Merchant Shipping (Marine Equipment) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment is dependent on the requirement of consultation and a document setting out the effect of the regulations. As far as I know, there is no requirement for either of these in any of the empowering statutory provisions. Therefore, this is by no means a basis for the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has signified. As I understand it, what is happening is that the regulations, which previously were all European regulations, will continue to apply in the same form, but with the expression of these regulations in the UK area of shipping.

Perhaps I should mention that I am an Elder Brother of Trinity House: what effect that has on this, I am not sure, but I will mention it just to be certain. I am certainly concerned with the safety of shipping and I believe that the instrument is, too, in that it preserves the existing standard of safety, both in Europe and when it passes from Europe to us here. It is the same standard and I cannot for the life of me see any reasonable basis on which this regulation could be set aside. It would be a drastic thing to set it aside and I ask the same question that I asked the last time I spoke on something like this: has the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, asked anybody who is affected by this whether they would like this regulation to be set aside?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, it has already been said that this was originally listed for the negative procedure and has been upgraded to the affirmative procedure on the recommendation of the Joint Committee. I express my surprise that the Government thought it was appropriate for the negative procedure.

I understand the concept of continuity that is a thread within this SI. The regulations require marine equipment to be approved by a UK-approved body and will allow equipment approved by the EU-notified body to be accepted. There are currently 10 EU-notified bodies that assess and approve marine equipment. These 10 EU-notified bodies are going to become UK-approved bodies. What is the situation in relation to those bodies now? As I understand it, some of the larger bodies, at least, are preparing to move to the EU because, if they do not, they will not be able to provide EU assessments. That is clearly the bigger picture: they want work on the larger number of 27 countries, rather than concentrating only in the UK. It seems to me that if bodies move from the UK in order to retain their EU status, there will be job losses and jobs moving abroad, and as a result there will be fewer bodies to provide the approvals for the maritime sector that we are talking about. Can the Minister give us some more information on that? How many bodies are thinking of moving? How many are in the process of moving? How many jobs are involved? We can see then how many will be left.

At first, the UK will continue to accept EU-approved products but, as I read it in the Explanatory Memorandum, it is government policy to time limit this, although the Minister seemed not to say that in her introductory comments. I would be keen to have some confirmation as to whether it is government policy. Manufacturers have expressed concern that they may have to get two different conformity assessments in future and that will be twice the effort and twice the cost. I realise that the Department for Transport disputes this. Perhaps the Minister can make a definite statement on it to reassure the House.

Manufacturers will, of course, produce goods to a UK standard if they are based in the UK, but many of the ships in UK waters are EU ships and, presumably, they need replacement parts from time to time and that is a valuable market for UK manufacturers. Will UK manufacturers in future have to produce to two different sets of standards to fulfil orders for repairs to EU ships? EU ships will require EU standards, and UK ships will require UK ones.