My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in this interesting debate. Obviously, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, speaks with great experience in this area, on the higher risk of the online second-hand marketplace and the relationship between that, the information and the emergency services, as she so rightly says.
I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, which we will debate later on. I have also noted Amendment 106 from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which seeks to ensure that the information-sharing provisions apply to more bodies, including medical examiners and coroners. In fact, he has put an extensive list in that amendment.
On the issue of secondary legislation, I cannot as yet commit to a detailed timetable. Clearly, this Bill is starting in your Lordships’ House, so we do not know when it is going to get through and, I hope, receive Royal Assent. Then work will obviously take place in relation to secondary legislation, but my understanding is that, in the meantime, we are continuing to work with stakeholders to make sure that we can do this as quickly as possible.
We are coming on to the issue of relevant authorities but, as we see it, it is restricted under Clauses 3(2) and 6(2) to those authorities fulfilling a public function, such as local authorities and sectoral regulators. We think that any further specification would limit our ability to ensure that enforcement authorities can be equipped with necessary powers to enforce their areas of responsibility. Relevant authority and inspector functions are outlined in Clauses 3(3), 6(3), 3(4) and 6(4) respectively, but I suspect that we will come back to this in relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, later on.
The noble Lord, Lord Foster, mentioned lithium batteries. We know that he is making a very important point—we very much acknowledge that. We think that the powers in the Bill will allow us to determine what changes and updates to our regulations may be needed to ensure the best protections for consumers and support for reputable retailers, including those related to installation.
On data sharing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has raised, I have worked with the noble Baroness in the past on CO2 safety issues, where again the issue of data being shared is very important. That also relates to death certification, in getting accurate information. I well understand that. The draft provisions already allow regulations to make provision for information sharing and co-operation with emergency services. Existing legislation that seeks to facilitate information exchange does not always cover the type of data needed to help protect consumers from unsafe products. We believe that the Bill aims to improve data exchange on product safety among public authorities, emergency services and consumers. Powers in the Bill will allow for regulations to enable extending data-sharing agreements to include public agencies such as emergency services. Sharing information is clearly an important feature in the work of relevant authorities; their ability to obtain and share information enables them to undertake their activities effectively and efficiently. As Clause 7(5) makes clear, any information-sharing regulations must not contravene existing data protection legislation, which covers personal data.
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On Amendment 105, the noble Baroness is right to highlight that information sharing with emergency services can help protect consumers. Information sharing exists between authorities and bodies but it usually
needs to be underpinned by legal gateways. Although the suggested amendment would make it compulsory to make provisions on information sharing with services, we do not think that we need to go so far. If this were made compulsory, there would be no option but to make information-sharing arrangements, which might be a blunt approach and might not allow for specific circumstances. The reason why the power is drafted in this way is to give a discretionary power and to enable us to make effective, tailored and proportionate regulations.
I assure the noble Baroness that the Government share her concern about the recent increase in deaths as a result of lithium battery fires. The data she shared shows that there is effective collaboration between OPSS and the fire service on this. She mentioned the London Fire Brigade; its product-related fire notification data transfers show that it has attended 176 product-related fires involving some form of lithium-ion battery. As a direct result, OPSS and regulators were able to take effective action to protect consumers using products such as e-bikes and e-scooters.
In essence, we think that the noble Baroness’s amendments—the second one, in particular—are well intentioned but go too far. They would mean that we would have to do this in every circumstance. We believe that we have the right method to have a discretionary, proportionate approach. However, I would be happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss this further—or my noble friend would be, I should say.