Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Bull) (CB)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie
That the Grand Committee do consider the Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, I will speak also to the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. I am pleased to introduce these statutory instruments, which were laid before the House on 12 January 2023. These instruments will increase the value of lump sum awards payable under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, and the diffuse mesothelioma scheme, which was established by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008.
As many noble Lords will be aware, these two schemes are not included in the main social security benefits uprating procedure and their uprating is not a statutory requirement. However, through these statutory instruments, we will increase the amounts payable by the September 2022 consumer prices index of 10.1%. These new amounts will be paid to those who satisfy all the conditions of entitlement for the first time on or after 1 April 2023.
Many noble Lords will be aware of friends and close colleagues from your Lordships’ House who have lost their lives as a result of these dreadful diseases. We must remember the great impact that these diseases have on people and their families. The Government recognise the tremendous suffering that diseases such as mesothelioma and pneumoconiosis cause to those who are diagnosed. The conditions covered by these schemes can be debilitating and life limiting and often involve very long latency periods, with symptoms starting to show many years, often many decades, after exposure. Mesothelioma, for example, is an aggressive type of cancer strongly associated with exposure to asbestos and is usually terminal. Life expectancy from diagnosis is poor.
I will now outline the purpose of the two schemes we are debating. The Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, which, for simplicity, I shall refer to as the 1979 scheme, provides a single lump sum compensation payment to individuals who suffer from one of the prescribed diseases covered by the scheme, including mesothelioma, pneumoconiosis and three other dust-related respiratory diseases. This scheme was designed to cover people who are unable to claim damages from employers because they have gone out of business and who have not brought any action against another party for damages. To be eligible, a claimant must be in receipt of industrial injuries disablement benefit for a disease covered by the 1979 scheme.
The 2008 mesothelioma lump sum payments scheme, which I will refer to as the 2008 scheme, was introduced to provide compensation to people who contracted diffuse mesothelioma but who are unable to claim compensation under the 1979 Act. This may be because they were self-employed or their exposure to asbestos was not due to their work. The 2008 scheme allows payments to be made quickly to people with diffuse mesothelioma at their time of greatest need. Under both schemes, a claim can be made by a dependant if the person with the disease has sadly died before being able to make a claim. These schemes aim to ensure that, where possible, the people who suffer from the diseases they cover receive compensation within their lifetime.
The rates payable under the 1979 Act scheme are based on the disease sufferer’s assessed level of disablement and their age at the date of entitlement. The highest awards are made to individuals with the highest assessed level of disablement and those who become entitled to a payment at an earlier age.
All payments for diffuse mesothelioma under the 1979 Act scheme are automatically made at the 100% disablement rate—the highest rate of payment—reflecting the serious nature of the disease. Similarly, all payments for this condition under the 2008 scheme are made at the 100% disablement rate. The highest payments from both schemes are made to the youngest sufferers of the disease. Between April 2021 and March 2022, the latest financial year for which data is available, 3,080 awards were made across both schemes, totalling £44.7 million. Between 2022-23 and 2027-28, expenditure on these schemes is forecast to fall by 8% in real terms.
I will now touch on the legacy of Covid-19. As the Committee will be aware, the Covid-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges. I am mindful of the impact it has had on sufferers of respiratory diseases in particular. As my predecessor set out in last year’s debate, the department made the decision to suspend all face-to-face assessments between March 2020 and April 2021 to protect the health of our claimants, and of course our staff. Some assessments were further suspended beyond April 2021 due to the additional risks of undertaking them face to face. Inevitably, this has led to delays in some customer journeys for claims to industrial injuries disablement benefit and the lump-sum schemes.
In response, the department and its assessment provider, the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, introduced several innovations to ensure that claims for IIDB, the 1979 scheme and the 2008 scheme continued to be processed as quickly as possible. We increased the use of paper-based assessments and introduced video assessments where appropriate. I am pleased to say that we continue to assess some customers via these routes where possible.
I will now touch on one specific, important and sensitive theme linked to these regulations, which is asbestos removal and schools. Tremendous strides have been made to restrict the use of asbestos and introduce safe environments for its handling in this country. However, the legacy of its widespread use, including in schools, is still with us today.
The Health and Safety Executive has a mature and comprehensive regulatory framework to ensure that the legacy asbestos risks in Great Britain are managed, which aligns with the best evidence currently available. Correct implementation of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 not only ensures management of the risks of exposure but will eventually lead to the elimination of asbestos from the built environment. I understand that some noble Lords have previously raised the issue of asbestos in schools in these debates. I assure them, and this Committee, that the Government take the safety of children and those who work with them incredibly seriously.
The Department for Education is committed to working collaboratively with the regulator, the HSE, to support schools and duty holders. As part of this, the Department for Education published bespoke guidance on asbestos management for schools in 2020 and is working with the HSE and the sector to look at further ways to help them and to build on existing guidance and support. Well-maintained and safe school buildings are a priority for this Government. That is why over £13 billion has been allocated for improving school buildings since 2015, including £1.8 billion committed for the financial year 2022-23.
I will conclude on a positive and—I hope noble Lords will agree—hopeful note. While there is always a degree of uncertainty in predicting future disease incidence, current projections by the Health and Safety Executive suggest that total annual mesothelioma deaths in Great Britain are expected to decline in the coming decades. For males, a decline is projected over the course of this decade, and for females, deaths are projected to start falling shortly after. These figures offer some hope that, one day, no more families shall have to endure the suffering caused by these dreadful diseases.
Medical research into treatment options is ongoing, particularly in the field of immunotherapy. While these treatments are not currently curative, a recent trial has shown clear evidence of benefit to advanced mesothelioma patients, equivalent to an additional three to four months of life.
I am sure that all noble Lords here today will join me in recognising the continued importance of the compensation provided by the 1979 and 2008 schemes and the importance of maintaining the value of these payments at this time. I am pleased to say that these regulations were considered in the other place on 8 February 2023.
Finally, as part of my role today, I am required to confirm—which I am pleased to do—that these provisions are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. I commend to the Committee the increase of the payment scales for these schemes and ask approval to implement them. I beg to move.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for the way in which he introduced these regulations. Just before we began, a group of us were recalling how we have discussed this year in, year out. We were also recalling some of his illustrious predecessors and others in all parts of the House who contributed to some of the changes that he has referred to.
I am thinking particularly of the late Lord Newton of Braintree, who was a Secretary of State. He was a great supporter when I moved amendments in your Lordships’ House seeking to change the Criminal Justice Bill and to bring about what then became a full-scale Act of Parliament, the Mesothelioma Act. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, was decisive in making that happen. He also once shared in this Committee how his father had died of mesothelioma. On this side of the Committee, I think of Lord McKenzie of Luton, who died at the end of 2021. It will seem a strange debate without his voice. His attention to granular detail was extraordinary and his knowledge of pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma admirable, demonstrating the very best of your Lordships’ House.
The noble Viscount referred to the removal of asbestos from schools, which I was very pleased to hear about. It has been a recurring theme that we have raised in these Committees over the years. On a hopeful note, he said that mesothelioma might be plateauing. I will come back to the data a bit later. He also talked about advances in medical treatments. He will know that the Mesothelioma Act was specifically about providing government funding toward the work of the British Lung Foundation and others on the causes and consequences of mesothelioma and on looking for cures. Can the noble Viscount tell us more about whether that funding is being sustained and what progress is being made in that area?
One of the things that has struck me is the number of noble Lords who have shared personal stories of loved ones, family or friends who have died of this disease, which, over the distance, has claimed more than 30,000 lives. That is the same number of deaths still estimated to be caused globally every year. As I have done on previous occasions, I pay tribute to John Flanagan and the Liverpool-based charity, the Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Group, for keeping a candle lit for all those afflicted by mesothelioma. In 2020, I noted that people in Liverpool are more than 18% more likely to die of mesothelioma. I know that we will hear from my noble friend Lord Wigley and the noble Lord, Lord Jones, during our proceedings; we have heard from them previously about the situation in Wales. However, this disease is no respecter of geographical boundaries or class. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, and I were discussing this just before the Committee met. We were talking about some of those who have talked about the loss of loved ones.
My noble friend Lord Freyberg talked in the House about his sister, a journalist, who had died of mesothelioma. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, talked about his sister, who had simply been washing overalls and had died of mesothelioma. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, told us about his wife, who had died of mesothelioma. We also heard from the noble Lord, Admiral Lord West, the story of how young men training for the Navy played snowballs with asbestos. Indeed, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, described how his father, Admiral Hunt, had also died of mesothelioma. So this is not something that is remote. It is something we know about, but sometimes it is regarded almost as having Cinderella status.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton. The figures he just quoted bring home the reality of this to us, and I pay tribute to the work that he has undertaken over so many years in this area. I am delighted to support both the uprating regulations and welcome the 10.1% increase. I am sure the nurses and the teachers would be delighted to have a similar increase if it was in the Government’s ability to do so, but it is good that the value of these payments should be maintained.
Noble Lords will be aware of the provenance of the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979. It was driven on to the statute book in the dying days of the Callaghan Labour Government, propelled at that time by the needs of slate quarrymen in north-west Wales. Coal miners suffering from pneumoconiosis had of course been compensated as a result of the tripartite agreement between the NUM, the NCB and the Government in 1975, but no provision was made at that time for workers from other industries suffering similar lung diseases. Slate quarrymen were one such case but there are many other industries where it was relevant.
It was in the few days after losing a vote of confidence by just one vote that Michael Foot, to his eternal credit, ensured that the promise given to Plaid Cymru MPs at that time was delivered in all stages. The legislation went through both Houses in just two days, which was remarkable and very much to his credit. I also pay tribute to the work done by the Transport and General Workers’ Union regional secretary, the late Idwal Edwards, who campaigned vigorously on these matters.
Several thousand ex-quarrymen, who had no remaining employer against whom to take legal action, and their widows have benefited from the legislation and still do. But by now, many more workers in other dust-generating industries are also able to benefit from it, so it would be very helpful if the Minister could indicate how many pneumoconiosis sufferers, by industrial group, receive compensation under the Act over whatever recent period is available. If those figures are not available to him but they are in the department, perhaps he can write as they would, I am sure, be of interest to Members on all sides of the Committee.
By now, the major group of sufferers from lung diseases is that of mesothelioma victims, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Their condition arises from asbestos dust, so it is right that we should debate both these instruments together. Mesothelioma was covered partially in a 1979 order but, rightly, sufferers have demanded specific legislation dealing with the particular nature of that disease. There have been several such steps over the years. It is a vicious condition, as has been described, which can be dormant for many years, without anybody realising it is there, then attack the victim with a ferocity that can kill within months. I have seen that for myself; it happened in the last few months of the life of a very good friend of mine, Peter Wolfe, whom I remember as a teenager playing snowballs with asbestos flakes when our school gym was taken down and rebuilt. That is similar to the story the noble Lord, Lord Alton, recalled being recounted to a previous Committee. Peter died six decades later but only five months after his condition became apparent. That shows the speed with which it can attack.
It is right that asbestos sufferers are covered by legislation specific to their condition, and it is right that it should be uprated and that new ways of helping the victims and families should be developed. Equally important are the steps that the Government are taking to avoid exposure to asbestos dust. The Minister mentioned this; it is so important that publicly owned buildings—schools, colleges and other buildings, even hospitals—are monitored for the dangers in this direction. Perhaps I should mention very gently that there are parts of the Parliamentary Estate where asbestos has been used, and that too should be a matter of some concern to us in all parts of this Committee.
The Minister has told the Committee what is being done to eliminate or at least partly curtail such exposure. Can he give any indication of what the target dates will be for this being finally overcome? That may be too much to hope for, but it should still be the intention, target and aspiration of whoever is in government to take away the cause of the suffering, as well as compensating those who are suffering. Can the Minister give any indication of the anticipated time period until the demand for such compensation, on the present trajectory, would be finally eliminated?
Finally, I return to the slate industry. The demand for slate has increased in the recent past and now the employment profile is on an upward trajectory, interestingly, for the first time in decades. I am glad to say that employment is now being secured for more people, but greater care is being taken to minimise exposure to the dust—and that is to the credit of employers and unions alike. The slate industry landscape of north-west Wales was awarded world heritage designation 18 months ago, which pleased me and other noble Lords, I know, very much. It is worth noting that part of that story was the social dimension, not least the fact that the industrial hospitals provided in three major quarries, starting around 1820, were among the first such hospitals in any industry in the UK.
Today’s uprating regulations should be seen in the context of the social battles to get fair play for those working in particularly dirty and dangerous industries, and the recognition by government that compensation is appropriate. In any way that government can undertake such action, the cause of compensation should be eliminated.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his thoughtful and succinct introduction. It is always instructive to hear the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Wigley, with their committed and highly informed references to the lump sum payments. On page 4 of the first item on our Order Paper, in lines 4 and 5, I see the magic words that refer to
“increasing the amounts payable under the 2008 Regulations by 10.1 per cent”.
That is really good news. The Minister can be proud of proposing these regulations, which represent a humane approach by a great, undervalued department. Perhaps we can blink at the detail of tables 1 and 2 and contrast those sad figures with the Explanatory Memorandum, which posits words at paragraph 2.1 that must be music to the ear of the recipients or their families. Let us put into Hansard for the record the names of Lewis Dixon of the department and Louise Everett, the deputy director for ESA.
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, on the substance of the two instruments before us and the uprating of payments by 10.1%, we on these Benches, like the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Jones, of course welcome that. I have learned a lot from noble Lords in the debate. I know from reading Hansard on their previous appearances on these uprating instruments that they have long and honourable records of advocating for sufferers of these appalling diseases. I thank both noble Lords present and those whom the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, reminded us are no longer with us. Their words have helped to inform me and provided me with information that I understand will be useful in future years, as we continue to come back to debate these issues.
Much has been said that I will not repeat, but I will emphasise three areas that I am interested in and where I hope the noble Viscount might be able to expand in his response. The first is the question of the latest trends in the numbers of sufferers. As he pointed out, there is an expectation that they will decline once we reach a point 30 years or so after there was a reduction in the use of asbestos. But it would be interesting to hear from the Minister the extent to which there have been any surprises in the data, to understand more about the distribution of sufferers geographically and in terms of their professions, which has already been raised, their gender and any other factors that have surprised people, given the expected exposure and rate of suffering.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, was right to remind us that the exposure is not finished. Indeed, as we stand here, we are standing over huge amounts of asbestos, which is securely contained within the basement but which, at some point, will have to be removed as the works take place on this building. That is true across the country: in the 20th century a huge amount of electrical infrastructure was put in using asbestos as a fire preventer, and that is being replaced; people are now saying, “We need to get rid of it”. Whether that is meters in people’s own domestic premises or something on this scale, asbestos exposure is not finished—it will be an ongoing issue. I know that is broader than the instruments before us today, but I hope the Minister will make sure that his colleagues with relevant responsibilities continue to focus on that.
The predictions of expected sufferers would be helpful—not about individuals but about the population as a whole. Making that information public would help people to understand what is taking place. The Minister raised the effect of Covid on the figures, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked whether diagnoses were missed during that period. Again, if there were changes during the Covid period, it is really important that we understand whether they were material changes or changes because of practice—because people were no longer presenting to their doctors and, therefore, in a sense, there is a false lowering of the numbers, rather than a genuine change in what has been occurring.
The second area about which it would be interesting to hear from the Minister is research, particularly the development of international networks. It has been mentioned that this affects people across many different countries. I was interested to see PREDICT-Meso, a network of international researchers run by the University of Glasgow involving countries in the EU but also countries such as India and Brazil, which industrialised very rapidly in the 20th century and which will also, sadly, see significant issues. Given that government support for scientific research is very topical at the moment, I am keen to understand the extent to which the Government are supporting research being carried out in this area. Can the Minister say any more about government support for research networks into respiratory diseases?
My final point, which has been touched on already, is about why the uprating is a manual rather than an automatic process. I can see from Hansard that this has been repeated on many occasions. I am sure that those who support the Minister did not have to do much work to recycle the comments made in previous years, but it would be interesting to hear from him again why the Government believe that this should continue to be a manual rather than an automatic process, whereby the people planning can understand that they will be entitled to the uprating, rather than us having to debate it each year. Perhaps the Minister will surprise us and there will be a change in the Government’s position this year, but I will not hang on for that.
I hope that the Minister can put some flesh on those three points about predicted numbers, government support for research and the manual versus automatic process. I will be interested to hear about them, but, as I said, broadly speaking, we welcome the 10.1% increase.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations to the Committee, and all noble Lords who have spoken. As we have heard celebrated by my noble friend Lord Jones and others, the sums payable under the 1979 and the 2008 schemes are to be uprated by 10.1%—the rate of inflation as measured by the CPI 12-month rate last September, which is in line with other social security benefits, including the industrial injuries benefit.
