My Lords, these regulations were laid before the House on 13 October 2020. The draft instrument serves several purposes, from fixing deficiencies in retained EU law to implementing the Northern Ireland protocol, which I will explain further shortly. Ultimately, it is necessary to ensure the continued operation of ecodesign and energy labelling policy in the UK after the end of the transition period.
Before I talk specifically about the instrument, it may be helpful if I speak briefly about how the EU framework for ecodesign and energy labelling has worked. In recent years, the EU has introduced, through the ecodesign directive and the energy labelling framework regulation, a suite of product-specific regulations. Ecodesign regulations are about minimising the costs and environmental impact of products used in both homes and businesses by setting minimum energy performance standards.
Energy labelling regulations provide consumers with information on a given product’s energy performance to allow them to make informed purchasing decisions. In 2020, these policies will save households approximately £100 on their annual energy bills and lead to greenhouse gas emissions savings of 8 million tonnes of CO2, while also driving innovation and competitiveness among businesses.
This brings me to the instrument being debated today, which serves four purposes. It amends retained EU law to ensure that the ecodesign and energy labelling regime remains operable in the UK once the transition period has ended. It makes necessary amendments to the 2019 EU exit SI to account for regulations that have come into force between 29 March 2019 and 31 December 2020. It implements the Northern Ireland protocol and unfettered access for ecodesign and energy
labelling policy. It also implements a change to replace energy labels’ use of the EU flag with a UK flag, and removes EU languages from these labels.
I turn to the amendments. First, amendments to retained EU ecodesign and energy labelling legislation are required to ensure that the legislation can continue to operate in the UK from 1 January 2021 without disruption. Fixes include, but are not limited to, removing EU-related references. For example, new energy labelling regulations for some products have come into force in the EU. These require suppliers of relevant goods to provide new re-scaled energy labels with their products from 1 November 2020. However, retailers do not need to display these until 1 March 2021. The SI ensures that the March 2021 requirements, which would otherwise not become retained EU law, will still come into force in March as intended.
Secondly, the 2019 EU exit SI for this policy area ensured that, in the event that no agreement was reached with the EU, existing minimum performance and energy labelling requirements would continue to operate and remain enforceable in the United Kingdom. The UK of course remains bound by EU law until the end of the transition period, and a number of EU ecodesign and energy labelling regulations have come into force since this first EU exit SI was laid. As a consequence of those new EU regulations, some aspects of our 2019 EU exit SI no longer work as intended. This SI makes amendments to the original SI to ensure that the new EU ecodesign and energy labelling regulations will be fully operable in the UK after 1 January 2021.
Thirdly, on legislative implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol and unfettered access, this instrument amends our 2019 EU exit SI and the underlying legislation so that certain UK-wide provisions are limited to Great Britain only. This will avoid confusion, as EU requirements continue to apply in Northern Ireland after the transition period, as per the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol.
This SI also allows relevant qualifying Northern Ireland goods that comply with EU ecodesign and energy labelling regulations to be placed on the GB market without undergoing additional checks. Qualifying Northern Ireland goods are defined in another instrument laid by the Cabinet Office. This SI will enable UK market surveillance authorities to ascertain whether a product came into the GB market from a Northern Ireland-based business through the information provided in a product’s declaration of conformity.
Fourthly, on labelling and marking requirements post transition period, this SI implements a decision to replace the EU flag on energy labels with the UK flag. Alongside this, we have removed EU language text from energy labels. As the UK is no longer part of the EU, the continued presence of EU logos and languages on energy labels would be inappropriate in UK legislation and could create confusion for consumers. UK energy labels have been made available to businesses free of charge through an online service to support compliance with this amendment.
Some UK trade associations wrote to the Secretary of State with concerns that they had had little time to prepare for these changes. Minister Kwarteng responded on 18 October, explaining that the change was a
necessary fix to deficiencies in the law and that the Office for Product Safety and Standards would take a proportionate approach to market surveillance, as it has always done.
Officials in my department have undertaken the appropriate assessment of the impacts of this instrument on businesses and relevant bodies. It showed that the estimated cost to business was approximately £1.95 million, so a full impact assessment was not required. Nor was a formal consultation required under the legal powers used, Sections 8 and 8C of, and paragraph 21 of Schedule 7 to, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
In conclusion, these regulations are necessary to ensure the continued functioning of ecodesign and energy labelling policy in the UK, while upholding our commitments under the Northern Ireland protocol, such that the UK, its consumers and its businesses may continue to realise the benefits of this policy. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
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