Trade in Animals and Animal Products (Legislative Functions) and Veterinary Surgeons (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-10-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Eric Gardiner (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, both statutory instruments before your Lordships serve three purposes. They make a number of technical operability changes to existing instruments to ensure that retained EU law continues to operate effectively after the UK leaves; they ensure that our statute book is closely aligned with the EU to support our application for third-country listing for live animals and animal products; and they make minor corrections to earlier EU exit SIs. These technical amendments will have no effect on existing policy, and bring over only those powers that already reside with the European Commission Both SIs were made under the urgent, made-affirmative procedure. This is because both instruments support the UK’s application to the EU Commission for third-country listed status for animal and public health purposes for consideration at a meeting due to take place this Friday, 11 October. While we are working hard to secure a deal with the EU, we should prepare for all scenarios—including, for instance, that the EU will not accept a request for an extension The European Commission considered the UK’s third-country listing application at a meeting of the relevant committee, SCoPAFF, on 9 April, based on the relevant animal health legislation in place on that date. The United Kingdom was able to assure the Commission that all relevant legislation had been made, and member states voted unanimously to list the UK as a third country. Following the Article 50 extension, another vote is due to be held this Friday. To ensure that we are fully prepared for this listing, both these SIs must already be on the statute book to provide the necessary reassurances of our readiness. These instruments support that requirement, and the Government’s commitment to ensuring that we have a fully operable statute book for day one, whatever The Trade in Animals and Animal Products (Legislative Functions) and Veterinary Surgeons (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 serve three broad purposes. First, they make technical changes to existing instruments to ensure that retained EU law continues to operate effectively after the UK leaves the EU. This includes, for example, changing "Community" to "United Kingdom" or "an official language of a Member State" to "English" Secondly, they transfer legislative powers that give the Secretary of State, with the consent of the Ministers from the devolved Administrations, power to amend, vary or add to the list of third countries that can export animals and animal products into the United Kingdom. This will ensure that we can act swiftly to prevent any imports from a certain country should the biosecurity risk change. This will support our existing ability to apply import controls and add to our robust armoury of biosecurity measures In practice, the Secretary of State would look to the UK’s Chief Veterinary Officers, supported by expert advice from the Animal and Plant Health Agency, to make any recommendations for changing the lists. These decisions would be based on the most expert scientific and veterinary advice, in the same way as they are currently with the Commission. Similarly, they amend previously made EU-exit SIs regarding animal and animal product imports. This allows the Secretary of State, with the consent of appropriate devolved authorities, to publish lists of animals and products that require border veterinary checks. Both these measures are intended to support the UK’s biosecurity. These powers currently reside with the Commission and we are simply making them operable in the UK context. They will further support our application for third-country listing by aligning our statute book with the EU Thirdly, the SI changes the previously laid Veterinary Surgeons and Animal Welfare (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, by correcting a reference to the Recognition of Professional Qualifications (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 to enable certain EU, EEA and Swiss veterinary surgeons to register with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. A paragraph had been wrongly labelled "43" when it should have been "44". It is very important to get these things right. I assure your Lordships that being a person of detail is irritating, but it is important that we get these things right The other statutory instrument, the Animal Health and Genetically Modified Organisms (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, makes technical operability changes to existing instruments. These ensure that regulations for animal by-products, ABPs, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, TSEs, and genetically modified organisms, GMOs, are operable. These amendments are of a purely technical nature and make no changes to existing policy. They include recent changes to ABP and TSE legislation that were published in the EU’s Official Journal too late to be included in earlier EU-exit SIs. As with the other instrument, this will enable our statute book to be up to date and accurate, which is a requirement of our third-country listing by the EU These changes include, for example, substituting "appropriate authority" for "Commission". Similarly, they amend references to the EU’s import and export system, TRACES, by adding the wording "or any replacement system in operation in the United Kingdom". The UK is launching a new system called the import of products, animals, food and feed system, IPAFFS, to ensure that imports of live animals, products of animal origin, animal by-products, germplasm, and high-risk food and feed not of animal origin can continue should there be a no-deal exit. This became available to the public at a beta stage of development only on 30 September. It is important to note that this system has proved popular with stakeholders, and we think we would look to it in the long term, regardless of a deal for access to TRACES, as a way forward. This SI also makes minor corrections as recommended by the JCSI. Again, I apologise for these, and will explain their nature in more detail There are three highly technical changes to EU law being made operable by this instrument. These include: changing recently introduced law, as mentioned, so that TRACES or any replacement system could alter certain lists; making operable provisions to permit the export of products containing processed animal protein derived from ruminants and non-ruminants; and making operable provisions that add Egypt to the list of third countries from which gelatine, flavouring innards and rendered fats can be imported The final purpose of this instrument is to make minor corrections to previous instruments which were, as I said, helpfully picked up by the JCSI. I am most grateful to the committee for drawing our attention to these. For instance, one correction will change the style of the paragraph numbering from (a) to (d) to (1) to (4) which is intended to help the reader to identify changes. I should also say that both instruments apply to the whole of the United Kingdom and that the devolved Administrations were closely engaged in their development and have given their consent for them to be laid.