First, I join the Minister in remembering all those who have suffered so much from these terrible diseases. Although many of us would like not to have to come back every year, it is at least an opportunity to pay tribute to them and to remember the lives so blighted. These schemes continue to provide crucial compensation to those who suffer from these terrible diseases and their families. Annual deaths from mesothelioma in Britain increased steeply over the last half century, due mainly, as we have heard, to the widespread industrial use of asbestos from about 1950 to 1980, which accounts for the high death rates among males over 70 whose younger working lives coincided with that period of peak asbestos use. It is good to see that death rates from mesothelioma among the under 65s have been falling.
I looked through the latest statistics on mesothelioma deaths published by the Health and Safety Executive last year, which went up to 2020. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, there were 2,544 mesothelioma deaths in Great Britain in 2020, 6% up on 2019 but similar to the average across the previous eight years. But as the Minister pointed out, there are gender differences here. Those deaths comprise 2,085 men and 459 women. The projections are that annual deaths in men will reduce after 2020 but that female deaths will not, likely staying in the range of 400 to 500 throughout the 2020s but hopefully reducing further after that. Does the Minister know why there is this gender difference? I would be interested to know anything he can share on that.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I thank the Committee and all noble Lords for participating this afternoon, and for their general support for these regulations. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Jones, described our approach as humane; I might think that was a little bit of an understatement, but I appreciate the comments that he made.
I will pick up on some of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He did the Committee a huge service by reminding us about the historical context of this. We should remember, as he rightly said, Lord Newton of Braintree, who I remember—just, as a much younger person—as Tony Newton. I think he was an ex-Health Secretary. It was helpful to hear the noble Lord’s comments there and to remind ourselves, as we do need reminding, of my noble friend Lord Freud, who did so much in this area. We should particularly remember Lord McKenzie of Luton—the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, is completely right on that—who was so active in this House and did so much for it.
On a personal note, I also want to mention a very dear friend who died of mesothelioma about 18 months ago. He was a quite remarkable individual who survived for eight years. He told me that he knew the longest surviving period of time was seven years and he managed, through thick and thin, to survive for eight. He was an incredible individual who gained an MBE for the work that he did in prisons, so I always remember that.
A number of questions were asked and I will start by saying that the Government recognise that the two schemes we are debating are a crucial part of the support available to people suffering from these dust-related diseases. It is right that we maintain the value of these payments at this time. In addition to the compensation awarded through these schemes, the department provides specific support for those who have industrial injuries, or diseases caused by occupational exposure, through industrial injuries disablement benefit, a weekly payment based on the assessed level of disablement. Other state benefits may also be available to claimants of the schemes to cover other needs, such as income replacement and caring costs, as well as further costs arising from their disability.
I want to pick up an important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, which was followed up by the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, on the question of funding. Research is crucial in the fight against cancer and the Department of Health and Social Care invested £98.3 million in cancer research in 2021-22, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research. For several years, we have been working actively to stimulate an increase in the level of mesothelioma research activity from a pretty low base. This includes a formal research priority setting exercise, a National Cancer Research Institute workshop and a specific call for research proposals through the National Institute for Health and Care Research—so those are important points to be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked about schemes comparable with civil damages claims. When the DMPS was introduced in 2014, the payment tariffs were based on 80% of the average damages award in the civil courts. As a result of the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme (Amendment) Regulations that were laid on 27 February 2015 and came into effect on 31 March 2015, the tariffs increased from 80% of average civil claims to 100%. Since then, the tariff payments have remained the same. However, in line with commitments made during the passage of the Mesothelioma Bill, working collaboratively with the insurance industry and other key stakeholder groups, the department has now started to progress the tariff review to ensure that the expectations of the stakeholder lobby groups are managed and that, fundamentally, the payments are still commensurate with damages awarded in civil cases for occupational mesothelioma.
The noble Lord also raised equalisation. I hope that I can give him a reasonably comprehensive answer on this, because there is often much interest in the Government’s position on equalisation of payments made to dependents with those made to the sufferers of these diseases. I have listened carefully to the concerns raised today by the noble Lord. The Government remain of the view that available funding should be prioritised for those currently living with the disease to support them in dealing with the challenges that these illnesses bring in life. It is therefore right that available funding should be targeted where it is needed most. Indeed, around 90% of payments made under both schemes are paid to the sufferers of the diseases covered by them. However, it is of course clear that whole families can be devastated by the diseases covered by the lump sum schemes, which is why dependants are still entitled to some compensation under the schemes.
The noble Lords, Lord Jones and Lord Wigley, asked a number of specific questions on the figures involved. I will do my best to answer them, although I fear that there may be a letter arriving after my comments. As a generic response to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, on the numbers per sector, data on mesothelioma deaths in Great Britain is published on the Health and Safety Executive website, on the health and safety statistics page under the sub-heading “Ill health”. These statistics include analyses of the relative frequency of recording of different occupations on mesothelioma death certificates, which are more useful as an indication of potential past sources of occupational asbestos exposure than absolute numbers recorded for particular occupations.
The noble Lords, Lord Wigley, Lord Jones and Lord Allan, asked about the breakdown of costs by region. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, also asked about quarrymen and those working in the slate industry. I feel that I will need to write to him on that. Volumes of awards through the 1979 and 2008 schemes, broken down by region, are now published. Unfortunately, information on the occupational breakdown of these awards is not published or readily available. This would require analysis of multiple datasets for the 1979 scheme and the industrial injuries disablement benefit scheme to determine industry information. Information on IIDB assessments is published on Stat-Xplore. I will write to see what more I can do to help all noble Lords on this point.
However, I might be able to help in one respect. The noble Lord, Lord Allan, asked, perhaps more as an aside, whether I could give some figures on the sex of those who have suffered. It is fairly simple: in 2017-18, the breakdown was 5% female and 95% male; the overall figures from then until 2021-22 are 7% female and 93% male. I hope that is of some help.
The noble Lord, Lord Allan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked why statutory uprating should not be done on a regular basis—and this may be asked every year. Perhaps I can make some reassurances to this Committee that, although there is no statutory requirement to review the level of these payments annually, DWP Ministers have agreed to uprate payments under both the 1979 and the 2008 scheme together in line with inflation each year since 2010. A change of this nature is unlikely to make any monetary difference to those who receive awards under these schemes. Making this a statutory requirement would require amendments to primary legislation and, even with amended primary legislation, it is probable that statutory instruments would still be required to uprate the schemes annually. As such, parliamentary debates on this subject would continue. I add that these debates provide a valuable avenue to raise awareness of the lump sum schemes and, more broadly, support for people with respiratory diseases. That point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and I very much appreciated that.
Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie
That the Grand Committee do consider the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.
National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston
That the Grand Committee do consider the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2023.
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Johnson of Lainston) (Con)
My Lords, the purpose of these regulations, which were laid before the House on 30 January 2023, is to raise the national living wage and the national minimum wage rates on 1 April 2023.
The strength of the UK labour market remains something to be proud of. Unemployment is low, the number of employees on payrolls is 1 million above pre-pandemic levels and demand for workers remains close to record levels. The Government’s overarching priority is to achieve sustained economic growth. Our commitment to a high-skilled, high-productivity, high-wage economy will further address cost of living pressures, as well as levelling up every part of the UK and hastening the transition to net zero.
However, we recognise the impact of inflation for people right across the country, which is why this Government have continued to take robust action. This year sees the largest cash increase in the history of the minimum wage, and, once these measures come into force, the national living wage will have risen more than twice as fast as inflation since its introduction in 2015. Furthermore, benefit payments and the state pension will increase by 10.1% in April, in line with September’s CPI inflation rate. We have also delivered a package of measures, including the energy price guarantee, which has saved a typical UK household around £900 across the winter, and hundreds of pounds-worth of support in the form of cost of living payments targeted towards the vulnerable households that need it most.
I turn to the detail of the national living wage and national minimum wage regulations, which will come into force on 1 April. Following a comprehensive impact assessment prepared and published by the Government, we estimate that 2.9 million workers will receive a pay rise across the United Kingdom. I am pleased to confirm that the Government have accepted all the rate recommendations made by the Low Pay Commission in October 2022. The Low Pay Commission is an independent body which conducts expert research and analysis and brings together input from representatives of business and workers. I thank it for its tireless efforts.
The Government remain committed to their ambitious target for the national living wage to equal two-thirds of median earnings by 2024, provided that economic conditions allow. This will have the effect of ending low pay in the UK in line with the OECD definition, and this year’s increases keep us on course to achieve that target. Under the new regulations, the national living wage, which applies to those aged 23 and over, will increase to £10.42 an hour. This is an increase of 9.7% or 92p. As a result, a full-time worker on the national living wage will see their annual pay before tax rise from £17,300 to over £18,900—an increase in excess of £1,600. This also ensures our national living wage rate remains one of the highest in the world. According to the Low Pay Commission, as of the start of 2022 the UK had the fourth highest minimum wage rate in Europe.
These regulations will also increase the national minimum wage rates for younger workers and apprentices, as well as the accommodation offset. Workers aged 21 and 22 will be entitled to a minimum hourly rate of £10.18, representing an increase of £1 or 10.9%. This narrows the gap with the 23 and over rate and keeps this group on course to receive the full entitlement to the full national living wage by 2024—another ambitious target set by this Government. Those aged between 18 and 20 will be entitled to a minimum rate of £7.49 an hour, an extra 66p, while those aged under 18 will be entitled to a minimum rate of £5.28 an hour, an extra 47p. Both these changes represent an increase of 9.7%. Apprentices under 19 or those in the first year of their apprenticeship will also receive an increase of 9.7%, as their rate rises from £4.81 to £5.28.
Finally, on the detail of the regulations, the accommodation offset will also be increasing. This is the maximum daily amount that an employer can charge a worker for accommodation without it affecting their pay for minimum wage purposes; it will be rising by 4.6% from £8.70 to £9.10. The Low Pay Commission has made recommendations about the future of the accommodation offset in its recent report. The Government are continuing to consider them carefully and will issue a full response in due course.
These regulations aim to reward the lowest paid workers in every sector and in every part of the country for their contribution to our economy. We are aware of cost of living pressures and will continue to closely monitor all the impacts of increases to the national living wage and national minimum wage rates. To that end, the Government will shortly publish this year’s remit to the Low Pay Commission and ask it to provide recommendations for the rates which will apply from April 2024.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the report on this statutory instrument. I note that, only a few minutes ago in the Chamber, the Minister answered an Oral Question and gave a lot of information related to what we are discussing here. I thank him for that information as well. He said that we do things in bits to get them through. In a sense, it is not very clear when you are doing it “in bits” what the whole picture is.
The increases in minimum wage must be welcomed; of course, we welcome them. But they are not that generous, as £10.42 per hour times, say, 35 hours over a seven-day week is only £364. I wonder if we really consider that anybody can manage on that sort of sum in our large conurbations—£364, if you manage to do 35 hours. It should be more.
The Minister kindly gave us the detail that in October 2022, five months ago, these were considered to be the increases that ought to happen. The question I ask him to consider, because we are doing this five months later, is how up to date those figures are. Should they be more generous? As a start, perhaps we should consider an independent review to consult on how to set a genuine living wage across all sectors. For instance, we could pay the living wage in all central government departments and their agencies and encourage other public sector bodies to do likewise. It is important to set minimum wages at appropriate levels, including setting a 20% higher minimum wage for those on zero-hours contracts at a time of normal demand to compensate for the fluctuations in their hours of work. This statutory instrument takes no account of that.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
My thanks are due to the Minister for setting out the upratings on the national minimum wage, the living wage and associated allowances, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for setting out his views on how things should improve in future. These changes are welcomed by the Opposition. Not surprisingly, it was us who set up the national minimum wage in 1999. We had a minimum wage, below which earnings must not fall, in the teeth of fierce opposition from the then Conservative Opposition Benches. I am glad that that situation has now been ameliorated, and they now support the minimum wage; all converts are welcome.
I think the number of jobs covered in all these figures is 2.9 million. The number affected by the national minimum wage is approximately 1.5 million, which compares with 700,000 at the time of its introduction. Does the Minister have any explanation for this increase in the numbers covered by the national minimum wage? Retail, hospitality and cleaning and maintenance are overrepresented in the minimum wage sector, and women are approximately two-thirds of those currently on the national minimum wage. Some explanation for that would be helpful.
The Labour Party would ensure that the national minimum wage was a real living wage. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, asked how to do so. We would do it by changing the Low Pay Commission’s remit so that, in addition to other factors, it reflected the need for working people’s pay to at least cover the cost of living. The national living wage would finally live up to its name. We would ensure that the national minimum wage applied to every adult worker and was properly enforced. It is unfair to pay adult workers below the national minimum wage, and by adult worker we mean everyone aged 18—the age at which you are treated as an adult in the UK—or over.
Many employers already pay the national minimum wage, and that is to be commended, but compliance is a big and continuing problem. Can the Minister tell us how many prosecutions or enforcements took place last year for failure to pay the national minimum wage? We welcome these upratings, as I have said, and look forward to having the opportunity to progress this legislation further by extending the protection that the national minimum wage provides for all adult workers sometime in the near future.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions in today’s debate. I particularly appreciated the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, about my responses on the OQ earlier. I like to think that we will have a slightly more mature exchange over this issue than we experienced then—but such is the nature of the important scrutiny of the parliamentary system.
If noble Lords do not mind, I will go through and try to answer some of the points raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, asked about the relationship between the October date and the bringing into practice date of 1 April. In normal periods, that would be a perfectly reasonable time lag; in fact, it is relatively fast for Governments to move with only a six-month or so period. I am very sensitive to the fact that we live in an inflationary environment, and inflation is taken into account by the Low Pay Commission. A number of factors are taken into account, as noble Lords may imagine. It would be difficult to make sudden changes, however, given the fact that we need to make sure that employers have a suitable timeframe to bring into practice the pay increases. Although the public sector is also paying the minimum wage and the national living wage, we must not forget that it is on the whole employers who are paying these additional wages, and we should be thankful to them for the support of this overall concept.
Given that this is appraised every year, I hope we will still be in a position to make sure that these wages reflect our ambition, which is to make them represent two-thirds of median earnings. In preparation for this debate, I did some work with the officials from the department, who can bear witness to this. I wanted to see where we were in relation to other European countries on median earnings and absolute amounts, given the currency fluctuations. It is not my place to celebrate or feel triumphant about minimum wage levels, because we want people on maximum wage levels—but it is important to see where we stand, so at least we can benchmark. We compare very strongly. If you look at where we are on the European averages, you can see that we are one of the highest, out of the whole of Europe, and we compare extremely favourably with countries such as Germany.
The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, made a very good point, and I have thought about the philosophy of minimum wages, which were brought in in 1999 by a Labour Government and not supported by the Conservative Opposition at the time. I personally was unsure of what the effects would be on business; I was concerned that it would drive up costs for business and cause a negative or opposite effect to giving people security—that it would lead to greater insecurity and lower levels of employment. Actually, it has made sure that people are guaranteed a level of income, and it is an extremely powerful way for us to manage our economy. I am very pleased that we have converted—and, like all converts, we have probably ended up being more passionate about the cause than the original proponent. We have introduced the national living wage, which is a very effective way to ensure that the overall pay rates are raised.
On the noble Lord’s comment about the age at which these rates should apply—in other words, that the national minimum wage and the national living wage should be synchronous—I have some sympathy. At the same time, it has been believed, and I think there is evidence, that an element of flexibility for 18 to 22 year-olds, or those in their early 20s, is necessary, particularly as that is where there is greater vulnerability for employment volatility. We have plans for the pay scales of those over the age of 21 to eventually come into line with the national living wage, but we would still be keen to retain some flexibility for employees below that level.
This is all about making sure that the employment market functions properly and that we can employ as many people as possible at the right rates. This is certainly a matter for debate—we are trying to ensure, not that people are paid less, but that there is flexibility in the market so that new workers in the workforce can get the jobs they need.
It is important to cover the noble Lord’s point about there now being 1.5 million, from 700,000 when this came into practice. I am happy to do some more analysis of that, but my surface suspicion is that there are 3.75 million new people in the workforce since 2010. It would be interesting to see an analysis of what those jobs are. I would like to inquire into this, as I appreciate that the noble Lord has raised a very relevant point. In some respects, I would like to think that it is a good thing that we have people coming into the workforce, but clearly we do not want to see a derogation of wages. We want to see people being paid more. I stress that these are minimum-wage levels—they are not the set wage levels—to ensure that no one is paid less than that rate.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, mentioned issues around fixed-hours contracts and the flexible economy. We are doing an awful lot in that area to make sure that people have an element of certainty. He was generous enough to remember my response to the Oral Question earlier today. There is quite a long list of different types of specific protections that we are bringing in. I draw his attention to the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill, which effectively allows employees to demand flexible working from day one, rather than week 26, and to the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill, which is probably more relevant to what he was talking about. It gives more strength to employees’ requirements for predictability in terms of numbers of hours if they are on temporary work contracts. Once you have worked for an employer on a part-time basis for a certain length of time, you will be given a greater opportunity to ask for predictability in how you are paid and your hours.
