A new product safety Bill will see Labour reintroduce regulatory alignment with with EU, former Brexit secretary Lord Frost has warned.
The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill provides for new government powers to regulate the marketing and use of goods in the UK post-Brexit.
Conservative peer Lord Frost said the Bill enables ministers to ensure UK regulations automatically follow changes in EU law, which “amounts to dynamic alignment”.
He said: “This is a power to re-import EU law concepts back into our system.
“It allows UK products standards described not in UK law terms, but simply by a cross-reference to EU law. When that EU law changes, so ours will change.
“It is simply the beginning of a path in which we slip back closer, without voters noticing, into single market-like trade arrangements.”
He told the House of Lords: “My basic concern is that this Bill goes further than a purely technical bill really needs to, and it goes further because part of the motivation behind it is indeed to revive a process of alignment for goods with EU single market laws.”
Lord Frost added that the Bill uses the Windsor Framework to incentivise this dynamic alignment, by helping “manage” any divergence between regulations in the EU, and therefore Northern Ireland, with the rest of the UK.
He said: “The Bill also constitutes another step, and this is rather unfortunate, in using the Northern Ireland arrangements to keep this whole country in line with EU rules in certain areas.
“As we always feared, the Windsor Framework is being used as a tool to inhibit reform and change within GB – not that I think this Government plans to do much of that anyway.”
He concluded: “The Government clearly wants to go down this road because it wants to eventually make rejoining the single market and customs union easier, whatever it says now.”
Fellow Tory peer Lord Jackson of Peterborough said parts of the Bill cause him “concern and alarm”, highlighting a specific power in the Bill to have EU standards apply to UK products.
Independent crossbench peer Lord Russell of Liverpool said dynamic alignment with the EU is a preferable outcome.
He said: “I welcome this Bill, principally because I think it gives Parliament an opportunity to mitigate some of the problems – or, if I’m being charitable, unforeseen consequences – resulting from our withdrawal from the EU.
“This Bill will guide the future regulation of standards for thousands of products.
“Consistency of standards across key markets provides businesses certainty about the quality requirements they must be able to meet to be able to sell their products in target markets.
“I suggest that one way to provide this certainty may be to consider a formal commitment to dynamic alignment in the same way that Switzerland, the countries within the European Economic Area and, to a limited extent today, the UK have mechanisms to ensure that regulations with the EU are aligned and are continuously updated.”
Labour peer Baroness Crawley said the Bill will not lead to automatic alignment with the EU, but a flexible system where the UK can choose when it aligns and when it does not.
She said: “Some may see this Bill as EU alignment through the back door, and I would disagree with that.
“The Bill as I see it will allow the UK to align with the EU when it makes sense to do so, but also give us flexibility not to.”
Responding, Business minister Lord Leong said: “Let me be extremely clear, this Bill is not rejoining the EU by the back door. This Bill gives us the flexibility to ensure product regulation, now and in the future, is tailored to the needs of the UK.
“There will be some instances where we will want to take a similar approach to the EU, and there will be others where it makes sense of the UK to diverge.
“These decisions will be based on the best interests of the UK’s businesses and consumers and any secondary legislation will be subject to the usual parliamentary scrutiny.
“We are taking back control, seeking closer, more mature trading partnerships with the EU and forging new trading relationships with the global world out there.”
The Bill aims to deliver more protection for consumers against “high-risk” products such as fire-risk e-bikes and lithium-ion batteries, and to crack down on unsafe goods sold on online marketplaces.
It will also allow the UK to “make the sovereign choice to mirror or diverge from updated EU rules, so that we can maintain high product safety while supporting businesses and economic growth”.