Cableway Installations (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-09-26
Topic: Culture
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Rosser, for their contributions to this short debate. A number of issues have been raised; I will do my best to respond to them, but if I am not able to in great detail I will happily set out an answer in writing and put a copy in the Library I turn first to the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. These regulations do not apply to outdoor, adventure or leisure places. I have to say, I went to one once and will never go again—one hurts afterwards. I think they do not apply because these places do not have actual mechanical structures within them; if they were to do so, the regulations would of course apply On the important issue of the distinction between the heritage installations and other installations, I will probably have to write to both noble Lords for a proper understanding of how the date of 1986 was arrived at. I suspect that when the regulations came into place, a number of these cultural and heritage-type organisations tried to make themselves distinct, as is often the case when one is dealing with these sorts of regulations. I will write to the noble Lords on the circumstances of how that happened. In 2014 the department obtained agreement from the member states that our heritage systems could remain exempt from the EU regulations, because they are dated between 1875 and 1974; they are non-commercial but important cultural systems. The legislation which applies to these systems is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, so they are inspected under a different regime The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also mentioned the future—what is going to happen. We do not expect any new installations in the short to medium term, and therefore there is no particular rush to be able to have a new system in place, but I will return to that in a minute. He is quite right that the conformity assessment bodies are EU-based and can be used. They will continue to be used if we need them, but at this moment no new installations are expected. However, should that be the case and it looks like new installations will be forthcoming, we will need to look at what a future regime might look like, although we could use the existing regulations The noble Lord asked a number of questions around cost, what this might look like and what the fees would be, which I cannot answer because we do not know what the future regime would look like. However, I can say that any future regime would of course be set up only after significant consultation, particularly with the Scottish snow sports industry, on the nature and type of regulation that would be most helpful. Once we have had that consultation, the Secretary of State would then look into what the regulations would look like and how they would be enforced On the CE marking, which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned, the UK mark will be identical to the CE and based on the regulations as they currently exist. As to whether or not the EU will recognise it, I am not entirely sure that that is wholly relevant, because these will be UK-based installations which will not be moving—they will not be able to go to the EU. People coming here would know that if it had a UK mark at that point it was harmonised with the EU regulations The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned some issues that have been raised over fees. Fees are not covered by this SI. However, it is an interesting issue. I know that the Scottish snow sports industry is disappointed in the level of fees. The reason why they are perhaps higher than the industry would like is because the number of engineers able to do the checks is quite small. However, it plans to increase the number of engineers and we hope that in time the fees will adjust accordingly The final point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was on the timing and prioritisation of SIs. This SI was deemed to be less a priority than some of the other transport SIs which would have had an immediate impact had the UK left without a deal on 31 March. This establishes the status quo. Nothing changes immediately. The system of regular inspections continues anyway. Forgive me—the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked who does the inspections now. The Health and Safety Executive does regular inspections, as one would expect. I do not want to say that this SI was deprioritised, but it came slightly further down the list. Are there any others? Yes, there are—ones that have been deprioritised, but others where EU legislation has changed over previous months. Therefore, others will need to be addressed over time and I am sure they will come before your Lordships shortly Motion agreed.