Patents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
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Lord Henley
That the Grand Committee do consider the Patents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Committee considers the draft Patents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018, which were laid before the House on 28 November.
Intellectual property plays a vital role in the UK’s knowledge economy, and this will continue to be the case after our departure from the European Union. Ensuring strong and balanced IP protection and enforcement is central to the Government’s aim of encouraging businesses to innovate and develop new ideas and technologies, which forms part of the industrial strategy. Our IP system is consistently rated one of the best in the world.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. Can he tell us—the same issue came up with the previous regulation—what consultation there has been on the regulation?
Lord Henley
I will answer that in due course. The noble Lord will have an opportunity to speak after my speech, and we might make better progress if I take it in that manner.
The regulations are part of the work being delivered by the Intellectual Property Office to ensure that the IP system for the UK continues to function effectively in the event of no deal being agreed when we leave the EU in March. This is essential to ensure a smooth transition for business and provide maximum certainty and clarity.
The draft instrument before the Committee today uses the powers provided by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to address deficiencies in UK patent law which would arise on exit. The majority of UK patent law is domestic in origin or derived from various international agreements, so will not be affected by leaving the EU. Only a few specific areas of patent law are governed by EU legislation, and it is those areas which the draft instrument is intended to address.
I shall focus in particular on supplementary protection certificates, which are a special type of IP rights connected with patents. Noble Lords may recall that SPCs were created in the 1990s by way of EU legislation to deal with a growing issue affecting pharmaceutical and agrochemical products. Before such products can be made available on the market, the regulatory body must be satisfied that they are safe for use in order to authorise them for sale. As this process is extensive and often lengthy, it can stop the innovator enjoying the full period of exclusivity which a patent on such products normally provides. The aim of the SPC system is to limit the effect of that by providing up to five and a half years of additional protection to an authorised product after the expiry of the patents. This arrangement gives the maker of the product more time to recoup the costs involved in research and development, which is especially important in relation to pharmaceuticals.
The association representing British manufacturers in the field, the ABPI, has estimated that bringing a new drug to market costs more than £1 billion. SPCs therefore play an important role in encouraging innovators to develop new and more effective medicines by helping to cover those costs and providing additional revenue to put back into research. The framework for SPCs is set out in EU regulations 1610/96 and 469/2009 which will be retained under the withdrawal Act.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I did not say that and the noble Lord should not put words into my mouth. I said that when I come to respond at the end, I would deal with the point. No doubt the noble Lord would like to intervene to make the point and I have now listened to it. If the noble Lord would like to stay until the end of the debate, I will respond to it them.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I do not think that that is a satisfactory response at all. Our consideration of this regulation, which we are just about to engage in, crucially depends on the Minister telling us what consultation has taken place. It is not good enough for him to say that he will speak at the end of the debate when we raise the issue. I have raised the issue because I wish to respond, as will other Members of the Grand Committee, to what he has to say about the consultation that has taken place.
Lord Henley
The noble Lord intervened more than once during the previous debate. I had a number of responses to give to him but sadly he did not think it necessary to stay until the end.
Lord Henley
Will the noble Lord sit down? I have not given way to him. The noble Lord can make his point when I have given way.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to put the Question so that the debate can then continue.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I do not think it is for the convenience of the Committee, because the noble Lord has just made a direct allegation that I was not present in my place to listen to his response. The reason is that I was speaking in the debate on the EU withdrawal agreement in the Chamber. I have made the point to the Whips, including on our side, that it is highly unsatisfactory for the debate to be taking place in the Grand Committee on regulations concerning exactly the same matters as are being debated in the Chamber. It is not possible, even for the noble Lord with his considerable abilities, to be present in two places at once. It is because I wished to participate to the debate—it is a discourtesy to the House that I am not able to be present for most of it, because I am fulfilling my duties in the Grand Committee—that I was not here. I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the remark he just made, which appeared to imply—maybe because he was not aware that I was in the Chamber—that I was not fulfilling my duties. After he has noted that I was not here because I was in the Chamber, I think he needs to answer this point to begin with. Otherwise, I will continue interrupting until he actually gives us some information on what consultation took place on this regulation—before we can properly consider it and whether we think the consultation that took place was adequate.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I quite understand that the noble Lord was in the Chamber and therefore not able to be there at the end. I merely made a statement of fact that he was not there and that therefore I was not able to respond to him. I similarly make the quite straightforward statement that I have spoken on this, for which I hope the noble Lord is grateful, and I will respond in due course to the points made. I hope the noble Lord will understand that the wide-scale engagement he would like, as we discussed on the earlier amendment, was not possible on a draft no-deal regulation of this sort. I can give the assurance, as I gave on the previous order—this is the important thing—that there will be a proper consultation in the future. The noble Lord should bear in mind that at the moment we are making sure there is a degree of certainty for businesses in the eventuality that there is no deal.