We have to strike a balance—and I think we do—in giving employers flexibility, which is at the core of what has been an incredibly dynamic and successful labour market over the last 20 years or longer, and making sure that workers feel protected. Importantly, flexible working hours are very much appreciated by a number of workers who want flexibility. It would be a mistake to throw the baby out with the bath water and get rid of zero-hours contracts or highly flexible working. People appreciate them, as they give a great deal of flexibility. A lot of students and part-time workers who could not do full-time work and would not want predictable work will use these contracts. They constitute about 3% of the workforce. There are mechanisms and there is analysis of how we can improve the rights of workers, but we do not want to dilute the flexibility that these structures give to our workforce and economy.
The question from the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, about the factors that the Low Pay Commission takes into account is well made. It takes a great number of factors into account when assessing pay. I believe that the Government have accepted all the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission; this is a very important partnership that we have. My assumption is that the factors in decision-making are continually reviewed, which is absolutely right. Ultimately, our ambition is to ensure that the national living wage effectively reaches two-thirds of median earnings by next year. I am very pleased to say that we are on track to achieve that. As a nation and a society—let alone a sense of triumph for the Government; this is about people’s hard work and being rewarded properly—it would be a great thing if the United Kingdom could achieve that, and we are on track and very close to doing so.
I believe I have covered all the issues, except for the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on tips. I am afraid I do not recall seeing the noble Lord in his usual place on Friday for the debate on tips. The legislation is very specific and will be brought to bear specifically so that all tips go to the workforce, with no deductions, not even for credit card charges. I hope that is clear, because that is the whole purpose. They will be paid monthly, so they cannot be accumulated, and, importantly, they cannot be used as so-called “pay bonuses” or “top-ups”.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
Before the noble Lord sits down, could he comment—or write to me if he cannot—on enforcement actions in the past 12 months? What are the numbers and so on?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Lennie. I try to answer all the questions, but there is always one that I miss. Enforcement is very important and all businesses are responsible for paying the correct minimum wage to their staff. HMRC follows up on every worker complaint it receives, even those that are anonymous. This includes complaints made to the ACAS helpline. In 2021-22, HMRC identified pay arrears in excess of £16.3 million for more than 120,000 workers. I am very happy to go through this now, but it might be more useful to write to the noble Lord if he is happy with that.
I will address one point that has been raised. To some extent I am embarrassed by it, but not embarrassed to be open and transparent about it. The question was why the listing of companies that have not paid their staff the minimum wage had not happened. The list is supposed to be published every quarter. I am afraid that there has been some turnover of Ministers. I spoke to the Minister responsible today and he is determined to make sure that it happens in the very near future. I cannot give a specific time, but we are very aware of it. We want to make sure these companies are named; it is a powerful incentive for employers to behave properly. We are entirely of one mind here and I will be delighted to put the information in the House of Lords Library relating to enforcement. The good news is that I can reassure the Committee that HMRC in particular has been focusing on tackling wilful non-compliance and that significant progress has been made.
Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) Regulations 2023.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, these draft regulations were laid before Parliament on 31 January and will be made under powers conferred by the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021, also known as ATMUA. Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, this legislation created a more flexible set of powers for Ministers to implement alleviation measures for airport slots related to the impacts of Covid-19, subject to a vote in both Houses. This allows the UK to adapt its approach to best support the recovery of the aviation sector.
Ordinarily, airlines must operate their slots 80% of the time to retain the right to those same slots the following year. This is known as the 80:20 or “Use it or lose it” rule. This encourages efficient use of scarce airport capacity. We have been amending the airport slots requirements since the summer of 2020; we have seen a promising recovery in passenger demand during 2022 and in the early part of 2023, but there remains some continued uncertainty in the industry and demand remains below the levels seen before the pandemic. The Government have therefore designed a package of measures for the summer 2023 season that sees a return to the normal 80:20 rule on slots usage. This will encourage more efficient use of slots, combined with flexibility to help manage that remaining uncertainty.
When the pandemic originally struck, the 80:20 rule was fully waived. This avoided environmentally damaging and financially costly ghost flights. We then made fairly generous alleviations for the four subsequent seasons, while travel restrictions remained. Last summer, in 2022, we changed the usage ratio to 70:30 because we felt there was a more positive outlook in demand and wanted to ensure that the slots were used as effectively as possible.
However, as noble Lords will recall, there was some disruption during the summer season last year and we made an additional alleviation, a one-off slots amnesty, which helped to calm the disruption and meant that the aviation sector was flying the schedule that it said it would. That very much helped to reduce last-minute cancellations, which ended up being around the 2019 levels.
For summer 2023, the season that starts on 26 March and runs to 28 October, we are planning to return to the pre-pandemic 80:20 allocation—there has been no change in that. We will continue to include the enhanced justified non-use provisions, which we introduced for winter 2022, for those areas where there is still considerably reduced demand. That might be because of pre-departure testing, flight bans, quarantine or self-isolation requirements, all of which put a significant dampener on demand. It is in those circumstances that the justified non-use provisions come into play. Following consultation with the industry—that is, airlines and airports—we have decided to include an alleviation of a 5% slot hand-back, but this must happen before the start of the season so that there is no uncertainty going into it about whether a route will be operated on a day or at any particular time.
It is worth noting that the instrument applies to England, Scotland and Wales. This is because aerodromes are a devolved matter in relation to Northern Ireland. In any event, there are no slot co-ordinated airports in Northern Ireland.
I have had many conversations with the aviation sector and we are very focused on ensuring that summer 2023 is a success. I believe that the provisions within this statutory instrument will contribute greatly to that. However, we also recognise that the sector has nearly recovered and the alleviations we are proposing are therefore limited in nature. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this. She will be appreciative that I am not my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe. She looked slightly puzzled earlier that he was not here. I can only say that he is on important duties elsewhere. I have gone through the material and, as my colleagues in the Commons were keen to say, there is not a big policy difference between us; we are quite happy with the measures that the Minister has set out. I will just make a few points.
Obviously, it is vital for our economy that the aviation sector recovers fully to its pre-Covid levels. My understanding is that we are likely to come back to this issue again in the autumn when the summer season will have been reviewed and we will have to decide whether we need to offer some further form of alleviation.
I have looked a little at the data on the strength and pace of the recovery, and my understanding is that aviation in 2022 was at 83% of 2019 levels. It would be good if the Minister could provide us with a bit more of an update on monitoring since those stats were produced and offer us a bit more on how the sector is recovering generally. I live in Brighton, not a great distance from Gatwick, which is a very important part of our economy. I am sure the Minister will be familiar with that from her time spent—usefully or otherwise—knocking on doors in the Brighton Pavilion constituency. I am sure that she will have come across a few people from the aviation sector during that time.
What financial assistance is currently being made available to airlines to support their recovery, and what more can the Government do to underline that? Although I guess the information is less important for Heathrow and Gatwick, is targeted support being offered to regional airports? I note the closure of Doncaster Airport, which is very unfortunate. The strength of our industry is very reliant on its regional recovery as well. With that, I restate my support in general terms for the policy objectives adopted and ask the Minister whether she could cover those points—in particular, whether we are going to be here again in six months’ time.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for standing in for the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. I bumped into him earlier; all I will say is that he looked very dapper, so I am sure he is going somewhere important.
I am very happy to go through the questions raised by the noble Lord. Will we be back here in autumn? I do not know; quite possibly. You have the summer season and the winter season. The winter season will start towards the end of October, and it will very much depend on the outcome of the consultation. We tend to try to do the consultation with industry as late as possible before the next season starts, but we need certainty, so we need to do it before the season starts. We will consult with industry again. It will depend on how the summer has gone and how things are looking from a Covid perspective for the winter but, as I think I said the last time I was standing here, at the moment, alleviations are moving in one direction, and I do not particularly want to continue them forever. It is right that we get back to the normal slots regime at some stage because it is important for the efficient use of capacity. We will monitor that carefully and speak to the industry in due course.
House of Lords
Employment: Disabled People
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Touhig
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have for new initiatives to encourage business and industry to employ disabled people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, a range of government initiatives are already supporting disabled people to start, stay and succeed in work. The Government are working to improve and better integrate resources for businesses, helping them to support and manage health and disability in the workplace. The Government are looking in detail at workforce participation, including discussions with business and industry, whose role is key to making the most of the talents of disabled people in the workforce.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his helpful Answer; I will follow up on some of the points that he just made. Just 5% of adults with a learning disability are in work. One way to change this is by offering more supported internships; the charity Hft tells me that this helps business better understand the benefits of employing someone with a learning disability. However, the problem is that supported internships are available to people only up to the age of 25. Will the Government consider extending this scheme to include learning-disabled people over the age of 25, which would enable many more to get into work?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I appreciate the noble Lord’s question and the work that he does in this area. I can assure him that the Government are committed to reducing the disability employment gap, including in relation to the young and interns. It is important that those who have a disability are given every chance to start on the path to a career. What I cannot do, I am afraid, is commit to the noble Lord’s point about extending the scheme beyond the age of 25, but I have noted it and will take it back to the department.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, what happened to the Government’s national disability strategy, which was declared illegal by the Court of Appeal a while ago? It does not seem to have been renewed. Moreover, many of the recommendations made by the committee on disability that I chaired have still not been implemented by the Government. When are the Government going to be proactive?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
We have a disability action plan, but it is separate from the noble Baroness’s point about the national disability strategy. We are disappointed by, and strongly disagree with, the High Court’s finding that that strategy was unlawful; as the noble Baroness may know, the Secretary of State has been granted permission to appeal the court’s declaration. In order to ensure compliance with the court’s declaration, we are obliged to pause a limited number of policies referred to in the strategy or directly connected with it, which is a disappointment.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interests in this field as set out in the register. What are the Government doing to make sure that businesses, particularly small ones, know that, if they employ a disabled people, they have somebody who is less likely to take time off work and less likely to change jobs frequently—both those things are proven—than a non-disabled person? This sort of information would certainly help to break down perceptual barriers.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Indeed, and this is very much a matter for Jobcentre Plus. Further training is being given to job coaches in jobcentres. It is very important that those with health conditions or disabilities receive the support and advice that they need to move into or to stay in employment.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, last December, research conducted by the economic and social inclusion unit revealed the huge benefits and the challenges regarding the working conditions, employment and retention of personal assistants for working-age disabled people to allow them to be economically active. This is the third time that I have raised this issue in the House, so hopefully it will be third time lucky. Has the Minister taken account of this useful evidence on service user need and experience? Will it inform improvements and, if so, how and when?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Yes, indeed, I am aware of the question. Although I do not have an answer to that point, I will certainly write to the noble Baroness about it. I am not sure that she has asked it three times, but maybe she did so with my predecessor.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, employment figures show that a significant number of older people have left the labour market. There is a large differential in healthy life expectancy across the country. Many people in their fifties and sixties are not well. Some may have left work due to ill health or disability but would be able to work part time. What more can the Government do to encourage flexible working to provide more help in this area?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
As my noble friend will know, all employees have the legal right to request flexible working provided they have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks. As she will know, under the Equality Act, employers must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that workers with disabilities are not substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs. This could include a flexible working arrangement; for example, a change to the timing, hours or location of work. I assure her that in December 2022 the Government responded to a consultation that considered changes to this legislation to provide employees with better access to flexible working arrangements.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, given that a major challenge to the UK’s economic recovery is a significant labour shortage, not least because activity rates for the over-50 age group remain low, is it not in everyone’s interest that those labelled as disabled people should be looked upon for their abilities rather than their disabilities, and helped into the active workforce by the availability of every positive assistance that the state can provide?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Lord is right. This is why we have the disability action plan, which, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is distinct from the strategy. A new disability action plan will be consulted on and published this year. It will set out the action that the Government will take this year and in 2024 to improve disabled people’s lives. The noble Lord is right that ensuring that the voice of disabled people is properly heard is a priority for the Government. We will run a fully accessible public consultation on the plan this year.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, on 12 January, the Disability News Service reported that neither the Secretary of State, Mel Stride, nor Tom Pursglove, the Minister for Disabled People, had signed up to become members of Disability Confident, unlike many previous Ministers. On 23 January, Mel Stride said that
“we have to ensure that employers see disabled people with eyes wide open—their abilities and the contribution they can make. That is why we promote Disability Confident”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/1/23; col. 735.]
Have the Secretary of State and the Minister for Disabled People now signed up to Disability Confident?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I can certainly confirm that a whole range of departments have signed up to this, including the Department for Work and Pensions. Although I cannot answer the noble Baroness’s question in terms of the individuals concerned, the department at least has signed up.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, for a number of years, the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and I have worked together to improve the lives of disabled people. Motability has over 650,000 people. Importantly, what has changed is that now many of them are computer literate. What is more, instead of loneliness, they can work at an office. Many whom I know would love not only to do that but to feel that they can put something back into society, which has helped them over the years. How can we encourage employers to realise that, as was just said, this would help the economy?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I hope that I can help my noble friend by talking about the work that we are doing on communication. It is very important that a digital service is organised for employers and offers tailored guidance on health and disability. This is a key outcome of the “health is everyone’s business” consultation, which was rolled out in 2019. It is very important to use this as a vehicle to allow the people to whom my noble friend referred to move forward in their careers.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, following the original Question about the low number of adults with learning disabilities in the workforce, what are the Government doing to ensure that schools have adequately funded programmes available, so that young people with learning disabilities can have work experience opportunities and, therefore, develop their aspirations to be part of the future workforce?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Baroness again raises an important point, which would go to the Department for Education, but I will answer on behalf of the Government. I have no doubt that there are some initiatives within that department that would help in this area. As I said earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, it is very important to ensure that those with disabilities can, as soon as possible, move seamlessly from school into work and can stay in work.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, several gardening charities do wonderful work with people with disabilities, whether mental or otherwise. Would my noble friend look at the opportunities that are offered in horticulture, which range from simple to degree-level qualifications?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I will certainly look at that. My noble friend raises a very good point and I happen to know somebody with disabilities who works in the gardening sector. I agree that this is a useful area, particularly for young people to start out in.
Carers in England
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Haskel
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to recognise the role of carers in England and their contribution to the economy.
The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Penn) (Con)
Carers play a vital role in our communities and we owe them all a debt of gratitude. The adult social care sector employs 1.5 million people, with Skills for Care estimating that paid carers contribute around £50 billion to the English economy. In 2016, the ONS also estimated that the gross value added of unpaid care in the UK was £59.5 billion. The Government recognise the value of unpaid carers and provide financial recognition, primarily through the carer’s allowance.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
Yes, the Government are at last starting to recognise the value of carers. In spite of the excellent work of front-line carers, the paid-for system remains inadequate, even with the adult social care Bill—a Private Member’s Bill. We know that it is inadequate because millions of men and women, and even children, have to step in as part-time carers, limiting their time in work, education or training, at great cost to the economy. When are the Government going to introduce the social and economic reforms to the social care system that would enable these voluntary part-time carers to fully participate in and contribute to the economy?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The Government have set out our long-term plan for the reform of adult social care. In the autumn, we announced that we were making additional funding of up to £2.8 billion available in 2023-24, and £4.7 billion in the following year. Those decisions also involved a delay to rolling out some of the reforms that we had set out, so we will be updating our plan to implement that vision this spring, setting out the path forward.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, about three years ago, my most reverend friend the Archbishop of York and I commissioned the Reimagining Care Commission, which the Minister is probably familiar with. It published its final report the other day. It sought to reimagine social care for our time, particularly to answer the question of who is responsible for what, given that it is not just the Government. Will the Government consider the commission’s main recommendation—that a national care covenant be created to set out clearly the mutual responsibilities of the Government, communities, families, churches and other organisations around care and support?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The Government welcome all contributions and ideas to this space, and I am sure that we will consider the proposals very carefully. As I have said, the Government set out their own plans in this area last year. We will update those plans, looking to put people at the heart of the social care system, this spring.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, with over 7 million people in the UK juggling work alongside unpaid care, and continuing to contribute their much-needed skills to the economy at a time of labour shortages, will the Government commit to produce a cross-departmental strategy for unpaid carers? Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss how this might best be done?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I will happily take the suggestion from the noble Baroness back. I, or perhaps someone else in the Government, could meet her to discuss it. She talked about many people juggling unpaid care with working responsibilities. That is why I am pleased that the Government are backing the Private Member’s Bill on carer’s leave, which will provide one week’s unpaid leave for carers.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, carer’s allowance is the lowest benefit of its kind. Research by Carers UK found many unpaid carers in poverty and struggling to make ends meet. Why, therefore, do the Government continue to refuse calls from Carers UK and others to raise the real value of carer’s allowance if, as they claim, they genuinely recognise and value the work that carers do?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, carer’s allowance and the carer’s element of universal credit will be uprated by inflation this April. For those carers on low incomes, the Government’s focused cost of living support will also help. That is worth up to £650 this year and £900 next year. I believe around 60% of low-income working-age carers are also in receipt of universal credit, so may be eligible for that support.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, I was honoured to be a member of the Adult Social Care Committee over the last year. We produced the report A “Gloriously Ordinary Life’’: Spotlight on Adult Social Care, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. We are still waiting for the Government to respond. Among the 36 recommendations, we suggested that:
“The Government should establish in the next 12 months a Commissioner for Care and Support to act as a champion for older adults and disabled people and unpaid carers”.
