My Lords, although I thank the Minister for his response, I am obviously somewhat disappointed by it. I understand the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, to speed up the process, but I fail to understand how consulting with the EU would affect that. It certainly would delay it a little bit, but not by the years and years that the noble Lord indicated. I believe that a Bill introducing a process which alters the genome of crops and animals ought to have a review every five years. I accept that the Minister feels that there are sufficient reviews in place—I just do not necessarily agree with him.
The Minister spoke about a consultation that took place—he did not say exactly when it was, but I think it might have been last year—and said that 80% of those consulted said that the EU definition of precision engineering was not adequate, and that the end product, rather than the process, was more important. The Minister can write to me, given the hour, but I would like to know who was consulted—who were these 80% of people who said that the EU’s process was not fit for purpose? The Minister also said that the UK’s regulations mirrored the EU’s regulations and monitors; that conflicts with this figure of 80% saying that they were not fit for purpose. For me, it is smaller businesses that benefit most from trade with the EU rather than with Argentina, although I accept that some will trade with the latter.
8 pm
The most worrying thing the Minister said was that everything would be revealed in the impact assessment of the secondary legislation. However, the impact assessment for secondary legislation has a limit of £5 million: if the impact is less than that, no impact assessment is produced. So, if that is the impression the Minister is giving, are we assuming that all the impacts will be worth more than £5 million?
A number of questions have been raised this evening about everything being in the regulatory framework that will come in secondary legislation. I find it extremely
disappointing that some of this is not in the Bill, where everybody would have been able to see it and understand what is going on. However, given the hour, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.