Lord Frost (Con)

My Lords, I have listened with care and interest to the eloquent words of the Minister, but I am sorry to say that I have not found them particularly reassuring. I suspect that that will not surprise him, and I will not dwell on the reasons now. There is perhaps a contradiction between his attempt to say that all this Bill does is give the power to align with EU rules—so where is the problem with that?—and his then going on to say that everybody wants to align with EU rules: businesses want it, consumers want it, allegedly, and we have a Government who want it. I therefore think that this power will in fact be used rather extensively, however reassuring the Minister seeks to be now. On a point of detail, the Minister said—and it was said before in Committee—that the Bill does not allow dynamic alignment. I simply cannot see what that statement is based on. The Bill seems very capable of allowing dynamic alignment, and I cannot see any provision which would preclude it. I will just leave that hanging. I will make two brief final points. I expect to test the opinion of the House on some of these amendments, one of which is Amendment 11, and so I want to respond to the point made by my noble friend Lord Lansley. I do not believe that there should be a specific UK-only rule for every manufactured good—that does not make sense. We have an opportunity to look at rules from around the world and align with them, and indeed we do just that in pharma regulation. The MHRA has a new explicit provision, the international recognition procedure, which allows accelerated recognition of products that have been approved in other jurisdictions, not just the EU but the US, Japan, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Singapore and so on. If it can be done there, I cannot see any reason, in principle, why it could not be done more widely. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I do not think we live in a world of plots—although perhaps one person’s plot is another person’s vigilance. Certainly, we have learned over the years just how many people are not particularly confident or comfortable with this country’s self-government and want to see it undermined. We are right to be careful and to look at the detail. On the basis of what I have heard so far, I am not particularly reassured. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.