My Lords, I will speak briefly. I thank the Minister for proposing these regulations. I remember several years ago one of the issues we had to deal with in the European Union was that the thriving industry in the UK for nutrition, vitamins, minerals and substances was much more advanced than those of many of our European colleagues. The framework we are now looking at, and will be pulling out of, is very largely of our making. That standards will be transferred intact is not surprising, since we developed them 10 or 15 years ago in the UK; we did so partly because we wanted access to the markets of the European Union for supplements, vitamins and so on.
My first question is this: what will happen to those markets? After Brexit day, what will happen to this industry, where we have been leading in Europe? It is quite clear that the purpose of this SI is to remedy deficiencies in UK legislation relating to nutrition arising from the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union without a deal. The Explanatory Memorandum says, and the Minister repeated, that there would be a,
“low level of impact … on businesses”.
But no impact assessment has been made—although I accept that the results of the consultation came to that conclusion. It also says that some “administrative burden” will be placed on businesses. That is a matter of some concern, and one we would wish to keep under scrutiny. Some of these businesses are not huge corporations but are relatively small; any additional administrative burden is a matter of concern.
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The Government should be congratulated on having got the consultation published, and the industry should be congratulated on responding in the 10 days it was given to do so. It is good that those results have been published. All in all, those things seem to have worked well in preparation for Brexit without a deal. But I repeat what I have said on every occasion I have had to deal with these SIs: it is a shame that we have to do this; it is a terrific expense and a waste of everybody’s time. However, given what has been going on down the other end of this building over the past 24 hours, it is probably even more essential that we get these things on the statute book and that they provide the necessary protection for these businesses.
I have a particular question to ask, which I am not sure the Minister will be able to answer. In the process of researching the impact on our nutrition industry in the event of a no-deal Brexit, my attention was drawn to how sports nutrition would be impacted. This is to do not just with the production of sports nutrition of various sorts but with regulation of the sports industry. The European Specialist Sports Nutrition Alliance agrees with many companies working in the UK and the EU which manufacture sports nutritional products that the future is uncertain. It says that it does not know what the outcome will be but that “there are many concerns”, such as:
“Is the UK going to diverge in terms of regulation, from the EU?”
For sports industries, that is a big question. I do not expect the Minister to have an answer now, but it needs an answer. Those industries need to know what the impact will be on them and on sports nutrition.