Does the Minister agree?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I thank the committee for all the work that it has done. I recognise that there has been a delay in responding to that report. I cannot pre-empt that response, but I reassure the noble Lord and all members of the committee that the Government are looking very carefully at the recommendations and taking them seriously.
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, considering the role of paid carers as well as unpaid, has the Treasury done any modelling of the effects of raising carer salaries above the national minimum wage, where many of them are stuck today? Does the Minister agree that such a move to lift carer salaries could help with recruitment and retention as well as boost local economies, where most carer salaries are spent?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government have considered a number of aspects for the adult social care workforce, including the support for training that can be provided and proper recognition of the profession. Of course, the noble Lord makes a point about pay as well.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have long promised an employment Bill, which would allow Ministers to address some of the specific issues faced by carers, as well as others who face barriers to full economic participation. Given the absence of the Bill from last year’s Queen’s Speech, does it remain the Government’s intention to bring it forward? If so, when will we see it and, if not, how else will these issues be addressed?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I can pick up on the noble Baroness’s final point. The Government are supporting the carer’s leave Private Member’s Bill to provide an entitlement to employees of one week of unpaid leave per year. We also support the flexible working Private Member’s Bill, which will make requesting flexible working an employment right from day 1, also providing more flexibility for those seeking to balance work and care. We are seeking to take forward the policies and proposals that we have set out while we await the arrival of the employment Bill.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Treasury does not seem to understand that by spending more money in one area, you can save even more in another area. If we spend more money in care homes, we can save a lot of money in the health service. As my noble friend Lord Haskel said, if we spend more money on carers, they can go out to work and help the economy. I have great faith in the noble Baroness. She has a lot of experience and is very persuasive. Will she go back to the Treasury and try to persuade it of this truth?
Baroness Penn (Con)
Perhaps I can persuade the noble Lord to have a little more faith in the Treasury’s attitude towards these things. I set out in an earlier answer the additional money that is going into social care this year and next, which was announced alongside healthcare spending. But the amount that we were putting into social care was precisely to acknowledge the role it plays, for example, in reducing delays to discharge that are affecting our health system.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
The noble Baroness will know that if a patient has cancer, they are entitled to comprehensive healthcare free at the point of use. If they have dementia, they are subject to a very hard means test with often wholly inadequate care. Does she think this is justifiable, with all the challenges we face, particularly for older people?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord has set out the difficulties that there can be in drawing the lines between health and social care, but those distinctions are made in our system and removing them could have significant cost implications. The Government have set out their vision for the way forward on social care and will update it later this year. It is about reforms matched with increased funding.
Nuclear Weapons: Failsafe Review
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Browne of Ladyton
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the plans of the United States of America’s Department of Defense to commission an independent review of the safety, security, and reliability of its (1) nuclear weapons, (2) nuclear command, control and communications (NC3), and (3) integrated tactical warning and attack assessment systems; and whether they intend to carry out a similar failsafe review.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)
My Lords, it would not be appropriate for His Majesty’s Government to comment on the United States Government’s plans to commission an independent review into the safety, security and reliability of their nuclear capabilities. We have absolute confidence in the safety, security and reliability of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent, but for the purpose of safeguarding national security, we will not provide detailed comment on arrangements for its assurance.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, on 27 February, the Minister for Europe, Leo Docherty, addressed the UN Conference on Disarmament. He mentioned emerging threats posed by new technologies, promised transparency, and committed to the continuing development of concrete initiatives in reducing the risk of the use of nuclear weapons. He did not mention the US Administration’s ongoing public and independent review of the safety and reliability of their nuclear weapons, command and control, and warning systems to reduce the chance of a blunder or miscalculation, particularly from cyber threats, as an example of a confidence-building, concrete, risk reduction initiative. Since all nuclear-armed states face the same risks, surely this is a concrete and transparent risk reduction initiative, which the UK and France, at least, as nuclear and NATO allies, should also commission. Will this be on the agenda for the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Macron on Friday?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
As I said in my initial response to the noble Lord, there is a very robust system within the United Kingdom, as he will be of aware, for how we deal with the safety of our nuclear weapons—there is a surveillance programme to check that they are continuing to be reliable and safe—their security and the regulatory regime that covers our nuclear activity. We continue to invest in future capabilities to underwrite safety and performance. That includes collaboration with France under the 2010 Teutates treaty; we are jointly building and operating a hydrodynamic trials facility—EPURE—in France and a complementary capability, AWE. It is interesting that the United States last carried out a review in 1991, I think. I am aware of the noble Lord’s organisation and I pay tribute to his knowledge. His interest in this matter has been encouraging the US to carry out a review, but I reassure noble Lords that there are very robust structures within the United Kingdom.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
My Lords, are not the issues addressed by this Question highly sensitive and probably better dealt with privately rather than on the Floor of your Lordships’ House?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his observation. I understand the interest of your Lordships in the general frameworks which apply, and that is something that I am happy to comment on.
Lord Walney (CB)
Should the Government’s focus not be on maintaining continuous at-sea deterrence, which has been unbroken since 1969, but which the Minister and many others know is under increasing strain given the longevity of the Vanguard submarines and the delays in the Dreadnought class? Does not the whole focus of the Government need to be on ensuring that Dreadnought can come in in time to take the strain?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
Indeed. I reassure your Lordships that the Government are fully committed to maintaining that independent minimum credible nuclear deterrent based on a continuous at-sea deterrence posture. We do not anticipate any challenge to the transition from Vanguard to Dreadnought.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, I do not expect the Minister to comment in detail, as she mentioned—of course not—but, in general, she will be aware that on several occasions in the past, human override has averted potentially catastrophic nuclear weapons use. The point that has been made is not about the safety of those systems themselves, in engineering terms, but, given the encroaching autonomy of decision- making throughout industry, including in the military, the complexity of the interrelationship between them, and the increasing reliance on artificial intelligence, the dangers of averting that by human override are constantly being eroded. So, while the Minister cannot comment in detail, will she accept that very great danger and assure us that the highest priority is being given to seeing that that human override—the decision by human beings—is not being undermined by the complexity and the increasing use of autonomous, digital-based systems when it comes to nuclear weapons?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The noble Lord asks a very important question. We are cognisant of—we are certainly not complacent about—the swiftly changing picture of threat or the swiftly changing and challenging situation of artificial intelligence. With reference to the core of the noble Lord’s question, we will ensure that, regardless of any use of AI in our strategic systems, human political control of our nuclear weapons is maintained at all times, and we strongly encourage other nuclear states to make a similar commitment. While I cannot go into detail, the noble Lord will be aware that there are a number of very robust procedures that would stop either an unauthorised intervention or a state intervention.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am sure many noble Lords understand my noble friend the Minister’s reluctance to share any detailed information but, in general terms, given that the United States has commissioned this review, what plans are there for the UK Government to learn from any suggestions or recommendations of that review in the United States?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I thank my noble friend. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Reid, a moment ago, we encourage other nations to be vigilant about the risk and we share information and intelligence. We are always willing to look at what other nations do.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, is not the most dangerous situation in the world currently presented by both Iran and North Korea? Given that Iran has now produced enough enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons and that, in 2022, North Korea launched at least 95 ballistic and other weapons, some of which have an intercontinental capability, can the Minister tell the House what response we have received from our colleagues, international partners and, indeed, those who would be our adversaries on the United Nations Security Council?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
These are matters of profound concern, as the noble Lord rightly indicates. We deploy whatever influence we can in the appropriate fora, whether at the United Nations or in other diplomatic or bilateral defence discussions. We deplore what Iran and North Korea are doing. There is a consistent call upon them to desist but, as the noble Lord will be aware, these are two covert, secretive and independent states. It is difficult to influence or leverage any positive response to the entreaties that the international community makes.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister tell the House what recent conversations the MoD has had with NATO and other key defence allies about this important review? Is it our intention to follow suit with our failsafe review, as outlined in the Question, and what would be the proposed timescale?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
At the risk of being tedious, I simply reiterate to the noble Baroness what I have been saying: we have a very robust structure within the United Kingdom. It is not only inherently robust in terms of the MoD construct but monitored and regulated both within the MoD and externally. We are satisfied that we have due regard to all possible risks or vulnerability. It is for other states to make their decision as to how they deal with the presence of nuclear weaponry, but I indicated earlier the partnership we have with France. I think that is an interesting example of where there is knowledge sharing.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, of course, we support the nuclear deterrent but the US has said that the failsafe review of its nuclear posture
“offers an historic opportunity to reduce the risk of nuclear use today and for generations to come.”
It says:
“The failsafe review must result in concrete actions”
to make both the US and the world safer. So, notwithstanding her earlier comments, can the Minister say what discussions or, indeed, involvement we have had on such an important review, which is ultimately about the security of the world, particularly given the current uncertainties?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
As I have indicated to the House, we have in place an array of safeguards, checks and structures to ensure that we are responsive to any identified vulnerability or potential area of risk, however that risk might arise. As I said earlier, it is for individual sovereign states to make their own decisions about how they deal with these matters. It would be wrong to suggest that the United States, for example, regularly does this. I pointed out that the last review was in 1991—it is for the United States to make its decision upon that and absolutely right that it does so. It is also right for the United Kingdom to make its own determination. But I reassure the House that we constantly liaise and speak with allies, we share intelligence and we always want to learn from good practice.
Workers’ Rights
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Woodley
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to legislate to ensure high standards of workers’ rights.
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Johnson of Lainston) (Con)
Over the past year, we have proven our commitment to supporting workers across the UK by raising the national living wage to its highest rate yet. The Government are supporting six Private Members’ Bills to increase workers’ rights. These deliver enhanced protections for new parents, unpaid carers and hospitality workers. They also give all employees easy access to flexible working and workers the right to request a more predictable contract.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, the Tories won the last election by promising improvements to employment rights, but we have seen completely the opposite. I am sick and tired of posing the same questions to the Minister time and again concerning the protection of TUPE legislation. We never get a straight answer, and I believe that it is disrespectful to this House. The Minister’s attitude to date has always been, “Let’s just wait and see.” That cannot possibly be right when we have employers and employees wondering what is coming round the corner—if, indeed, there are any fundamental changes to the Government’s thoughts on employment legislation. So, for the fourth time of asking: will the Minister confirm that TUPE will remain to protect workers’ wages and terms and conditions? Or, failing that, will he finally admit that the British people were hoodwinked at the 2019 election?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for raising this matter, and I think it right that we look at employment rights. He asks what is coming round the corner, and I will tell him: the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Bill, the protection from redundancy Bill, the Carer’s Leave Bill, the employment relations Bill and the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill, all supported by the Government. Three of those Bills were brought into this House on Friday with the wonderful cross-party support of everyone here who believes in actually doing something for workers and giving them the protections this Government will afford them.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, do not workers’ rights apply equally to all our school leavers this summer, regardless of whether they were educated in the independent or public sectors? If those rights do apply, why has the Bank of England announced that independent sector pupils, including those on bursaries, will be excluded from its education presentations and group talks? Surely this is social discrimination. Will my noble friend approach the Bank and ask it to think again?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. I saw that article myself and I was surprised by it. It is not for me to comment on the tour practices of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, but this is certainly worth further inquiry.
Lord Storey (LD)
I want to come back to the issue of paid care workers. Care workers are skilled workers who are often subject to low wages and poor working conditions. Without urgent reform, this sector will continue to suffer from high vacancies that jeopardise the quality of care. Currently there are 165,000 vacancies, an increase of 55,000 from last year. Is not the answer that if more money is provided to these skilled workers, many of the problems the care sector faces will no longer exist?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I appreciate the noble Lord’s point. It is an incredibly important sector, and the approximately 1.5 million people who work in it are to be cherished and celebrated. The Government have put £7 billion into the sector over the last two years, which clearly is a follow-on from the crisis we faced during Covid. I will be pleased this afternoon to place a statutory instrument before this House to raise the national living wage and the minimum wage by a substantial 9.7%. All these things will help, but I am always aware that we must do all we can to support that important and vital sector.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I think the Minister mentioned hospitality work. Freelance work has been a long-term and growing aspect of the economy, with 1.77 million freelancers contributing £125 billion to the economy. What attention are the Government going to give to those insecure workers’ rights?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank the noble Earl for that point. Hospitality has been an important focus for this Government, which is why we are introducing the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Bill, an important measure to ensure that, when you tip, the money actually goes to the service staff who have supported you. To my surprise, and probably that of many other Members of this House, in many instances it did not. These are the sort of Acts we absolutely need to focus on, and I am always delighted to have further conversations about how we can do more to protect this vital sector.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, the employment Bill that was promised back in 2019 has been promised time and again; in fact, on 20 different occasions we have been promised a comprehensive Bill that would deal with workers’ real concerns. Millions of workers in this country are on zero-hours contracts, false self-employment or other forms of temporary work, or stuck in low-paid employment, and now with the prospect of real fears and concerns about what will happen to their rights. Can the Minister explain why there has apparently not been time to bring forward a Bill that would give workers much-needed and urgent protection on everything from TUPE to sexual harassment to insecure contracts, yet the Government have found time to bring forward two red-rated Bills, on retained EU law and strikes, that will make it harder for workers to stand up for their rights?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I enjoyed that question because it bites into my time for answering questions, so I thank the noble Baroness. It is very relevant to realise that this Government have invested a huge amount of time in focusing exactly on this, and I would like to go through a few quick points. Apart from increasing pay by raising minimum wage levels, we have extended the ban on exclusivity clauses, which is vital for allowing flexibility in the workforce; we have introduced legislation to ensure that an equivalent to the minimum wage is paid to thousands of seafarers, who are in a sector that is very important to this country and needs protecting; we have closed loopholes that allowed agency workers to be employed on cheaper rates than permanent workers; and we have quadrupled the maximum fines for employers who treat their workers badly. I have mentioned the list of employment legislation that we are bringing in, and we continue to try to do more. If you look at it in the round, better than having one huge, complicated piece of legislation is getting these measures through in their own way and actually making a difference to the workers in this country. That is how I would prefer it.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)
My Lords, the disability work gap remains stubbornly wide. Can the Minister update the House on the workforce review being conducted by the DWP, which is examining proposals for subsidies for occupational health services that could close that gap?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that question. I am afraid this is not my department, but I would be delighted to come back to her with a Written Answer.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, both the Minister and I founded and ran our own businesses before coming to this place. I hope he will agree not just with me but with many business leaders and trade unionists, such as my noble friend Lord Woodley, that decent working conditions for employees’ security, health and well-being directly lead to improvements in productivity. Will he remind his government colleagues that a surefire way to make UK plc more productive would be to enshrine the highest standards of workers’ rights in legislation and not to seek to weaken or remove them through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill or the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill going through both Houses?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that point and for the extraordinarily high level of collaboration we engaged in last week when we were doing exactly this: bringing in protections for workers—in this case, the Carer’s Leave Bill, which will allow carers the flexibility to have a much-needed one week of unpaid leave. Ultimately, the best way to strengthen the workforce in this country and to enable businesses to give pay rises is to encourage the sorts of policies this Conservative Administration have brought into play, which have resulted in nearly 4 million new people in work, the average and minimum wages going up by over £8,000 and—
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
This is important, because if you do not have a strong economy, you cannot deliver the sorts of benefits this country needs and the strength of pay, which is the most important thing in a proper workforce.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I am sure the catalogue the Minister read out is welcome to many people. I was here last Friday when we brought some of those laws forward, but the fact of the matter is that the wealth generators of this country who go to work every day feel that the Government do not particularly see them as colleagues. May I ask the Minister to do his best to get the social partners back together again and, in particular, to meet with the TUC and other people who want to improve the benefits and productivity of this country so we can all work together as a team?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank my noble friend for raising that point. It is important that we work collaboratively, and my department does meet regularly with the unions in terms of trade advisory groups. We will continue to do so, and to collaborate to ensure that we have the best framework for employment, employment rights and business in this country.
Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill
Monday 6th March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 View all Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 3 March 2023 - (3 Mar 2023)
Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill
Monday 6th March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 View all Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 3 March 2023 - (3 Mar 2023)
Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill
Monday 6th March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 View all Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text
Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill
Monday 6th March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023 View all Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text
Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, Clauses 3 and 4, Title.