Lord Henley
No; there is no need for noble Lords to get up. I will sit down and give way to the noble Baroness or the noble Lord when I am ready, but I am entitled to speak and give way as I wish.
We will consult as appropriate on whatever the future regime might be, deal or no deal. We are trying to get things right in the eventuality of there being no deal. It is quite right—
Lord Henley
Can the noble Baroness wait just a moment? I am still speaking. It is quite right that we make appropriate contingency plans. I now give way to the noble Baroness, then I will no doubt give way to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who is itching to get to his feet.
Baroness Kingsmill
I was actually trying to be a little helpful. In the notes on this matter, there is a little more detail about the consultation than on the previous one. They say a consultation was taken with “informal discussions”—informal is always questionable—
“with a small group of selected individuals with expertise in the relevant areas, or in patent law generally”.
I read that to suggest that the consultation was with lawyers, as opposed to people directly affected by this. I wonder if the Minister could make that clear. If it is with lawyers, they will be looking at it on the basis of the law as opposed to the impact on businesses. Once the Minister has clarified who and what it was, I could then understand the impact. In paragraph 12, the Government assert that there is,
“no, or no significant, impact on business”.
If there has been a proper consultation, that is fine and perhaps one has to accept that impact. But at present an informal discussion,
“with a small group of selected individuals”,
does not sound to me like the kind of consultation that is going to give anybody the possibility of saying there is,
“no, or no significant, impact on business”.
Perhaps the Minister would care to clarify.
Lord Warner
May I intervene to be helpful to the Minister? He might wish to consider withholding his remarks about consultation until he has heard what I have to say a little later about the consultation process—if we may venerate it with such a description. I think he might want to hear those before he commits himself too far on what consultation has taken place.
Lord Henley
The noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, suggested that it was only lawyers who were consulted. There is nothing wrong with lawyers—I speak as one myself—but others were involved too, including a number of business stakeholders, a representative from the BioIndustry Association and other representatives from the pharmaceutical and generic industries. I imagine this will be confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, when he speaks; I am looking forward to his remarks. All I can say is that that has happened, but obviously the consultations will continue so as to ensure we get the right process for the future, deal or no deal. At the moment we are dealing just with contingency planning should there not be a deal. I think I have moved, and I think I have now sat down.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: The Question is, that the Grand Committee do consider the draft Patents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I hope to throw a little light on the subject of consultation during the course of my remarks, which I am afraid will be slightly lengthy. My remarks are based upon a briefing I have received from the BioIndustry Association They relate to its concerns about both the impact and the process by which these regulations were drawn up and consulted upon. Again, I use the term “consulted” in a very loose way.
Before I get down to the business of what the BIA’s concerns are, I want to make a couple of general remarks which came out of our debates in Grand Committee last week about the previous set of regulations, and out of our discussions this afternoon about the first set of regulations. They are two issues which we keep coming back to time and time again. I hope that, for the rest of the proceedings, the Minister might refrain from continuing to run the argument that these documents do not reflect any change of policy. I shall set out the arguments as to why there is a change of policy here. Last week there was a set of policy changes in the regulations that were produced. I understand why there may have been a change of policy, given the circumstances in which these regulations were pursued, but it would be helpful to informed debate for the Government to stop saying that there is no change of policy because there palpably is a change of policy in many of these sets of regulations.
That is request number one to the Minister. The second concerns the Minister saying that somehow these regulations were only hypothetical and relate to a set of circumstances which may not occur. We raised this last week when he was not here and we were dealing with another Minister. The truth is that this is a set of regulations the Government of the day have drawn up and put in the public arena, and they have an impact on the people who may or may not be affected by them. As I said last week, as an ex-civil servant I know that even if these regulations are not used for the purposes for which they have been drawn up, they will be tucked away in a Whitehall cupboard. That is the reality. If we get down to some of these issues subsequent to Brexit day, they will still be there, they will still be a resource which will be drawn upon, and I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that they will be used to some extent in drafting another set of regulations.
