My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her extensive introduction, and for her and her officials’ time at the briefing session. This is a further SI covering geographical indications, which we previously covered last week. Relevant EU law provides the framework to enforce this scheme and ensure that the UK remains compliant with the WTO and its Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement—TRIPS—obligations, as the Minister said.
There are currently 87 GIs in the UK, ranging from Craster kippers to Cornish pasties, and a number of delicious cheeses, from Wensleydale to Stilton. It is likely that there may be further applications for GI status now that the UK and the Secretary of State will decide on what is a legitimate case and the evidence provided. Defra officials will obviously have a role in advising the Secretary of State on what constitutes legitimate evidence. It is reassuring that should an application be refused, there is an appeal process through the Ministry of Justice, which will be running the First-tier Tribunals. However, no doubt there will be a cost to this. Could the Minister say what the cost of applying for a new GI status and appealing to the First-tier Tribunal will be?
Currently, UK regional GIs are protected in the EU. However, this could change once the UK has left—the EU might change their criteria, and so some of our small producers might find that their produce is no longer accepted. I understand that there are some new applications for GI status in the pipeline with the EU. These are extremely unlikely to be agreed before exit day. Can the Minister say how many there are and what the process will be for these producers to apply once exit day has passed? Will their current application just be transferred to the Secretary of State for his consideration, or will they have to restart the process with completely different forms in this country? It is likely that this process could lead to a dilution in protections as smaller businesses may not have the means to robustly defend their WTO entitlements.
Before leaving the topic of GIs, I would like to comment on the logo. Quite clearly, the EU GI logo cannot be used once we are no longer part of the club,
so a new logo is needed for the sole use of UK producers. Sub-paragraph 3 of paragraph 7.7 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the new GI logo coming forward. In the meantime, the existing UK agri-food GI will be used for three years, and yet another SI will come forward for the implementation of this logo. When the change to this logo takes place, it will cost producers to update their packaging and their marketing administration—yet more bureaucracy and cost for many, including some very small businesses.
I realise that we are nearly at the end of this process of introducing SIs relating solely to EU exit, but it is two years since it was started. I would have hoped that someone in Defra might have trawled through the various instruments and grouped them together more coherently than is the case. Perhaps it would have been too much to ask that all SIs dealing with GIs be dealt with on the same day or that those relating to veterinary medicines be grouped together. However, we are where we are and I hope that we will never have to go through this laborious process again.
The provisions on veterinary medicines are fairly straightforward. I have just one comment, on paragraph 12.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, in relation to those wishing to apply for a marketing authorisation where one does not already exist. As the Minister said, this will be subject to a fee. The EM states:
“This fee will be reviewed once a cost base has been established to ensure that the fee levels are appropriate”.
This appears arbitrary. Can the Minister say a little more about what criteria will be used for establishing the fees and whether there will be different levels of fee depending on what the veterinary medicine is and what it will be used for? Apart from this, I am happy to support this SI.