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Monday 6th March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 View all Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-V Fifth marshalled list for Committee - (6 Mar 2023)
Lord Callanan
That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
At end insert “and that it be an instruction to the Committee that no new amendment shall be considered today after 10.00pm”.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, following the tabling of my amendment on Friday, there has been positive discussion in the usual channels, and I am pleased to say: not moved.
Baroness Ludford
“Conditions for bringing section 3, 4 or 5 into force(1) None of sections 3, 4 or 5 may be brought into force unless all the following conditions have been satisfied.(2) The first condition is that a Minister of the Crown has, after consulting organisations and persons representative of interests substantially affected by, or with expertise in the likely legal effect of, that section on a draft of a report, laid that report before Parliament setting out, with reasons, the Minister’s view as to the likely advantages and disadvantages of bringing that section into force, setting out in particular the effect of that section on –(a) the rights of and protections for consumers, workers and businesses, and protections of the environment and animal welfare, (b) legal certainty, and the clarity and predictability of the law,(c) the operation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU, and UK exports of goods and services to the European Economic Area, and(d) the operation of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the EU withdrawal agreement.(3) In relation to section 4, the report must take into account any regulation made or likely to be made by a relevant national authority under section 8(1).(4) The second condition is that a period of 60 days has passed since the report was laid before Parliament, with no account taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which either House is adjourned for more than four days.(5) The third condition is that, after the end of that period, both Houses of Parliament have approved a resolution that that section come into force.(6) If both Houses of Parliament have approved a resolution that that section should not come into force unless it is amended in a way set out in that resolution, then the Minister may by regulations amend that section accordingly, and that section may not be brought into force until that amendment has been made.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause requires Ministers to analyse, and to explain their analysis of, the effect of the removal of retained EU law rights, the principle of supremacy of EU law, and of the general principles. It also includes opportunity for Parliamentary approval and timeframes for laying reports before both Houses.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 68 I will speak to Amendments 69 and 69A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. I will take a little while; I know we want to make progress today, but these amendments are on legally very significant issues in relation to Clauses 3 to 5. Last Thursday, we discussed the fact that, unlike the sunset under Clause 1, there is no saving provision for Clauses 3 to 5, such as appears in Clauses 1(2). We moved an amendment to try to change that, and perhaps the Government will accept it.
I heard a Conservative MP on “Any Questions?” this weekend assert that Brexit meant bringing democracy back. I think that noble Lords across the Committee who have taken part in the four days of proceedings so far on the Bill would agree that it does not bring democracy back. Instead, it reinforces the executive diktat that, unfortunately, we have become rather used to.
The effect of these amendments, beginning with Amendment 68, would be to require
“Ministers to analyse, and to explain their analysis of, the effect of the removal of retained EU law rights, the principle of supremacy of EU law, and of the general principles”
of EU law. I presume that the Government have conducted such an analysis before bringing into force such wide-ranging changes. In the words of the Bar Council,
“it would be extraordinarily irresponsible were that not done”.
We would like to see a sharing of that analysis; it needs to
“be consulted on, made public, and put before Parliament. The new clause … gives Parliament the chance, in the light of such an analysis, to prevent the bringing into force of those sections or to propose amendments”.
The fact is that the effect and scope of Clauses 3 to 5 are extremely unclear.
On legal certainty, the principles of the interpretation of EU law are ones with which UK lawyers and courts are, by now, very familiar; they are well settled as principles of the interpretation of UK statues as well. Removing those principles is likely to generate uncertainty and unintended consequences, in particular because quite a lot of those topics will have been the subject of considerable EU case law and removing them will create instability. The Government have not explained what the consequences of the removal of those principles will be on the various rules and protections concerned. I am very grateful to the Bar Council for its briefing, and, again, in its words:
“It is not a good idea to legislate when you have no idea what the consequence of that legislation will be.”
However, I am afraid that that is where we seem to be.
Under these clauses, there will be a retrospective effect to alter the position of domestic legislation, which could not have been foreseen by the domestic legislator at the time. That appears to be a very dubious thing to do. The rationale for retaining, for instance, the principle of the supremacy of EU law—a much misunderstood term; lawyers describe it better as a hierarchical rule—is legal certainty, because individuals and businesses will have taken decisions, sometimes far-reaching and involving significant investment, based on the law as it was. Removing that principle to give priority to any subsequent domestic legislation would mean that it would be impossible to say whether the consequence of removing the principle in any particular case would reduce the clarity of the law or change its effect. Even if it does not do those things, it will at least reduce certainty and lead to unpredicted—and perhaps undesirable or unjust—consequences.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, I have not contributed at all in this Committee and I am going to say only a very few words, which I hope I can keep as simple as possible. I very much support Amendment 69A here, because I think it is particularly relevant. I hope it is of help to my noble friend the Minister, who last week dismissed out of hand Amendment 44, to which I had added my name. I hope he will understand that I am trying to be helpful in supporting this. With the legal uncertainty that we seem to have here, it is terribly important that the Government, and indeed Ministers, protect themselves in some way.
The suggestion last week was that we should have a commission set up for the purposes of looking at these proposals and at what effect they might have, and move them to parliamentary scrutiny in the appropriate manner. Now we have a proposal in subsection 2 of the proposed new clause introduced by Amendment 69A that would make it a condition that
“a Minister of the Crown has asked the Law Commission”,
as it is presently constituted,
“to report on the effect of … this Act on legal certainty, and the clarity and predictability of the law.”
I am sure I do not need to remind my noble friend of the importance of certainty, and how important it is in the law to have that. We do not have so many comparisons here. I use the term “void for uncertainty” in relation to legislation. For instance, in the United States, all legislation that is “void for vagueness”, as is the term, cannot proceed. In the European Union, it is quite clear that there has to be clear certainty in the imposition of laws on the people who have to obey and follow them. Here we have a situation where we have nothing of the sort. It is important, therefore, that the Government find a way in which they can, if necessary, protect themselves; otherwise, we are going to get in due course a considerable amount of legal interest, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, just referred to. Whether that is through judicial review or other means, it will be so complex and convoluted that, while it might please some lawyers, other lawyers such as myself, of a rather more modest disposition, would find it quite appalling to see this happen. I ask my noble friend perhaps not to dismiss this amendment quite as easily as he dismissed Amendment 44.
Throughout the proceedings I have watched so far in Committee, there have been many references to the democracy which is necessary—and that the Government wish to pursue—compared with the lack of democracy that the Government allege in the European Union. As a Member of the European Parliament—as my noble friend the Minister was too, although for a shorter period—I think it is very difficult to make out a good case for a lack of democracy in the work that was done by me and my other colleagues from Britain in the European Parliament. This is particularly the case in recent years where the European Parliament has had co-decision and a right to block legislation from the Commission. The proposals of the Government at the moment—if they are not put to some form of independent assessment—would leave us with a situation where the secondary legislation lacks every single shred of evidence of democracy. Therefore, I ask my noble friend to seriously consider conceding Amendment 69A when he comes to respond.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to both Amendments 68 and 69. This Bill, as others have said, creates huge uncertainty for business at a time when business is struggling to cope with so many uncertainties that are outside the control of the Government. But the Government do have control of this. Both amendments require the Government to report on the likely advantages and disadvantages of taking the action they propose. What could be more reasonable? What member of society would expect the Government not to have weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of taking any particular action? How on earth can it be justified to go ahead and do away with protections and rights bestowed by European law, without actually having done some consultation as to what the results are likely to be? There might be disadvantages but, unless the work is done, who knows what advantages will be thrown away. What justification can there possibly be for taking such rash and foolhardy action?
Amendment 68 also requires a resolution in Parliament as to whether such action should go ahead. It is all about bringing back control to Parliament. Why would the Government—who are so keen on bringing back control to the UK—not wish to give Parliament the say on whether EU retained rights and protections should remain? Why should consumers not have the protection of a vote in Parliament? Perhaps the Minister could tell us why he does not want to know what the advantages and disadvantages of legislating would be and does not want consumers to have their rights taken into account.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I support the three amendments, but I do not intend to speak on them. I just wanted to support and admire what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, had said about the European Parliament. It was about time it was said.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I will add one very brief point as well—following on from my noble friend Lady Ludford when she introduced Amendment 68 and 69A—which is the background in the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has been referred to consistently during the preceding three days of Committee. It makes the important point:
“The approach taken in the Bill gives rise to significant legal uncertainty … There is no certainty about the sunset provision itself because Ministers can extend it under the delegated power in clause 2.”
The point about these two amendments is that they set out a framework including, at the end, a very high bar that both Houses of Parliament must agree the same recommendation to go back to the Minister, which would then ensure that the Minister acted on it. It is not just for debate in Parliament, as usually happens with secondary legislation; it is making sure that there is the evidence about the background—which other noble Lords have spoken about—but then both Houses must approve the same recommendations.
I echo the questions that other noble Lords have asked. I hope that the Minister can explain to us why this safety net, as set out by the various stages in these amendments, would not be enough to reassure Ministers that we are helping them to do the job they need to do in this extremely complex matter.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I am not a lawyer—that will become very apparent from what I am going to say—but I support Amendments 68, 69 and 69A. I am puzzled that the Government say that their aim is to introduce legal clarity. I think back to 50 years ago and Lord Denning’s great speech about EU law coming inextricably up the estuaries and rivers. He did not think that we should join the European Community. He made a remarkable speech, which was correct: over 50 years, EU law has come up the rivers and estuaries. How do you desalinate the common law of England? It grows organically. Which bits do you prune? How do you know which nutrients were of European origin and which were of domestic origin? How do you go about this task? Fortunately, it seems that we are not going to be allowed any role in this, because it is going to be done by a Minister with the stroke of a pen. Surely that cannot be right.
The wonderful letter we got from the Minister at noon today explains what we are doing now in the following terms:
“Retained case law is not being sunset”—
I would have said “sunsetted”, but still.
“However, the repeal of section 4, and the removal of supremacy and general principles by clauses 3 to 5 will mean that after the end of 2023 the effects of these features of EU law would not be expected to be read in to relevant retained case law, when our domestic courts are interpreting and applying assimilated law. However, where there is a restatement of case law concerning the application of principles being removed by clauses 3 to 5 of the Bill … it would be expected that courts would continue to consider relevant case law where it is clear from the restatement that that is the intention.”
If I were the court, I would have no idea how to interpret that. What am I supposed to do? I am supposed to work out what the Minister’s intention was from his restatement. Did he intend that I should still look at that EU law, or not? If I am not to look at it, what am I supposed to look at? Fifty years have passed. Does all that salinated law—all these precedents—have to be ignored? I find it quite hard to believe.
The letter explains:
“From the end of 2023 our domestic courts should no longer apply the retained EU principles of interpretation … when they are interpreting and applying assimilated law. Instead, we expect them to apply domestic principles of interpretation.”
What are “domestic principles of interpretation”? We have 50 years of precedent and case law. Is that domestic? I say, yes, it is—but, of course, it is salinated. EU law did affect the development of UK law. So, the reports that are called for in these amendments are absolutely necessary. I feel reluctant to impose on the Law Commission the heavy load that Amendment 69A would place on it. I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, and I would have preferred his solution to the matter.
I have one other mild grievance with the letter that arrived at noon from Lord Gobbledy of Gook—sorry, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. It answered a lot of points raised in this debate over the past three days, but not mine. I have now asked four times what the procedure is for getting rid of pieces of EU law—our law—that are to be disapplied and abolished altogether. What we get in reply are examples: we hear about olives, lemons, and navigation in the Skagerrak. I agree with that; no doubt there are several pieces of law that have never been relevant and have no relevance now, and that none of us will miss much. However, there could be others that a Secretary of State might wish to abolish but some of us might take a different view on. For example, if Mr Rees-Mogg were still in charge of this exercise, one could imagine that his might be quite a liberal interpretation of the power to extinguish. What procedure is to be followed? People have to know whether or not laws exist, so there must be some sort of publication. The Minister cannot do this absolutely in private.
Secondly, I would have thought that there would have to be some sort of legal instrument. I do not see how you can pare the statute book without doing so in a clearly legally established and recognisable way. Thirdly, it seems to me that there must be some role for Parliament in that exercise. I cannot see what it is and we have not been told. My questions for the Minister are these: what procedure is going to be used; how will the users of the law know that it has been used; and what role will Parliament have in making the decision?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I too am extremely grateful to the Minister for his letter; I actually got it on Friday. I certainly welcome it. One of the sentences in the letter that struck me—it hit me in the face, as it were—was in the paragraph at the bottom of the second page:
“The Government is intent on bringing clarity to the statute book, and for citizens and businesses so that they are clear as to the rights that they rely on”.
That is the fundamental issue here; it is certainly the one that I want to concentrate on in our debate on this group. By the way, I am not going to repeat the points about the potential impact as we have had lots of discussion about that.
We are dealing here with known unknowns, if you like. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, just said, it is about the idea that we do not know quite what impact the case law and common law that has developed over 50 years has had. Of course we had a very detailed discussion on Clause 1, but Clause 3 is potentially even more serious because it deals not with specific regulations that might be identified on the dashboard—it is now approaching 4,000 pieces of legislation—but with areas where we are not sure whether the legislation is EU-derived, are not sure about the impact of EU law on them, and where decisions will undoubtedly have a huge impact.
These amendments are trying to assist the Government in how to ensure a proper process for identifying these things before anything falls off a cliff edge ahead of this date, and how to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny. It is a reasonable question in relation to process. This is not about trying to frustrate the Government, as noble Lords have already commented. It is about how we assist the Government in avoiding chaos.
Certainly, this clause requires more than simply cataloguing instruments. It requires us to look into how courts have interpreted decisions and what impacts that will have. Whether it is the Law Commission or another body, the Government must ensure that proper time is allocated to research this so that, coming back to the letter, we have certainty, because businesses require certainty. We have had that debate. Workers require certainty as to their rights. Consumers require certainty. All those things have been impacted by decisions through common law.
Nobody disputes that there may be EU rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures that we could do better without. There is no doubt about that, but let us have a proper procedure for determining it. It cannot be right that we simply have a cliff edge with a dashboard that the Minister repeatedly refers to that does not even quantify them. I think there are 28 in the dashboard that you can consider impacted by Clause 3 out of the 4,000. There are clearly lots more examples.
I am attracted to Amendment 69A signed by my noble friend Lady Chapman, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox. It provides a clear structure and timetable for us to work through that will ensure a transparent way of dealing with people’s rights. That is the most important element of these groups of amendments. Let us not frustrate what the Government want, but let us do this in a proper way that does not lead to the confusion and chaos which undoubtedly Clause 3 would.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)
I thank all Peers who have contributed to the debate. I was getting a bit concerned about the subject of my famous correspondence with the House, but I took on board the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, at the end of the last day in Committee, about wanting to see the letter in advance. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, got his on Friday afternoon; I approved it in draft on Friday afternoon. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, did not get his until noon today. I received it on my parliamentary email at 10 am, so perhaps his email is a bit slow. I did attempt to get it out as early as possible because I suspected that it might come up and I knew that noble Lords would want to read it before the debate. I am sorry that the noble Lord thinks that it is gobbledegook, but that is lawyers for you.
The amendments in this group are Amendment 68 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, Amendment 69 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and Amendment 69A tabled by all three noble Lords. These would set unnecessary conditions on the commencement of Clauses 3, 4 and 5. Let me start by drawing noble Lords’ attention to why we are making the changes in these clauses. Each of the clauses is vital to the Government’s programme of reforming retained EU law.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Before he sits down, I refer him to the second paragraph on page 2 of his letter—for which I was grateful, joking apart:
“From the end of 2023 our domestic courts should no longer apply the retained EU principles of interpretation … Instead, we expect them to apply domestic principles of interpretation”.
What are these domestic principles?
Lord Callanan (Con)
They are the domestic principles of interpretation that have been used by the courts since time immemorial: the normal procedures they use to apply their scrutiny of UK law. That is the point we are making. It is important that the general principles of EU law, which were introduced into UK law with our accession and which have applied to retained—[Interruption.] Will the noble Lord let me finish making my point before he intervenes again?
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
In time immemorial, we were not members of the European Union. Is the Minister saying that we all should go back to pre-1972, and that anything that happened when Denning salt water was coming up the estuaries—anything that happened in the last 50 years—is to be ignored by the courts?
Lord Callanan (Con)
No, I am not saying that at all. Case law is not abolished: courts will still be able to take case law into account. We will use the power of restatement where necessary. Departments will look at whether the general principle of EU law, which we are abolishing with this legislation, affects the particular statutes that they are retaining, and they will adjust them accordingly so that the same policy effect is maintained. Of course I am not suggesting that we go back on what was agreed. The principles of case law will remain.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
We are talking about the courts and cases. Surely the courts will have to look at the domestic principles of interpretation which they are going to apply. Will they be given any guidance?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The courts will use the same principles they have used for the interpretation of UK statute for many hundreds of years.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Workers will want to know precisely which of their rights will be impacted by this clause. Of the current numbers, can the Minister identify how many regulations in the dashboard will be impacted by Clauses 3 to 5?