The point that we have been trying to make to Ministers, singularly unsuccessfully, is that there are concerns about how they may be used and how the outside world may interpret the Government’s attitude in these areas in the future. That is why it is very important to challenge the Government when there are defects both in the assessment of impacts and in the inadequacy of the consultation process.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, my noble friend has made an extremely grave allegation. Would the Minister care to say whether he is correct that precisely one person in one company was consulted about these regulations? I would happily give way to him if he would like to contradict that statement, because it seems to be of immense importance.
Lord Adonis
I think that the Grand Committee will be extremely concerned to have information on this point. If what my noble friend has said is the case, it would be a situation without precedent in my experience: that on matters of significant impact on a major industrial sector, precisely one person in one company has been consulted and the relevant trade bodies were not even given the opportunity to express their views.
Lord Deben
What is more, that one person was selected but clearly not trusted.
Lord Henley
I was going to leave this to the end and I suspect that any intervention I make will just prolong these proceedings, but for the sake of assisting the noble Lord at this stage, I can assure him that consultation participants on the technical view of the draft instrument included the BIA, the ABPI, the IP Federation, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the British Generic Manufacturers Association and the agrochemicals industry.
Lord Warner
I flatly reject the idea that the BIA was consulted on the exclusivity aspects of these regulations. That is the assurance that I was given by it and I put it on the record in my speech.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, we seem to have a serious situation where the Minister has just said that one body of central relevance to these regulations was consulted and my noble friend Lord Warner has flatly denied it. Would the Minister like to elaborate on what he said; otherwise, it might be a matter for other authorities to examine?
Lord Warner
The exclusivity point is a key element in these regulations, as I made clear. If the Minister looks at Regulation 55, he will see that. I made it absolutely clear—I am not usually noted for obfuscation —that on the subject of exclusivity there was no consultation of the BIA. I cannot be any clearer than that. If the Minister has evidence that the BIA was consulted on the exclusivity point, I would be happy to withdraw that and apologise as graciously as I can, but the information it gave me was that it was not consulted on that point, which is at the core of this set of regulations.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am not sure if it is helpful to continue this discussion. That point is for another regulation, not the ones we are discussing at the moment. We will, no doubt, get to that one—and to that point—in due course. I am not making any accusation that the noble Lord has misled the Committee and I do not think I have misled it. I have made it clear who was consulted and I was hoping I could deal with that in my closing remarks as that might have been a neater and tidier way of dealing with these matters. I will leave it there.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
I wonder if the Minister could help me out. I have been listening to the speeches since I came back from the Liaison Committee. In the light of what we have just heard, is the Minister still pressing ahead with this statutory instrument? Would it not be better for him to withdraw it and clear up some of these points before we consider it again?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I will continue with these regulations: I have moved them. No doubt the noble Lord will say, as he and other noble Lords have done with other regulations, that he is not happy for them to be considered by this Committee and they can then be considered in another place. However, we are having a useful discussion at this stage, which I want to be part of, and we should complete what we are doing and deal with as much as is relevant to these regulations as we can. I will continue to do that and I will listen to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, conclude his speech. The noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Stevenson, and other noble Lords will no doubt wish to intervene. I will then respond to that, as is right, proper and normal. It is up to noble Lords to decide where they wish to take things after that. However, we wish to get this through, to provide continued certainty for this body and to assist the whole life sciences industry, the importance of which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has just reminded the Committee.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, a situation has arisen where there is a serious difference of view, to put it mildly—
Lord Henley
My Lords, I confess that I cannot begin to answer the noble Lord’s question about the Isle of Man, and promise to write on that and the other issues I did not manage to cover. I note what he says about the advice that my department—the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—should take from Her Majesty’s Treasury. As with all departments, we always listen carefully to what our colleagues in the Treasury say, and this time will be no exception.
