Geo-Blocking Regulation (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-04-09
Topic: International Affairs
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate this afternoon. I was certainly not intending that the House would nod this one through, but I must be honest with the noble Lord: of all the exit SIs that I have done—and there have been plenty—this one feels fairly straightforward, in that the plan B not to revoke it would not have been fair. I was not expecting that today would be a mini-Brexit debate on the benefits or otherwise of leaving. I thought we had come to an end of those for the time being, but we had one none the less, which is, as always, a pleasure I am happy to answer as many questions as I can relating to the SI. A bit of ground was covered. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, talked about the single market, which we are of course the architects thereof, one of whom was the late Baroness Thatcher. UK customers could—I am not saying that they will—benefit from this move. They could get lower prices or better terms; I am not promising that. We cannot necessarily say that it will all be bad news. Furthermore, UK traders may be able to offer differential pricing that benefits them and UK customers, so I am perhaps not as "doom and gloom" as some noble Lords. While I am not promising that, we must make sure that we do not always think when we debate such legislation that things will necessarily work out badly The noble Lord, Lord McNally, talked about the 2020 review. Whether or not we have a close relationship with our near neighbours, we will always look at what they are doing—we would be foolish not to. If we do not have a deal, the 2020 review will be a question of us looking at the situation from far away, but if we do have one, we hope to work in partnership with them in developing the future for digital. Again, I am not quite as miserable as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, regarding digital services and markets for digital content. I believe that the UK is a very significant player in this regard and that we will continue to be so. There is a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty situation going on here The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, asked if we have been able to quantify this at all. Given what I have just said, we have not, because the situation is not entirely clear. It looks as though some 75,000 traders affected by this, in that they will have to think about the way they interact with consumers in different parts of the UK versus the EU. Again, it is not possible to quantify because we do not know how markets and different traders will react. That comes back to the point the noble Lord made about unlikely versus likely—it would depend on future arrangements as well. If there is no deal, in many years’ time we could have future arrangements in digital services and in this area that allow certain things to happen. I am afraid that that is all fairly nebulous, but it is pretty much where we are, given that we do not know where we will be in a few years’ time The noble Lord, Lord McNally, asked about proceedings that had already started—or, as I like to call them, in-flight complaints. Our understanding is that claims initiated before exit day that relied on the geo-blocking regulation would still be valid in the UK after exit day, and we will seek to provide legal certainty for businesses, families and individuals who are involved in ongoing cases on exit day The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, talked about the time taken to debate all the SIs. I agree with him on this and I sincerely wish it was not the case. I too desperately miss talking about other things, because there are many other things that I would love to talk about at the moment. However, if there is an upside—I am full of upsides today; generally, this is not like me—it could be that this whole exercise has given our excellent Civil Service a very good opportunity to get to know our legislative framework well. In doing so, I hope it has seen that if—goodness knows—we end up in a no-deal situation, there are opportunities for us to improve our legal framework as we move forward The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, also talked about the consultation and he is right. He quoted the Explanatory Memorandum, which mentions the businesses and groups we have spoken to—the Federation of Small Businesses and the Confederation of British Industry—and I am not aware of any sticking points. The note I have received from the Box says that no concerns have been raised, either by the devolved Administrations or the business organisations; both were neutral on this policy. I presume they looked at plan B and thought, "No, we don’t want that, so we might as well have plan A", so the consultation for this seems to be fairly uncontroversial On Northern Ireland, I take note of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, and I agree with many of them. I think we would all like to see an Executive restored in Northern Ireland as soon as possible. We are acting within the bounds of the protocol and regulating only where it is necessary. On the future relationship and how Northern Ireland and Ireland work together, we will have to have a conversation with the Irish Government on this and many other areas I hope I have answered noble Lords’ questions.