Lord Callanan (Con)
We will keep the dashboard updated as work progresses. As the noble Lord knows, we had this debate in the first grouping on workers’ rights. We are proud of our record and have given a commitment that the UK will not go back on our excellent principle of workers’ rights, which are far in excess of that guaranteed by European law. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, is smiling.
We have had this debate on the issue of the dashboard, which noble Lords have raised on many occasions, but let me restate the Government’s position. We are happy that departments know what legislation they are responsible for. Their lawyers are still going through it to determine which is or is not retained EU law, but we have introduced technical amendments to make it clear that, by default, if they are not sure, they should retain that law. No detriment or challenge could be made if they did that.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
I have just realised that my noble friend referred a moment ago to this Parliament’s lack of involvement in EU matters or legislation. He and others here are always putting forward that Ministers of this Government are accountable to Parliament—although, we sometimes argue, not sufficiently. Of course, they make up the Council of Ministers, which they attend in order to approve all European legislation. He surely therefore recognises that Parliament is almost directly linked to European legislation, but he says that there is no UK parliamentary input. I just wanted to correct that point.
Lord Callanan (Con)
It is slightly off the point, but I hope the noble Lord is not trying to argue that the UK Parliament is President in the Council of Ministers.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the point that I want to probe a bit more is the known unknowns. We do not really know what will be impacted. I will read from the noble Lord’s letter:
“A comprehensive review of all retained EU law on the UK statute book began in September 2021, and work is well underway by departments to assess line by line, the desired policy intent and effects of retained EU law on the statute book and to ensure that REUL that needs to be preserved, is preserved”.
What and who decides the policy intent? The Bill does not tell us anything. That is the biggest concern and why these amendments try to assist the Government by providing a process where we can have greater transparency. The noble Lord is unable to give an answer at this stage of the game, and we are not far away from the cliff edge that we have all been talking about. He cannot tell me what the dashboard numbers are. Can he tell us the policy intent identified in his letter?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The reference in that is to the policy intent of the particular piece of retained EU law. The point we are making is that if the abolition of the principles of EU law, the supremacy and interpretive effects, changes the policy intent of that particular piece that is worth retaining then of course it will be changed using the powers in the Bill—the powers of restatement, which we will debate later—to preserve the original policy intent, as would have been approved by Parliament, if Parliament had any role in approving that in the first place.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
This takes us back to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report, which specifically made the point that there is not,
“an indication of which legal or policy areas the Government think should be retained, amended or revoked”.
It says absolutely specifically:
“The Government need to explain how they propose to use the powers in the Bill. They also need to explain what is behind the headlong rush and the impending and arbitrary end-of-year deadline”.
With the greatest of respect to the noble Lord, the letter does not say that. I think noble Lords would agree that we have not had that explanation over the last three days in Committee either.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I am sorry if the noble Baroness believes that. We have debated the principle of the sunset. I accept that she presumably has a different position from mine, but I have stated the Government’s position on numerous occasions. The dashboard will continue to be updated as departments come to decisions on what they want to do with their stock of retained EU law.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, while it is in my mind, I am not sure the Minister answered my noble friend Lady Brinton’s question, which was, in citing the Delegated Powers Committee report, to ask what was the policy intention and to point out that the Bill is a blank sheet of paper as far as that is concerned. That is what is completely worrying us, because of its effect on the real world and the lack of any parliamentary grip on this process.
For him to say that Amendment 69A would involve the Law Commission in Government policy misrepresents the amendment—no doubt inadvertently—which talks about asking the Law Commission to report on,
“the effect of sections 3, 4 and 5 … on legal certainty, and the clarity and predictability of the law.”
That is surely within the purview of the Law Commission. That would not involve the Law Commission in policy. I fear that the Minister misrepresented Amendment 69A, perhaps in his enthusiasm.
Lord Callanan
“Retained EU law governing the CAP direct payment schemes Retained direct EU CAP legislation | Assimilated law governing the CAP direct payment schemes Assimilated direct CAP legislation” |
This amendment renames bodies of law relating to direct payments to farmers as regards times after the end of 2023.
Lord Callanan
““retained EU law governing the CAP direct payment schemes” and “retained direct EU CAP legislation” have the meaning given by section 2 of the Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Act 2020 (as it has effect on the day on which this Act is passed).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the Minister’s amendment to Clause 6, page 4, line 15 .
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment restores discretion to the higher court.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for the letter which we received during the course of this morning. I am slightly concerned that he did not reply to the question on the fact that the Scottish Parliament has withheld its consent, or tell us the Government’s response to that, nor to the amendments that the Scottish Parliament has laid on the table. I would be grateful if at some point that could be addressed.
In speaking to the amendments in my name in this group, I will speak also to those tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, which I have also signed. I would like to say a general word about Clause 7, on the role of the courts. I am grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for preparing me on the amendments that I have tabled today. This clause deals with Section 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, which dealt with the interpretation of REUL and the application of retained case law by domestic courts.
The amendments tabled to Clause 7 are quite complicated and convoluted. I would hazard to say that it is difficult to understand the effect of the amended provisions. Therefore, the amendments that I have put forward should make it clearer that, if Clause 7 simply substituted a new Section 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, the new Section 6B, which Clause 7(8) proposes to insert into the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, would provide that UK or devolved law officers could make a reference to the Supreme Court, the High Court of Justiciary or the appropriate relevant appeal court, as defined by proposed new Section 6A and the circumstances set out therein.
Even though new Section 6B(7) provides that any decision by the court to which reference is made does not affect the outcome of the proceedings, the view of the Law Society of Scotland, which I share, is that it is contrary to the interests of justice that the law officers can be empowered to make a reference in a civil case that has been concluded and where there has been either no appeal or the appeal itself has been concluded. This contravention of the principle of finality and interference by the state in civil litigation needs to be explained and justified by the Government; I urge my noble friend the Minister in summing up to take the opportunity to do so.
I understand that the innovation would apply only on a point of law on retained case law, thus diluting the unity of civil law. Further, any such power of reference would not be comparable, for instance, to the role of the Attorney-General or the Lord Advocate in criminal proceedings. Such law officers have a direct interest and an integral role to play in all such proceedings, including instituting appeals or references on points of law. Law officers do not currently have that role in civil proceedings and it remains to be seen why they should have it in respect of one particular category of civil case law. Again, I seek clarification from my noble friend.
New Section 6B(2) identifies the law officers who can make a reference. The Lord Advocate’s power to make a reference is limited to where the point of law relates to the meaning or effect of relevant Scotland legislation. There is no corresponding restraint on the powers of any UK law officer to either the law of England and Wales or a matter of law on reserved matters. Again, the Law Society questions whether it is appropriate that any UK law officer other than the Advocate-General for Scotland should be able to make a reference to the High Court of Justiciary or a relevant appeal court, which is the Scottish court, on a matter of legislation. I refer to Taylor Clark Leisure plc v the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue in 2015.
New Section 6C provides that each UK law officer and devolved law officer is entitled to notice of proceedings. The Lord Advocate’s power to intervene is limited to where the argument relates to the meaning or effect of relevant Scottish legislation. There is no corresponding restraint on the powers of any UK law officer to either the law of England and Wales or to the law on reserved matters. Again, I question whether it is appropriate that any UK law officer other than the Advocate-General for Scotland will be able to intervene on a matter of Scottish legislation before the High Court of Justiciary or a relevant court of appeal, which is the Scottish court. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to clarify those points.
On Amendment 81, Clause 7(3) as currently drafted introduces a new subsection (5) into Section 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act requiring the judiciary in a higher court—that is, the UK Supreme Court, the High Court of Justiciary and a relevant appeal court, as defined in Clause 7(6)—to have regard to certain factors when deciding whether to depart from any retained EU case law. It is the view of the Law Society of Scotland, and I share that view, that the courts must be able to exercise discretion when deciding such matters, and that a statutory obligation to consider these matters is an unjustifiable intrusion on judicial independence. I therefore hope the Minister and the Government will accept leaving out “must” and replacing it with “may” in Clause 7 in that regard.
Amendment 82 would delete new subsection (5)(a) that Clause 7 currently inserts into Section 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. Again, as currently drafted, Clause 7(3) introduces a new subsection (5) into Section 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act requiring the judiciary in a higher court—that is, the UK Supreme Court, the High Court of Justiciary and a relevant appeal court, as defined in Clause 7(6)—to have regard to certain factors in deciding whether to depart from any retained EU case law. One of those factors is contained in new subsection (5)(a):
“the fact that decisions of a foreign court are not (unless otherwise provided) binding”.
In the view of the Law Society of Scotland, judges are well aware that decisions of foreign courts are not, unless otherwise provided, binding. Therefore, in the society’s view, and I share that view, it is unnecessary to prescribe that the judiciary take the matter into account, and I recommend on behalf of the Law Society of Scotland that this provision be deleted from Clause 7.
Amendment 84 would delete “proper”. The reason for that is that the courts must be able to exercise discretion in deciding such matters as set out in Clause 7(3) when deciding to have regard to certain factors to depart from any retained EU case law. Creating a statutory obligation on the courts to consider how retained EU law constrains the proper development of domestic law imposes an unachievable objective on the judiciary by requiring judges to assess what the development of the law might be and to determine whether that development will be “proper”. That is essentially a matter of policy, which is the province of government rather than the judiciary.
I would like to briefly refer to the points raised in Amendments 95 to 99 in this group from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, as well as Amendment 99A, which go to the heart of the role and function of the Lord Advocate and the particular arrangement that pertains to what Scots law should be in this regard. I omitted Amendment 94, which, again, is a consequential and probing amendment seeking to delete new Section 6B. I look forward to hearing from other noble Lords who will speak to amendments in the group, but with those few remarks, I beg to move Amendment 81.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I agree with what has just been said by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and I speak only with reference to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, of which I was a member for about nine years. We regularly considered cases from all over the world—the High Court of Australia, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, or any court that had similar law to the law of England and Wales. We considered them, but none of them was, or is today, binding. It is absolutely unnecessary to put this in, and I have to say I find it offensive to judges who have treated these cases in the way I have just explained for many years. I was on the Bench for 35 years, and I looked at these cases many times. I would be offended to be told I could not apply them as part of English law, because I knew that from my childhood, for goodness’ sake.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I am going to speak briefly about Amendments 83, 84, 87, 87A and 87B. I do so as a jobbing barrister, with some diffidence, because I note that the noble and learned Lords who have put their names to these amendments have not yet spoken. Indeed, I do not think they are in the Chamber. I am against the provisions in the Bill, and I am going to outline my reasons.
When drafting legislation, we need to ensure clarity. Laws need to be clear, unambiguous and capable of being understood by members of the public, otherwise compliance is impossible. Furthermore, to ensure justice, advisers need a degree of certainty and predictability as to what the law is or is likely to be when they have to advise on it, otherwise, as I say, justice will not happen. When one applies those criteria to the provisions in the Bill, one becomes profoundly uneasy. The phrase found in new paragraph (b) in Clause 7(3), “any changes of circumstances”, is astonishingly broad. It would apply to any change of circumstance without any regard to degree or nature.
The same sort of criticism applies to new paragraph (c), on
“the extent to which the retained EU case law restricts the proper development of domestic law.”
But what do we mean by “proper development” of domestic law? Who is to judge what is proper? Are we to contemplate judge-made or statute law, which are extraordinarily different? Does this concept not drag judges into political and perhaps partisan areas? A determination by a judge on what the law ought to be is, in many senses, to intrude into a political decision that judges would be well advised to avoid.
Precisely the same criticisms apply to the word “influenced” in new paragraph (a) in Clause 7(4), to which Amendment 87 applies. They also apply to the phrase “would depart”, to which Amendment 87A applies. Giving practical interpretation or advice on the meaning of these words is almost impossible, which inevitably impacts on compliance by individuals and the doing of justice by the courts. For the reasons that I have briefly outlined, these proposed provisions, as presently incorporated in the Bill, are profoundly objectionable and should not feature in this legislation—but, in conclusion, I say that this applies to the entirety of the Bill.
Lord Etherton (CB)
My Lords, as a result of the lack of time to address the amendments to Clause 7 last Thursday, the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge, Lord Hope and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, are not able to speak to the amendments to Clause 7 in their names. As your Lordships will see, I have been asked to do so on their behalf. These are Amendments 83, 87, 87A, 87B, 90, 91 and 93. I will also support Amendments 85 and 88 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. A number of these amendments are quite technical so, rather than weary the House with detailed observations on each of them, I will take a broad approach, in the hope that the Minister will permit a meeting when the others can be elaborated further.
Broadly speaking, the amendments fall into two parts, the first of which comprises amendments to the provisions in Clause 7(3) and (4), about the circumstances in which the court may depart from retained EU case law and retained domestic case law—these are Amendments 83 to 89. The second group concerns the procedure on references of points of law arising from retained law in lower courts or tribunals—this is in Clause 7(8). Like many of the earlier provisions of the Bill that were discussed, the issue of legal certainty runs through the first group of amendments. They either involve removing provisions that create uncertainty, or invite the insertion of new provisions to bolster certainty and predictability. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, referred to one of the most egregious of these tests: that of
“any changes of circumstances which are relevant to the retained EU … law”—
this is in Clause 7(3), which inserts new Section 6(5)(b) into the 2018 Act. I also cite another test:
“any changes of circumstances which are relevant to the retained domestic case law”—
this is in Clause 7(4), which inserts new Section 6(5ZA)(b) into the 2018 Act. These are too wide, too uncertain and, above all, subjective.
Looking at the issue from a slightly different perspective from those that have been debated in the past, I will concentrate, in broad terms, on the position of UK plc. Legal certainty is critical to the position of the courts of this country as one of the most important litigation centres in the world. The United Kingdom attracts international disputes of huge value and complexity because of the intellectual standard of the judges in our higher courts, the absence of corruption in the judiciary and, critically, the predictability and certainty of our legal principles.
This is true not only of general business cases but of particular specialist areas, such as intellectual property. These cases contribute very large amounts to our GDP through the engagement of lawyers, bankers, accountants, experts and other relevant disciplines. In its report, published on 7 December 2022, TheCityUK stated:
“Legal services contributed £30.7 billion to the UK economy in 2021”,
posting a trade surplus of £5.4 billion, and:
“Parties from 75 countries used the Commercial Courts in 2021/22”.
It continued:
“The UK is the largest legal services market in Europe (valued at £41 billion in 2021) and is second only to the US globally.”
Unpredictability and uncertainty in the law and dispute resolution put this pre-eminence at risk. As a country, we cannot afford to allow that to happen.
In large international cases, the claimants usually have a choice of places in which to litigate. The idea that existing law can be departed from because of any changes in circumstances which the court may consider relevant—which could include, for example, the political manifesto or aspirations of the Government of the day or some new government policy—would greatly undermine the attractiveness of this jurisdiction.
I will illustrate this briefly by reference to what, in the case of many major businesses, is one of their most important assets: their intellectual property. Our trademark law is derived entirely from EU law. Our Trade Marks Act 1994 gives effect to an EU directive. Since its enactment, the case law has been determined partly by EU case law, especially where there has been a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union or an appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union from the EU Intellectual Property Office, and partly by our domestic law in interpreting and applying the 1994 Act. In fact, there is a huge body of EU law relevant to trademarks; it therefore falls squarely within Clause 7 of the Bill and the amendments to the 2018 Act introducing the “any change of circumstances” test.
Large international companies, such as Sony, Nokia, Eli Lilly or Pfizer, to name but a few, which conduct their business in many countries across the world, generally have a choice as to the country in which they wish to bring their proceedings. Although, strictly speaking, each country can only make decisions limited to its territorial boundaries, a decision in any one of the major IP litigation centres, such as France, Germany, the Netherlands or the United Kingdom, will be accepted as determinative everywhere. The fact is that, if there is a broad, unlimited “change of circumstances” principle for departing from the existing law, one of the parties to the litigation will almost always invoke it. If they do so, and do so successfully, there is absolutely no certainty as to what would replace the existing law. All this would fatally undermine the certainty of our law and be a huge disincentive to litigating in this country when another is available.
The same is equally true of design law and registered designs. In this country, that law, set out in the Registered Designs Act 1949, has been substantially rewritten, particularly in relation to what is a registrable design, to give effect to an EU directive. This is also true of large parts of our law relating to copyright. The word “influenced” in the proposed new Section 6(5ZA)(a)—see Amendment 87—has been referred to earlier in today’s debates. It would, in some trademark, design and copyright cases, be difficult now to disentangle which parts of the law have been influenced by EU law and which are purely domestic in origin.