I was not intending to intervene in the middle of the debate, but I did, and so to get back to this question of consultation and how we set about this with these regulations—which I repeat, are only to deal with the no-deal possibility I think the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, would be the first to agree that we would be irresponsible in not having done something should that eventuality arise. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Minister has been very kind and polite, and I am most grateful to him. Talking about the impossibility of dealing with things, I—like the noble Lord, Lord Deben—have some sympathy with him, and even more with his civil servants behind him. In today’s Order Paper, there are 38 affirmative instruments waiting for consideration by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 65 affirmative instruments waiting for affirmative resolution and 18 proposed negative statutory instruments made under the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. Is it not irresponsible to be pressing ahead with this, with no proper scrutiny on things such as conservation, animal health, veterinary surgery, pesticides, employment rights, construction products, insurance distribution, maritime transport, motor vehicles, plant health, air quality? I could go on and on. We are rushing them all through. Is that not irresponsible? Is that not a waste of the Minister’s time and the time of the well-qualified people behind him, in anticipation of something none of us really want to happen? Would it not be better if the Minister came to his senses now, withdrew this order and, along with all his other colleagues, said, “We are not going to take any more of these orders through the Grand Committee and the House of Lords because it is a total waste of time and totally irresponsible”?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am always kind and polite to the noble Lord. I know he is a delicate flower and does not want me to be too hard on him.
I appreciate there are a lot of no-deal regulations and that we are asking a lot of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. The noble Lord has served on that wonderful committee, as have we all, and it does a very good job, as do the other committees that have this duty. We are satisfied that they have enough time and resources. I think the House feels that it too has enough time. This can be discussed by the usual channels. We are having a very useful debate this evening and I am looking forward to continuing that process. It is difficult, but equally it would be much more irresponsible not to be moving regulations or producing them for the eventuality that there was a no deal, because the noble Lord will be aware that as a result of Article 50 and various other Acts of Parliament that have been through both Houses, if we do not reach an agreement by 29 March, we leave the EU without a deal. This order, the previous order and other orders are designed to provide that certainty businesses need, and we will continue to move the appropriate orders.
Lord Henley
Will the noble Baroness let me finish? I will then give way. She must not be quite so enthusiastic.
As is right and proper, we will then move them so that we can be in that prime position.
Baroness Kingsmill
My Lords, it surprises me that the Minister is not concerned by the extent of the statutory instruments still to be debated, because the question must be asked: why on earth are we rushing through them at this late stage? There have been two years in which we could have been prepared; there were two years when the possibility of a no-deal outcome was on the cards. Why on earth are we and the noble Lord’s civil servants being expected to race through with inadequate research and consultation now at such a late stage when there have been two years when these things could have been prepared?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I simply do not accept that point. The fact is that we are doing them now and giving them proper scrutiny, as the noble Baroness, her noble friend and other noble Lords would accept. There will be other opportunities to debate this and other regulations.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am on my feet, and I will give way to the noble Baroness when I wish. I will now give way.
Baroness Kingsmill
May I just say that we have been at this for getting on for four hours? If we proceed at this pace with the number of statutory instruments that we have still to debate, we will never get through them and there will be a vote before long to say that there will be no no deal. So what is the point of all this? I referred earlier to Alice in Wonderland; it seems even more peculiar.
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Baroness is getting on to wider questions. I cannot remember whether it is in Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, but I am a mere pawn on the chessboard of life. I believe that we are having appropriate discussion on the order and I think that it is right and proper that, since we have started, we should continue. I look forward so to doing and, as I said, there will possibly be other opportunities as well. I think we should continue with that. Others, who may be the kings, queens and bishops, will then discuss what is the proper procedure, but at the moment, we are considering the Patents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations, which relate only to no deal. We do not want to broaden it out to other things; others can discuss that issue.
Let me return to the debate and the consultation. As I made clear earlier, the IPO sought the views of a group of individual stakeholders—I shall not go into the slightly different words that my noble friend cited from different letters—and consulted them in their personal capacity to identify any issues with the drafting and raise any concerns with the approach. As I made clear, legal experts—there is nothing wrong with lawyers; the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, is one of them, as am I—and business representatives were present. It was a helpful and constructive review of the draft and it was understood that the regs were designed to maintain continuity. I repeat for the sake of the record that at that meeting, as I understand it, there were representatives from the BIA, the ABPI, the IP Federation, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the British Generic Manufacturers Association and the agrochemicals industry. If I can add to that list and give further details, I will certainly include that in any letter I write to noble Lords.
