Geo-Blocking Regulation (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-04-09
Topic: Foreign Trade
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as this is the last item of business it would be very easy to nod it through. However, in the debate on the previous SI, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made the point that this House is playing a very important part in what he described as the Alice in Wonderland situation of Parliament legislating on Monday to prevent a no-deal Brexit, and then on Tuesday legislating to avoid the worst consequences of a no-deal Brexit. It is important that these statutory instruments are probed. They may seem to be simply belt-and-braces exercises, and the Minister delivers her arguments with such an upbeat lilt that you think there cannot be any problems, but it is worth probing a little deeper and showing the absolute absurdity and danger of what is proposed Let us remember that this is part of a great creation of the European Union: the single market and its operation. That single-market concept was the great work of Lord Cockfield, actively supported by Mrs Thatcher, in the 1980s. It was one of the great pieces in the puzzle of creating the European Union. Yet, as the Minister explained in her positive manner, no benefits are forthcoming from this SI—or from any of them. We are doing an exercise in damage limitation The Minister clearly explained what geo-blocking means. It is, "the term used to describe traders discriminating against customers on the basis of the nationality or location of the customer". That is the very heart of the single market. She was fair in frankly pointing out—as did the Minister in the other place, Kelly Tolhurst—that, so far as the consumer is concerned, by leaving the European Union we move out of the protections which this legislation provided, and that: "UK businesses operating in EU markets will still have to comply with the EU regulation when dealing with EU consumers … A failure to revoke the geo-blocking regulation and the Geo-Blocking (Enforcement) Regulations 2018 would not preserve UK customers’ consumer rights. Those rights will in effect be lost if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. The only effect would be to continue to impose obligations on UK traders while providing no benefit to UK customers".—[Official Report, Commons, 2/4/19; col. 977.] It is lose, lose, lose. In short, EU traders would not have any obligations to treat UK customers in line with the geo-blocking regulation As the Minister also explained, this regulation does not require a company to deliver a physical product to all EU locations. It also exempts digital copyrighted content, including e-books, computer games and streaming services such as Netflix, and audio-visual content and transport services. However, the EU is obliged to assess whether to lift these exemptions in 2020. This is a perfect example of the lunacy of Brexit. We are moving into a data revolution—an age of e-commerce. Yet we are now stepping back; we will not be at the table when the EU sets the standards in these areas. We will again be left, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, rightly put in another context, waiting, watching and listening for what others decide.