In the area of patent law, the same position applies in relation to supplementary protection certificates, which operate to extend the patent in certain circumstances. Litigation in these areas of the law can be of huge value and economic significance.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
The Committee will be aware that I am not a fan of this Bill because it marginalises Parliament. Therefore, I was pleased to be able to put my name to and speak to the group of amendments beginning with Amendment 32, moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and also spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane.
I have to say, as I said the other evening, that I sometimes find that we seem to be facing in all directions. I mentioned before about how one group of people were concerned to get clarity as soon as possible and therefore wanted to foreshorten the sunset clause. There were others who wanted to have time for consultation to bring people along and therefore lengthen the sunset clause. I never quite heard a serious reconciliation of those points of view.
I have to say that on this group of amendments, I have the same concern. I recognise that I am putting my head into not one legal lion’s mouth but several simultaneously, and I do so with due care, not being a lawyer. First, I note the emphasis on the importance attributed to certainty, clarity and predictability. That comes up in Amendment 85, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. It is referred to again in Amendments 86, 88 and 89. I get that: even I, as a non-lawyer, can see that certainty, clarity and predictability are quite important.
Then I look at some of the other amendments—Amendments 81, 90 and 92—and I see that we are changing “must” to “may”. As a non-lawyer, I feel that “must” to “may” does not increase predictability and clarity. Then, in Amendment 91, we have
“ought to be considered at that time”.
That seems to me, from the point of view of clarity and predictability, to run in completely the opposite direction. Where we had, in paragraph 4, on page 7, “a court must”, it is now “a court may”, and to the end of that is added
“and ought to be considered at that time”.
I am happy to be corrected because I am not a lawyer, but as a non-lawyer this seems to me to be running in both directions, and not to have the sort of clarity, predictability and certainty that I can quite understand. It seems to muddy waters that a previous series of amendments had sought to clarify.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 85 and 88, as a co-signatory of both those amendments, led by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, who unfortunately cannot be here today. He has been kind enough to share his thinking with me.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
And his notes, indeed, although any use I make of them is entirely down to me.
I want to start by reflecting that in the last group, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who is no longer in his place, rather airily dismissed a question from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who was seeking to find out what “domestic principles of interpretation” means. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said, “Oh, it is quite clear: the courts know what ‘domestic principles of interpretation’ means”. Fine, we rely on the courts, as we do. I think it is an answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson: the courts know what they are doing, so if we use the word “may”, that is predictability, because the courts generally follow precedent and know what they are doing. If we tell them they “must” do something, that actually constrains them in a rather awkward and unpredictable way. That is my understanding, anyway. I found the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, masterful.
The Minister told us in discussing the last group that the courts know what they are doing, but in Clause 7 they are told what to do by the Government. As I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said, the drafting appeared to lack any litigation or judicial experience. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, pointed out—I cannot remember her exact words, but I interpret what she said—that she found it rather impertinent of the Government. I may be over-reading what I heard, but the courts know what they are doing and the Government come along and are prescriptive about what they are allowed to do. Arguably, Clause 7 is unnecessary, but the amendments seek at least to improve it. By the way, I am grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for pointing out that the amendments to Clause 7 are pretty complicated and convoluted, and it might have been better just to provide an alternative text to substitute a new Section 6 of the EU withdrawal Act, rather than making pages of amendments.
The fact is that the higher appeal courts are already not bound by retained EU case law and can depart from it if it is right to do so. This test is well established, having been set out in the House of Lords Practice Statement in 1966. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said, the Court of Appeal comprehensively considered the power to depart from retained EU case law in the case of TuneIn Inc v Warner Music UK. It considered various factors but decided not to depart from retained EU case law. You would get another impression from government explanations and commentary.
The courts in this case, and in other scenarios, have made comprehensive analyses and have given balanced reasons why and when the courts should or should not overturn settled case law. One of the things cited in that Court of Appeal case was the need to balance the need not to
“unduly restrict the proper development of the law”
with
“too rigid adherence to precedent.”
They are conducting that balancing exercise, but they drew particular attention to the special need for certainty in the law. Therefore, they gave legal certainty a particular value which must not be overlooked.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
I am listening carefully to what the noble Baroness is saying, but it has nothing to do with “predictable”. Everything she is saying about the way the law works is unpredictable because it depends on how the courts interpret it at the time. The idea that we are putting the emphasis on predictability in these amendments seems to me to be inaccurate.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
I trust the courts; clearly, the noble Lord does not. I believe that the courts do know what they are doing, and that we have an extremely experienced and valuable judiciary. That is why, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, pointed out, lots of people come here to use the UK courts, particularly in London. The Government do not seem to have given any consideration to the fact that they are undermining the extremely valuable legal services that London sells to the world. They did not give consideration to service industries during Brexit generally, but this one brings in a lot of money for the UK economy and is being totally undermined, not least by this Bill.
Legal certainty was given a particular value by the Court of Appeal, but the Bill overlooks it, as many noble Lords have said, and detracts from the courts’ ability to do their job. In the notes from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson—which, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, pointed out, I do have—he points out that Amendments 85 and 88 in his name are very moderate. Amendment 85 leaves intact the power of the courts to depart from retained EU case law, and Amendment 88 would retain domestic case law. They even leave intact the three factors the Government wish them to have regard to. The noble Lord says that he is persuaded, having seen Amendments 83, 84 and 87, that those factors—if they are to be kept—really need to be amended, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope, Lord Judge and Lord Thomas. The factors specified in the clause at present each militate in favour of departing from existing law. It seems to have been concluded that the judges require a powerful shove in the direction of the unknown. That is another seam of this Bill: we are jumping off a cliff edge and into a void.
All this is the antithesis, as has been said several times—the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who was interrupted at one point by the Government Front Bench, said how un-Conservative this Bill is. It requires leaps into voids and unknowns and off cliffs—
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
The noble Baroness is entirely right about the leap into the unknown. Does this not emphasise the point that members of the public cannot understand what the law is? That prejudices compliance and the ability of advisers to give good advice.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
The noble Viscount is absolutely right, and I agreed with every word of his earlier contribution.
What the amendments do, instead having of a one-way impetus to the judges, is to introduce some balance to the exercise. Both these amendments would introduce two factors—they are repeated for the two scenarios—which might incline the judge in favour of caution:
“the consequences of disturbing a settled understanding of the law”
and
“the importance of legal certainty, clarity and predictability”.
The amendments give the judges more space for their judgment, which is—I am quoting the notes of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson—“after all what judges are for”. What is the point of having judges if all they have to do is read the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill? Good luck with that.
Then the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, says of the quotation and reference in the Explanatory Notes to the Court of Appeal case of TuneIn Inc v Warner Music Ltd that “this, I am afraid, is disingenuous and I do hope the Minister will not repeat it from the Dispatch Box”. I am looking at the Minister—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy—and hoping that he does not do that, because TuneIn was a case in which the Court of Appeal decided not to depart from the jurisprudence of the CJEU for a number of reasons which were carefully enumerated. One decisive factor was that to
“return to the drawing board and start all over again … would create considerable legal uncertainty”.
So, the judges are stressing continuity, predictability, being able to weigh up factors and not being constrained. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, with respect, that he has got this wrong: if you say that the judges must do something and allow them to take into account only certain factors, it does not allow them to exercise their training and judgment. That is what we pay them for: to continue the law to provide the predictability that we need.
I finish by conveying that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, wanted to register his strong support for Amendments 90 to 93 in the names of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope, Lord Judge and Lord Thomas. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said: “They know a thing or two about the pressures of business in the highest courts, and this Bill is going to create a tsunami of business for lawyers. A sturdy floodgate is needed if those courts are not to be swamped, and these amendments provide one.” I respectfully recommend these amendments to the Committee.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, your Lordships may have noticed that there is a rather cruder amendment in my name towards the end of this group: Amendment 99A. I am not a lawyer, but much of my life in politics and trade unionism and as a consumer champion has been defined by decisions of the British courts—some of the most important of which have been influenced by European law or by the judgments of the European courts. The advances we have made on equalities, employment rights, a number of consumer items and the environment, and indeed on issues such as intellectual property and digital protection and so forth, have been in large part—not entirely; I will not overstate the case—affected by European law, now called retained EU law, or the European courts’ own judgments which have been followed by the British courts.
In the exchange between the noble Lord, Lord Callanan—he is not here at the moment; I welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy—and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said that the courts will go on interpreting cases as they have done from time immemorial. However, from time immemorial, the courts have interpreted the law on the basis of what is on the statute book at that time. They continue to do so until that law is changed by this Parliament. The implications of parts of Clause 7 are that that will no longer be the case; that the courts will need to have less regard to the types of cases that arose because they were influenced, at least in part, by European law; and that European decisions will not need to be held in the same regard in future. That is the purpose of Clause 7, which is why my amendment would delete it.
I largely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that it could be rewritten—we do need some guidance on case law—but this is taking it in entirely the wrong direction and destabilising what has, from time immemorial, been the basic role of the British courts in interpreting legislation. If the Government and Parliament change the law, that changes it; some of those cases no longer have the same effect as they do at the moment. However, if we take Clause 7 as it stands, we are undermining a number of improvements in the conditions of our people and, at the same time, undermining the credibility, consistency and historical role of our courts. I therefore suggest to the Government that they should remove this clause. If the Bill proceeds—noble Lords know that I am not in favour of it—the Government could come back with a rather more sensible Clause 7. However, as it presently stands, it is one that we ought to oppose root and branch.
The role of our legal system is being undermined by a political doctrine that has yet to find its way into the legislation and the statutory law of our land. That is a dangerous road that we should not go down; I therefore suggest that we remove Clause 7 and think again.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I have no legal training, so I going to rely on noble and learned Lords to tell me whether I have understood this whole section properly. It seems a bit odd.
In contrast to the first clauses of this Bill, which have been designed by the Government to take power away from Parliament—all the decision-making process and scrutiny—Clause 7 seems designed to outsource the task of making sense of the huge legal mess in the Bill. It is wrong on many levels but, in particular, it calls on judges to make political decisions that Parliament ought to take instead. The Bill is potentially going to create a huge legal mess; it does not seem fair for the Government to outsource this issue. That is worrying enough on its own, but it is all the more worrying because of the way in which this Government have demonised lawyers and judges over the past two or three years. They have been scapegoated at every twist and turn of the Brexit process. It has been a nightmare to see people who clearly have our best interests at heart being demonised in this way.
Clause 7 seems to have a very specific purpose. Forgive me if my language is oversimplified but, quite honestly, the Government are making a huge legal mess and are going to ask other people—judges, lawyers and the courts—to sort it out for them so that those people will take the blame when it all falls apart. Can the Minister explain whether I have understood it properly?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, I have been looking forward to this group of amendments because I thought that this might be the moment when we got to the nuts and bolts of how this is all going to work. It is a real pleasure to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, in his place for this group. We welcome him and hope that he can provide some clarity on the Government’s intentions here. I have tabled a couple of amendments but all the amendments in this group attempt a similar thing, which is to neuter Clause 7 to some extent and, should Clause 7 persist, to balance out some of the instruction to courts.
There are some very helpful amendments, particularly those tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, which have been referred to by others. What troubles me most about this is that we are endangering the legal certainty, clarity and predictability that are so important. The problem is that retained law will now be reinterpreted. Law can now be given a fresh interpretation so that laws which are still in force as of 31 December 2023 might mean something different from what they meant when they were passed and from how courts have interpreted them if they have been considered by the courts previously. They will mean something else after the end of this year.
From the citizen’s point of view, a major requirement of law is that they know what the law means. If we pass this Bill, that requirement no longer applies to this section of law—in respect of huge swathes of important regulations, from environment and employment to product safety and consumer protections. I will not go into all the examples that we have been talking about on previous days, but the Minister will know what I am trying to get across to him. We just do not know what the effect of this will be. It is impossible to tell from the Bill as it is drafted. The Government cannot possibly know either. They cannot know today, when they are asking us to consider this legislation, the effect that applying different canons of construction will have on thousands of pages of regulation. No Government could think that the best way to remove EU law is to replace it with law the meaning of which is yet unknown. That was my understanding of this, and I am grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who took time yesterday to talk to me about this, to ensure that I was getting this right. This is the situation as he sees it as well. It is quite extraordinary.
I note the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on the coherence of civil law, which no one else has referred to. I had not considered this before listening to her speech. She made an important point there. Her points about Clause 7 in relation to the operation in Scotland are also important and it would be very useful if the Minister could respond to those specifically.
We have had some great experience brought to this group, not least by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It would be wise of the Minister to respect that contribution, which I am sure he will. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, asked: who will judge what is proper? This gets to the heart of this clause and why we are concerned about it. Who will decide, and by what criteria? Clause 7(4) says:
“A higher court may depart from its own retained domestic case law if it considers it right to do so having regard to”,
before going on to list other things.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group. I will start with some general comments and observations on Clause 7 and thereby deal also with Amendment 99A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, which would remove Clause 7 altogether.
In short, Clause 7 gives higher UK courts greater flexibility to depart from retained EU case law than is currently the case. I emphasise first that we are talking about appeal decisions. First-instance courts continue to be bound and that is an important part of any answer to the points raised about legal certainty. Currently, the Supreme Court or the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, and other higher courts, must apply the same tests that they would apply if departing from their own previous case law.
Clause 7 lowers the bar somewhat. It provides that, in deciding whether to depart, the court must have regard to, among other things, the principle that decisions of a foreign court are not, generally speaking, binding in UK courts; any change of circumstances relevant; and the extent to which retained EU case law restricts the proper development of domestic law. I will come to the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and to the questions of change of circumstances and the word “proper”, in a moment.
That is a lower bar than is currently the case. It does not necessarily imply a cliff edge or any floodgates; it is looking ahead. We do not know what circumstances will arise as the next 20 or 30 years pass, how things will change and whether existing retained EU case law should be followed. The clause essentially says that it is for the higher UK courts to determine how that case law should develop and that it is not the case that previous EU case law can be changed only if the ECJ says yes. Without such a mechanism it is difficult to credibly say that one has withdrawn from the EU, so, in the Government’s view, some such mechanism is needed.
That is the first and general point. The second is that much, but not all, retained EU law is highly influenced by a context that is no longer relevant to the UK: for example, the need to promote among the 27—previously 28—member states the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and to protect the single market. All of that is reflected in the case law. There is also the common agricultural policy; the quite different institutional structures of the EU, notably the role of the Commission; the, if I may say so, laconic nature of much EU legislation; and the inevitable challenge of finding a common denominator among so many different legal traditions, languages and national backgrounds while, internally, working entirely in French.
One can pay the highest tribute to the way that the CJEU has navigated these difficulties over the years, and I readily do. But it does not follow that case law developed in those circumstances is necessarily suitable for the UK in the future, particularly in a fast-changing world with such things as the digital economy, artificial intelligence, climate change, genetic science, data protection and so forth. These present novel challenges all the time. In the Government’s view, the UK’s higher courts should be fully equipped to deal with them without being constrained by EU jurisprudence if they feel that they should depart therefrom.
Thirdly, if your Lordships will forgive me saying so, we have in this country a pearl beyond price: the common law. It has nurtured and protected us for centuries and has successfully taken root all over the world. By some measures, it is the world’s most widely used legal system. I was asked whether I would refer to the Warner Music case, which is referred to in the Explanatory Notes. The only reference I will make to that case is that made by the Master of the Rolls, the right honourable Sir Geoffrey Vos, who observed that the CJEU is “very far” from being a common law court. In other words, it is a quite different animal from the courts that we traditionally have in this country. We could spend much time philosophising but, in my humble experience, the continental legal tradition places emphasis on identifying abstract legal principles from which a solution may be deduced, while the common law starts from the other end, as it were, with the facts of a particular case and how those facts relate to other decided cases and the legislation in question. The art of distinguishing cases and building a legal system via a mosaic of interrelated cases has been perfected over the centuries by the judges of this country and other common law jurisdictions.
A very experienced solicitor working in a deprived part of north London said to me, when he heard that I had some previous association with the EU, “Don’t let them weaken the common law.” The common law is a people’s law. It comes up from the bottom; it does not come down from the top. In the Government’s view, it is very important that we never underestimate, underplay or weaken the great common law tradition that we have in this country.
That forms an essential part of the background to this clause, which is essentially to enable our judges to use the best of the common law traditions to take us forward. The Government are not saying that any one approach is better than another, only that the common law is in our DNA. Clause 7 will reinforce the common law tradition and allow it to flourish.
That being the essential rationale, I turn to the various amendments suggested to modify the new tests as set out in the Bill. I will first comment on the theme of legal certainty. The common law, as it has developed, has always been fully aware of the need to preserve legal certainty, but that has not inhibited the proper development of the law as the needs arise—I will come to that in a moment. It is always a question of balance. If one bakes in or gives priority to legal certainty one would never change anything. Legal certainty will of course remain an important circumstance, as it was in the Warner Music case—no doubt judges will have regard to it; it will be up to them—but we cannot say that legal certainty means that we have to slavishly follow old EU jurisprudence until the cows come home just because of legal certainty. We have to find a balance. That is one factor among others, but not necessarily a dominant factor.