On letters, I believe—I am open to correction—that in advance of these regulations I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, from the Liberal Democrat Benches. I do not know whether I should have taken that wider and written to others. I will consider that with each order I deal with, as appropriate. I also make clear, on the lack of consultation, that we were not preoccupied with the deal. The IPO had sufficient resources to take both deal and no deal in parallel. It was necessary across Government to treat no-deal preparations sensitively when we were in the middle of negotiating a proper deal. From the perspective of business, retaining the regulations means that both the process for applying for an SPC and the scope of the right for which it is granted would be the same after exit as before.
I turn to the post-exit concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Warner. I appreciate that after exit day there may be new drivers for policy change. I think it was the noble Lord who talked about the possible time it may take to get a UK authorisation compared to now and the potential effects. I hear the noble Lord’s concerns, but we should understand the issues when the time comes then properly consider the right policy solution at that point. As I have already said, I would expect that to involve the more usual open and constructive discussions with stakeholders and interests in this area that the IPA usually enjoys. I can assure the noble Lord and others that our intention would be to fully engage with the BIA, the IP Federation and other similar bodies.
Lord Warner
I just want to clarify for the Minister that the damage to the life sciences will be wider as a result of Brexit, but the point I made in my speech was that it is the result of the approach to exclusivity and SPCs in this set of regulations. It is not a wider set of damage. It is a damage to the industry and the sector arising from this set of regulations.
Lord Henley
The noble Lord is right to point to the importance of the life sciences sector, and I am grateful he did. One should also re-emphasise—I would be grateful if the noble Lord would do so—just how important the life sciences industry is to us and what a great state it is in at the moment. The noble Lord will be aware of the recent stage 2 of the sector deal in life sciences that we published along with that sector. I am sure the noble Lord very much welcomed the fact that a major multinational—one based in Brussels, for that matter—announced at that stage that it was investing a further £1 billion over the next five years in research in the UK. Obviously Brexit is not putting off certain parts of the life sciences industry, and I am sure the noble Lord will welcome that.
I do not share the noble Lord’s view that there is a policy change. The SI maintains precisely the current calculation of the SPC duration, and at present it is calculated from the first marketing authorisation in the EEA, which includes the UK. After exit, without the provisions we have set out in this SI, the duration of an SPC in the UK would be calculated from the first authorisation in the EEA—but that would not include the UK. That would be nonsensical and is exactly the sort of deficiency that Parliament gave Ministers carefully limited powers to fix within the withdrawal Act. We believe we are complying with the powers we have within the withdrawal Act. That is what the SI does. It shows that after exit, SPCs within the UK will continue to be calculated from the first marketing authorisation in the EEA or the UK, and the status quo is maintained.
Finally, I turn to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, about the Explanatory Memorandum. He said that there was little impact. If a measure has a net impact to business of less than £5 million then obviously a full impact assessment is not required. The £5 million threshold, as the noble Lord will be aware as a former Minister, is set out in the better regulation framework guidance, and measures below the threshold must be accompanied by a proportionate analysis. The analysis is summarised, as the noble Lord will be well aware, in paragraph 12.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum.
I used the word “finally” but, if noble Lords will bear with me, I will have one or two more “finallys”. I turn to the concerns about the unified patent court. We have set out our proposals for the future relationship with the EU, including exploring continued participation in the UPC and the unitary patent. In the political declaration, the UK and the EU have agreed to co-operate in areas of mutual interest relating to intellectual property, including patents. The future of the UPC and the unitary patent will be a matter for negotiation. It is therefore rather too soon to be setting out the further dovetailing legislation.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also set out the points made by the law firm Bristows. We are aware of the point that Bristows has made. The patents legislation contains a number of references to the comptroller and the court, and all those references will be modified in the event of the UPC coming into force. The patents legislation will fully recognise the jurisdiction of the UPC.
Lord Clement-Jones
I apologise to the Minister but actually it was not the Bristows opinion; the 39-page opinion that I mentioned is actually from Brick Court Chambers, and it is very comprehensive. It makes it very clear that if we are to sign up, or to continue with our intention to sign up, we will have to recognise the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and there will be no getting out of that. That is what makes this so ironic in the circumstances.
