS ABOUT ALIGNMENT WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION - 01 April 2025

Sir Julian Lewis: The Secretary of State will be aware from the Second Reading debate in the Lords that a number of what I shall gently refer to as Eurosceptic peers have expressed concerns that the Bill is a form of dynamic alignment with the European Union, and that, far from taking back control over which standards are involved and which guidelines are necessary, we will be abdicating control in favour of whatever the European Union decides. Can he set our minds at rest over those concerns? I am sure he would not wish to be diverted along such a dead-end route.

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds): I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention; he always brings wisdom to these debates. I can absolutely give him the assurance that the Bill makes no decision as to how we should use these powers. The reason we are bringing it forward today is the same reason the previous Conservative Government first proposed a Bill of this kind: having left the European Union, we need the powers to properly regulate these products in this way; without this legislation, we would not necessarily have the ability to do that.]