Draft Intellectual Property (Copyright and Related Rights) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Bill Esterson

Monday 11th February 2019 General Committees

[Bill Esterson]

rose—

[Catherine McKinnell]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Bill Esterson]

I will.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am grateful to the Chair for raising that point. Does my hon. Friend share my concern, and the concern of those businesses and consumers potentially affected by these changes, that in not providing the impact assessments for hon. Members to scrutinise as part of this process, the Government are giving the impression that they have something to hide, thereby increasing the level of anxiety about the potential impact of these changes?

[Bill Esterson]

I think my hon. Friend has made an extremely good point, and the Minister and his colleagues have heard what she has said. And I thank you, Sir Edward, for your intervention there as well.

This situation simply is not good enough. I came to this Committee today expecting that all Members would have the information that I have, or that it would be available to them in the room, but it is not here. Of the papers that are emailed around when the Committee of Selection selects the Members for a Committee, the impact assessment is not one of the documents that is usually sent; it is usually waiting here in the room for us. It would usually only be the Front-Bench spokespersons who would get a copy in advance.

[Catherine McKinnell]

As I said directly to the Minister before, I noted the comments about the impact assessments and actually looked for the impact assessments that are relevant to this legislation, but I could not find sufficient impact assessments to clarify for me what the impact of the legislation would be. So it is not even a failure of the Government to make them available today; actually, this process is all very unclear, in terms of what the impact is and how it has been assessed. So, even if the information that is available was provided, I do not think that it would be clear enough.

[Bill Esterson]

I completely agree with that, and there are a number of points here. In previous Committees, we have had a discussion about the fact that impact assessments have not been produced at all on numerous occasions when significant changes have been made, and there has been an issue with the nature of the impact assessments that the Government have chosen to produce.

I will discuss a little later the content of the three impact assessments that have been produced. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North is quite right that they do not actually give Members the ability to scrutinise thoroughly what we are being asked to scrutinise.