Lord Henley
I look forward to reading the opinion that has emanated from Brick Court Chambers in due course. I was responding, I thought, to the points that the noble Lord had made about Bristows.
Lord Henley
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I will no doubt study, as will my officials, both the Bristows letter and the opinion from Brick Court.
Lord Adonis
Before the Minister sits down, he has very kindly said that he will write to respond to a number of the points that he has been unable to deal with. Those points are going to be crucial for the House itself to consider when this regulation goes to the House, particularly the points about consultation that were raised by my noble friend Lord Warner.
I ask that the Minister sends his reply and full statement in response to the debate to all Members of the House together with a copy of the debate itself because of the very unsatisfactory arrangements under which the proceedings of the Grand Committee are now reported. They are no longer in the main body of Hansard, a change that I find inexplicable. I do not know when it happened. It must have been beyond the oversight of that shrinking violet, my noble friend Lord Foulkes. It would never have happened if he had noticed it; he must have been shrinking on that particular day. If the Minister could send his full response, with the full proceedings of this debate, to all Members of the House it would be extremely useful in informing noble Lords before they consider these important matters.
Lord Henley
I think that the noble Lord would not expect me to respond quite as positively as he wishes. It might be an overuse of paper to write to every Member of the House. I will write to the noble Lord and other appropriate Peers, and make sure that a copy of my letter is, as always, available in the Library. The noble Lord and I understand that procedure well. A copy of this debate will be available in Hansard. Even if it is not the same Hansard in which reports of the Chamber appear, I understand that it is still Hansard and open to all noble Lords to read. If we want to be really modern about these things, it is also available for the noble Lord to read online.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted
I have two points before the Minister sits down. First, I do not think he replied to my point about whether there was any intended alignment with the supplementary protection certificates and parallel import points. The Minister may wish to come back to me on that. Secondly, the unified patent court and its relationship to the ECJ has been mentioned. That is inevitable. The unified patent court is an international court. The European patent is not an EU invention—it is external to it—but it has been agreed under the convention to which the UK is a party that it recognises the judgments of the ECJ. As I understand it, our own Intellectual Property Office would therefore have to take those judgments into account. Whatever convolutions there may be, we will not get away from the influence of ECJ decisions, whether or not the unified patent court comes into being.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I will write to the noble Baroness on both those points.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, a moment ago the Minister mentioned writing to “appropriate Peers”. I have never before heard a Minister in the House using the phrase “appropriate Peers”, presumably as opposed to inappropriate Peers. I suspect that, in the Government’s view, I am probably an inappropriate Peer. Particularly in the light of my noble friend Lord Warner’s remarks about “selected and trusted” consultees, I hope we are not going to start introducing the concept of selected and trusted Peers who are to be made privy to the Minister’s responses to these debates. I strongly suggest that all noble Lords receive his letter, together with the account of the proceedings of the Grand Committee. If he is not able to give that assurance, will he take this matter up with the Leader of the House and let noble Lords present in Grand Committee today know soon what the Government intend to do on this? I and other noble Lords may wish to take this matter up with the Leader of the House and with my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. It goes to the rights and privileges of Members when the whole House considers these matters.
Lord Henley
This is one occasion where I can give a categorical assurance to the noble Lord, because he merely asks what I meant by “appropriate”. I define it as meaning that I will write one letter to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and make that available in the Library of the House, as is the normal convention. By that means, all those who have taken part in the debate will have a copy of my responses to the noble Lords, Lord Warner, Lord Adonis, or Lord Clement-Jones. It would be easier if I wrote one letter to all “appropriate Peers”; that is, Peers who have spoken in this debate.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for seeking to define “appropriate”, but I do not think that Members of the Grand Committee think that his definition is adequate. Our job is to advise the House as a whole, but there may be a feeling in the Grand Committee that other noble Lords should receive this letter so that they are aware of the gravity of the issues raised about the whole future of the life science industry, which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to, and the importance of taking note of those issues before the House comes to consider them.
Lord Henley
I am grateful to the noble Lord, because obviously he always considers what is important to the House. He will no doubt make sure that that letter of mine, which will be available in the Library of the House, is made available to everyone else whom he thinks it is right should see it. I cannot go further than that, but it would not be right to write to every noble Lord on this regulation.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
The Question is that the Grand Committee do consider the Patents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018.