Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Viscount Ullswater Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, may I seek clarification? As I understand it, the Grand Committee is currently discussing only the first regulation. The Minister drifted into the other two regulations, which are the responsibility of her department, but have I got it right that we are currently looking only at the first instrument?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Ullswater) (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct.

[Baroness Thornton]

Indeed, I intend to address only that regulation. I do not intend to make the same speech about all three orders. My noble friend is quite right about the issues that he has mentioned, and that applies to all these three orders, so I will not go into that detail.

I thank the Minister for introducing this SI, which, as she said, is necessary only if we crash out of the European Union. I say to the Minister—as I said to her colleague the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, whenever I have had to deal with these sad statutory instruments—that this is a gross waste of public money and time, and expertise that could be better used elsewhere. I put that on the record again. This set of SIs, and particularly the one about human embryology, deals with hugely important issues for people’s personal lives in different ways, and to get them wrong would therefore be potentially devastating for the people concerned.

On the first regulations, on embryology, the UK currently imports sperm primarily from sperm banks in the USA and Denmark, as the noble Baroness said. How will that traffic in particular be affected by Brexit and these instruments? The regime that we currently have in the European Union obliges us to inspect third country premises. As the UK will no longer be an EEA member, we will become a third country. I ought to explain that to the Committee because, although the Minister alluded to it, that is the truth. That will happen if we crash out at the end of March. I would like the Minister to confirm that that is correct.

We are very fortunate in the UK to have two reputable bodies, the Human Tissue Authority and the very experienced Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which was the first in the world to be dealing with this. It is currently the body that inspects UK premises on behalf of the European Union, which makes sense. So what is going to happen? Who is going to carry out the inspections of all the different premises? And what happens the other way round? Are we entitled to inspect those premises across the European Union that deal with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority? Will this cause delay in the production of embryos and tissues required by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority? After the six-month grace period to comply with EU requirements, will premises involved in these issues then be inspected by EU regulators? I will probably repeat that question on the other two SIs.

I had hoped that when the noble Baroness explained these orders to the Grand Committee, we would find ourselves enlightened, but I find myself even more concerned, and so I am going to leave those remarks on this particular SI where they are and return to human tissues and organs when we reach those.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornton]

Perhaps we could have some clarification from the Deputy Chairman of Committees.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Perhaps I can help the Grand Committee. I should remind noble Lords that the Motion before them is to consider the regulations. I must emphasise the word “consider”, not to approve them. Whatever happens in the Grand Committee, the Government will need to table an approval Motion in the Chamber where any Member can properly register disagreement and table an amendment to debate the Motion.

[Baroness Manzoor]

I thank the Deputy Chairman for that clarification and I am pleased that his words bear out the point I have just made to the noble Lord.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, it is unfortunate that we have not had an opportunity to have a general discussion in the Chamber about this process; otherwise, I could have made this speech then. The report was published by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House on 20 November last year. It is on process and is extremely important. Had the Government made time for that discussion, we could have approached these issues in a different way.

Finally, let me come to the recommendation in paragraph 113, which says:

“If the Government’s current approach to delegated legislation persists, or the situation deteriorates further, the established constitutional restraint shown by the House of Lords towards secondary legislation may not be sustained”.


That is the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House putting down an extremely important warning marker. It is intensely important that the whole process on the stream of SIs coming down the track to us is approached with that in mind. It will be up to your Lordships’ House to decide whether the Government are responding appropriately to these recommendations as they bring forward this avalanche of Brexit-related secondary legislation.

The complacency shown by the Minister on Monday in the Chamber, when challenged by my noble friend Lord Newby and others, does not encourage us to be optimistic. He claimed that 50% of the necessary Brexit SIs had been tabled. He also reported that the number had been reduced to some 600. I understand that this has been achieved by a great deal of amalgamation and compositing. The result is that some very long and indigestible SIs are on the way to us, perhaps with as many as 600 pages, in one case. I am told that the Home Office calls these “portmanteau SIs” because they are so general, and they will be extremely difficult for your Lordships’ House to deal with in an adequate manner.

When my noble friend asked the Minister how many SIs had been passed in both Houses, he was unable to give an answer. He did not know it—I hope he does by now. It is clear from the excellent briefing we had this afternoon from HM Treasury on the financial services legislation—indeed, it is also true of the Explanatory Note for these regulations—that we are doing complex and important work. It is not something that can go through on the nod, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said. Therefore, it is right that we take stock of what exactly is happening.

It may be, as the Minister has been at pains to say, that because this is simply contingency planning for an outcome that the Government do not want or expect to happen, and do not want to have to deal with, all this will turn out to be a largely wasted exercise—in which case, we also have a concern. It is a common perception across the House that the Government have not a hope of delivering properly scrutinised Brexit primary legislation before 29 March. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said earlier, they have even less chance of providing proper time for rigorous scrutiny of secondary legislation, where the devil is so often in the detail. The overall timetable is beyond the scope of this debate, but if anyone is under the illusion that it would be responsible for the Prime Minister to charge on towards any form of Brexit by the end of March, they should sit down quietly and just look at the proper scrutiny role that we as Members of your Lordships’ House have to exercise on behalf of the nation.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

For the convenience of the Committee, perhaps I should read out something from the Standing Orders:

“Debate must be relevant to the Question before the House”—


I believe that that is what the Minister suggested; it must be relevant to the question that I have put from the Chair—and:

“No Lord is to speak more than once to any Motion”.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, perhaps this can be my speech, then. The noble Viscount in the Chair was looking at me, but there are other Members of the Committee who might need his admonition even more than I do.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I said it for clarification.