Intellectual Property (Exhaustion of Rights) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

I am grateful to the Minister, who has been generous in his advice to the Grand Committee, but I have a specific question on the point he has just made. The implication of what he has just said is that his department is already preparing, in parallel, the secondary legislation that will be required if the Prime Minister’s deal does go through. Or is he saying that, if the Prime Minister’s preferred outcome does get the support of Parliament, there will be no necessity for any secondary legislation? This is a very important distinction. If it is necessary to introduce secondary legislation to implement the specific responsibilities of government under the deal that the Prime Minister now prefers, then your Lordships’ House—which is going to have to consider it in due course—should know. On the one hand, we have this set of proposals, which is speculative, but there is something that might conceivably be more advantageous, both for the Government’s business and for the proper consideration of secondary legislation by this House. Is a parallel exercise going on for what the Prime Minister herself says is her preferred and more likely outcome?