Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Official Report 627KB pdf

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Geo-Blocking Regulation (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

The third item on the agenda is consideration of the Geo-Blocking Regulation (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The committee has been asked to consider a notification from the Scottish Government relating to the geo-blocking regulation, which prohibits certain forms of discrimination that are encountered by customers buying certain goods or services from traders in the EU. It applies regardless of whether the sale is processed online or offline and whether the customer is a consumer or a business.

In the event of a no-deal exit from the EU, preserving the geo-blocking regulation would, with reference to reserved matters, mean that UK businesses would retain the same obligations to EU customers under UK law, while UK customers would have a substantial loss of protection. That is because UK customers would be outside the EU internal market and EU traders would not retain the same obligations. Repealing the geo-blocking regulation would ensure that UK businesses were not subject to non-reciprocal demands that would act as a burden without any benefit for UK businesses or customers.

At its previous meeting, the committee agreed to seek further information on the regulations, the response to which is in members’ papers. Is the committee content for the issues to be dealt with by a statutory instrument that is laid at Westminster?

Members indicated agreement.

As the committee is agreed, I will write to the cabinet secretary to notify him of the committee’s decision. We move into private session.