My Lords, as always, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and hope I can deal with all the relevant points. As always, I will offer to write on those which I find harder to address, and hope noble Lords will be content with those letters.
I remind the Committee of exactly what we are doing. This order, since we are now dealing with them as three orders, is a result of the withdrawal Act, an Act which has been through both Houses and sets out powers precisely so that the Government could make contingency measures in the event of there being no deal. That is why we have brought forward the Intellectual Property (Exhaustion of Rights) Regulations that we are debating: to deal with that no-deal situation. As I and others have made clear on other occasions when dealing with EU exit regulations, of which there are quite a number, they are contingency measures designed to deal with the possibility that there is no deal. We expect that there will be a deal, but at this stage, in advance of debates in another place and other matters, it would be an irresponsible Government who did not make appropriate plans to deal with no deal so as to provide business with a degree of certainty.
The Government are therefore considering various options for the future. We are undertaking research and consultation on what would be the most appropriate exhaustion regime for the future, but that is for another day. We will deal with that in due course, but it is not what we are debating this afternoon. That will take time, and I do not believe there is a compelling reason to rush to an alternative system until we have seen the evidence and listened to what businesses and consumers have to say.
4.45 pm