I turn to the specific amendments. Amendment 81 was moved by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. I am not completely sure that we have in this group all the amendments to which she originally referred in her speech, but we will sort that out through the usual channels, if we may. Amendment 81 would reduce the “must” have regard to “may” have regard. In the Government’s view, this would again tend to bake in the existing situation and enable the courts to ignore changes of circumstances, and to not allow or to continue in a state of undue deference to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
I say “undue”, by which I mean that some deference is clearly highly necessary. In particular, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said, parts of our law where the statute is essentially an EU creation may well be different situations from other parts of the law. I agree, although I am bound to say, on the legal certainty and accessibility of case law to the general public points, that I very much doubt whether any member of the public, having fought through the 25 often conflicting decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the question of communication to the public, which is the subject matter of the Warner Music case, would be much the wiser when it came to working out what the law was. However, that is another matter.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
It also clearly extends to statute-based law. Is that not a case for bringing the courts into expressing a view as to what is essentially the function of Parliament?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the courts are always astute. They sort of intuitively know where they have to stop and where Parliament has to take over. That is a process that has been honed and refined for the past 100 years at least, but it does not prevent the courts moulding, refining and developing the common law. There comes a point where you cannot go further, but quite often in a court you can, especially when you have existing jurisprudence. It is quite early on in the development of a new technology. In the Warner case, we were talking about hyperlinks, graphic interfaces and all sorts of high-technology things with which I am sure your Lordships are extremely familiar, but it is a new area of law, and the courts, generally speaking, work with that until they find that they have gone as far as they can as a court and then Parliament takes over. With respect, I would not completely accept the observation of my noble friend Lord Hailsham that this is usurping Parliament.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I think I understand the Minister’s argument about “proper” in new paragraph (c) in Clause 7(3), but is the wording of this not prejudicial because it assumes that retained EU law restricts the proper development of domestic law? It does not say that the court should consider whether and to what extent retained EU law restricts the proper development of domestic law. It says that it should consider the extent to which it does, assuming that it does. Would it not be better to go for non-prejudicial language, as well as, I hope, including the balancing language in Amendments 83, 85 and 88?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
As far as I know, this is not intended to be prejudicial, but it presupposes a case where there is a tenable argument and it is put to the court that a retained EU law has that effect. Then the court will decide whether it does and what would be the proper development going forward. Taking that intervention on the hoof as it were, I am not sure at first sight that one is convinced that it would be better to change the wording. Let me reflect further.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I am looking at the same clause as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. He asked about new subsection (5) (c). I shall ask the Minister about new subsection (5ZA)(a), in which the courts are being asked to consider
“the extent to which the retained domestic case law is determined or influenced by retained EU case law from which the court has departed or would depart.”
If we are not encouraging courts to depart, why would we be asking them to consider the extent? That seems to raise a question, given what the Minister has just said.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
If I may say so to the noble Baroness, I think this is just a drafting point. The extent may well be nil. There is no particular reason to suppose that the retained EU case law in a particular case is restricting the proper development of domestic law. That was the situation, as it turned out, in the Warner music case, although at least one learned justice in that case very pointedly left open the possibility of further developments in a fast-moving technology.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I was not referring to the proper development of domestic law on this occasion. At the top of page 6, we seem to be asking courts to consider the extent to which EU case law “determined or influenced” in and of itself rather than about the “proper development” which is in new subjection (5)(c). I wonder whether that is, to use the language used by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, prejudicial or leading the court.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I think I can take it not much further than the answer that I have just given—that the extent may well turn out to be nil.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
But why are we asking courts to ask themselves that question?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
The answer is that the courts will not raise these questions of their own motion. These points will be raised by a party to the proceedings. Then the party to the proceedings will argue that this retained domestic law is influenced by EU case law and is now having—or may have in five or 10 years’ time—a restrictive effect that is holding up the common law. Those are the kinds of circumstances that it envisages, I think.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I think the Minister was about to sit down, but he kindly invited me to respond so I will. I think that is the problem. He must surely understand that we anticipate this leading to an enormous amount of uncertainty—if that alone is something a party in the court is able to point judges towards and say that, because the case law came from the EU, in and of itself that is a reason to ask for a decision to be made in a different way.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
Respectfully, as I said a moment ago, I do not accept that this will lead to a great deal of uncertainty. It is binding on the courts of first instance. No one is going to take this to appeal unless there is a real point to be argued. If there is a real point to be argued, it is right that that our courts of appeal and higher courts should consider that point.
Perhaps we have had sufficient exchanges on this topic and I ought to move on as best I can. Finding my place in the notes, I think I have not answered the concerns raised about what we mean by “changes of circumstances” and how we manage that. Again, this is a matter that the common-law courts are very well equipped to deal with and they can decide for themselves whether there has been any relevant change of circumstances or, in particular, whether the change of circumstance is relevant.
I would not have thought that a change of government or a change in the political wind is a relevant change of circumstance. What you need is some circumstance that makes it either difficult to operate, or less than ideal to be bound by, a particular judgment of the European Court of Justice that may have been made many years ago. It may now be completely out of date or may have failed to take account of various factors that the court feels should be taken account of. Very often in a common-law system, when you look at a case and at previous decisions, you see that the particular point had not in fact been decided and you are therefore free to decide it yourself. That is much more difficult to do in a European system, which purports to lay down perfectly general principles.
If I may trespass on your Lordships’ kindness for a moment, it is often quite interesting to look at the summary of a European Court judgment, which in English terms would be referred to as the “headnote” of the case. It extracts principles from the judgment. The equivalent headnote in an English case says: these are the facts, and this is what the decision was on these facts. That encapsulates a difference of approach, thought and philosophy as to how you develop the legal system.
As I said a moment ago, I am not saying that it is better or worse; it is just different. Historically, we in this country belong to a huge family across the world that uses this technique, whether in the United States, Canada, Australia, India—very prominently—or otherwise. The Government are simply saying that we should not forget that we have a great legal tradition and we do not have to, as it were, slavishly follow the latest emanation from those very hard-working, very able, but not necessarily relevant to us, judgments and judges in Luxembourg.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I have listened very carefully, and there is a fundamental flaw in my noble friend’s argument as it relates to Scotland. Scotland has a mixed legal system. I am a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates. I chose to go and practise EU law because every reference was either passed down to London or you could practise EU law in Brussels; there were very few opportunities to practise at the Scottish Bar. But my noble friend must accept that the Scottish system—which, I would hazard a guess, has many advantages over the English system—is based on Roman law. It is based on a system of codified law, and what distinguishes it fundamentally from what he has just described about the common-law system is that it is a mixed legal system. I wonder whether he would like to address this in his remarks, given the comments that I made in relation to the amendments that I spoke to—Amendments 81, 82, 84 and 94—and mindful of the fact that I am approaching this from a mixed civil and common-law system.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh for that intervention, and I stand corrected. She is completely right that Scotland is a mixed system, although I venture to suggest much influenced—if I may use that controversial word for a moment—by the common law. As I said a moment ago, Scottish judges have been, frankly, the best common lawyers anyone has ever known. They happen all to be called Reid but that is a coincidence.
Of course, I accept the comment, although I beg to differ as to whether any different conclusion follows. Essentially, the “may”, “must” and other amendments that the noble Baroness has proposed are independent of the exact legal approach one is talking about. It may well be that, in a Scottish situation, there would be a greater willingness not to disturb retained case law than in an English situation. I do not know; maybe these things will come up to the Supreme Court and someone will say “That is what we are going to do”. Maybe the Scottish tradition will prevail; that is perfectly likely. With respect, the Government do not feel that that changes the general thrust of Clause 7.
That was changes of circumstances. The next question is on this word “influence”—whether it has been influenced or determined by European law. I think “influenced” is included simply to give a sufficient degree of flexibility and to avoid deciding what might be quite a difficult point: whether European law was in fact determinative of a particular point or just part of the general context. Very often, it is part of the general context and the influence of the European element on the final outcome.
On that point—I am not sure we picked it up entirely; I may be speaking out of turn—I shall, if I may, at least attempt a reply to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on the question of principles of interpretation. I think it is relevant to the influence point. It arises in the context of legislation. Many here will know better than me, but the essential difference, as I understand it, is that traditional common law, including the Scottish approach, is a highly textual interpretation: what the meaning of the words is. The European Court’s general approach is a teleological interpretation of the general idea of where the statute is going. Very often, because of the laconic and sometimes completely deficient nature of European legislation, that court is much more prepared to fill in the gaps in the legislation than an English court would be. It is along those general lines; I am sure we can elaborate further as necessary later in these proceedings. So that is the influence point.
I think I have dealt with adding in the factors of settled understanding, legal certainty and so forth. The Government do not support that approach because it would simply bake in the status quo; that is the Government’s essential position. Legal certainty is inevitably something the courts will consider. They considered it in the Warner Music case because they were dealing with an international treaty and there was a desire not to disturb the law—albeit that the law was a right old muddle, as far as one can see, if I may put it colloquially just for a moment. In that case, it was not actually very seriously argued that we should depart from EU law; it was a perfunctory argument that took place in a few minutes at the end of the day, so it was a bit of a non-event.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
I apologise if I am interrupting the Minister before he has finished; I think he is replying to Amendments 85 and 88, although he did not specifically refer to them. He dismisses the need for the factors introduced in those amendments because he says the courts can have regard to them anyway. Why have the Government prescribed several elements themselves if the courts can have regard to them? Our whole argument is that the courts can have regard to factors they want to have regard to. The impetus behind Amendments 85 and 88 was that the Government were being partial and pushing in a certain direction for the three elements they will allow the courts to consider—the argument for adding the extra elements, the consequences of disturbing the settled understanding of the law and the importance of legal certainty, clarity and predictability—and to try to re-establish the balance that the authors of the amendments felt was lacking.
If I may say so, I find the Minister’s reply so far extremely puzzling. He has, correctly, given a paean of praise to our courts and the common law, saying that they have perfected the art of creating this mosaic—
Lord Harlech (Con)
I ask the noble Baroness to put her question to the Minister.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
Yes, I am getting to it. I want an explanation. I said the Minister’s reply was “puzzling” but, if I may say so, I want to say “contradictory” and “does not add up”. I want to press the Minister to clarify what he has said. I find it really quite irritating that Ministers keep interrupting us when we are trying to say something. The fact is that the Minister has praised our common-law courts and said they have not been inhibited in the proper development of the law and so on, but now he wants—
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True)
My Lords, at the previous stage I reminded the House, I thought courteously, of chapter 4.29 of the Companion, where it is made perfectly clear that lengthy and frequent interventions are not desirable, whether or not the Minister accepts them. This is Committee. The noble Baroness can return with a reasoned response to what the Minister has said, but I think it is to the advantage of the House generally in our debates to hear the Minister’s arguments and then respond in a proper Committee manner. If I may, the noble Baroness’s intervention seemed to me to be getting into the category of “lengthy”.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
Before the Leader of the House sits down, perhaps he could just clarify that point. I have always understood that Committee stage in this House is about having a conversation so that the House as a whole can understand the nature of the arguments. With all due respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, with whom I often disagree, I think she is trying to get some elucidation, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Bellamy, will answer fully in a moment.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True)
I say to the noble Lord that the answer is precisely so; it is a conversation, but that conversation is conducted politely one to another. It is perfectly correct and reasonable for the House to ask a question for elucidation in the course of a Minister’s remarks, but a lengthier intervention criticising the Minister’s argument follows naturally in the Committee conversation afterwards.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
If I may be permitted to finish, I have now had three interventions from the Government Front Bench, which of course have lengthened this intervention. I ask the Minister please to explain how his paean of praise to our courts and their ability to develop the common law without inhibition accords with the constraints and straitjackets the Bill is putting on the courts he is praising.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s position is that this is not a straitjacket. The courts are required to look at three things: the fact that the retained EU case law is made by a different court, whether there has been a relevant change of circumstances, and how the proper development of the common law should continue in future.
As to why we have not included other considerations—notably, legal certainty—the Government’s position, which noble Lords may or may not agree with but this is the explanation, is that once you write down the importance of legal certainty, that is potentially a recipe for passively doing nothing and continuing to be a rule taker for 20 years to come. That is not the consequence of withdrawing from the EU. The courts can continue to look at it, but that is the reason why the Government have drafted Clause 7 as it is.
I hope I have dealt with most of the issues raised about Clause 7 one way or another. There is the reference procedure, and noble Lords, and noble and learned Lords, have made the point that higher courts always have the discretion whether to take a case, and they should be able to decline it. I completely understand that point. The Government had thought that the ability of those superior courts—the higher courts or the Supreme Court—to decide whether what they were being asked to do was relevant and whether the point raised was of general public importance was sufficient protection and would enable them to decline to hear the case if that were so. I must say that the circumstances in which a lower court actually gets as far as making a reference and identifying a point of public importance that a superior court feels it should not hear seem to me, if I may say so, somewhat remote, but we can have another look at the drafting if there is a need for further reassurance. I cannot commit to changing it, but I can commit to looking at it and discussing it with the relevant persons.
Lord Etherton (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister please reply to the point I made? The situation may be such, as we know from bitter experience, that you can identify an important point of law in a case but, unless it is dispositive of the whole of it, it will lead to further expense and time. That may apply equally to this point of law as to any other. There is no special feature regarding points of law relating to retained law, as opposed to points of law in any case.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
That might raise the question of whether indeed it was relevant. You could say, “That’s not relevant here because it’s not dispositive”, or “It’s only one point among several”. However, I say to the noble and learned Lord that the Government will have another look at this. There is no point in having provisions that are not satisfactory in this regard.
That takes me to the law officer reference and intervention powers. On the essential points made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh about the position of the Lord Advocate, I hope she will bear with me. My understanding of the exact position of the Lord Advocate is probably not as good as hers and that of other noble Lords in the Committee. Essentially, the law officer reference power provides another mechanism for resolving these various points, and it gives the UK law officers and the relevant officers of the devolved Governments a statutory right to be considered and so forth. It does not extend the Lord Advocate’s powers to anything outside the devolved competence of the Scottish Government, any more than it does for the Counsel General for Wales or the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland. The Government’s view on this point is that the other law officers in the devolved Governments should be involved in matters that affect the devolved Governments and not matters that are retained UK law. That is the Government’s position.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
The Minister does not have to be sorry. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, was only coughing.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I am sorry. I am rather nervous when noble Lords come at me from all directions, especially the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
That is quite all right.
This is the logic of the approach. It is a cross-UK approach and not a Scotland-specific approach. It does not seem appropriate that the previous functions of the Lord Advocate, so far as they have been retained, should change.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I am sorry. I was saying that this is a structure that gives the UK law officers power in relation to UK competence and the devolved Governments power in relation to their competence. That is the structure of it all.
Amendment 101, on the question of incompatibility orders, is described as a probing amendment. Again, this has precedence in other parts of the statute book. The Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 has a similar power. If there is a point of incompatibility, the courts are given a power to manage that; it would probably mean deferring making an order for six months until the Government could fix it, as did the Court of Appeal in the Open Rights Group v The Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: we have found a problem, and we are going to give you time to come up with solution, whether it is legislative or otherwise. In that particular case, the power was said by the Court of Appeal to derive from EU powers, but this is giving the court power under domestic legislation. I hope it is a sensible process for making the compatibility mechanisms work properly if incompatibility is found, which is likely to be a fairly rare event. I hope I have covered most points, if not all.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I am very grateful to the Minister for the skill with which he is trying to explain to a layman like me abstruse points of law. Could he give us a worked example, please? I was struck by what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said about the potential cost to the country of a loss of clarity. Take his example of the copyright law of the United Kingdom, which, he said, was virtually exclusively based on EU law. What changes of circumstances do the Government envisage that the courts should be considering when they consider cases that are tried under the present British copyright law? The only change of circumstances I can think of is if the Government were to pass new legislation on copyright. I do not think that is the plan, but if they do not, what are the courts supposed to do? What change of circumstances would they have to consider?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, fortunately, I think I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for only one example, and so I will just give one because it is getting quite late. The example is changes in technology, which are moving very quickly. The Warner case, which has now been mentioned several times, was a case in which a radio station in the US put some music in a hyperlink on its website. Consumers in the UK could click on the link on that website, and the question was whether the UK copyright holders could get a royalty on that even though the UK user was accessing it in the United States—it does not matter if it is the United States, Taiwan or anywhere else. In that kind of area, the technology is moving very quickly. The existing EU decisions are not entirely consistent, and it can be easily envisaged that in some future situation, where some technology that we do not yet understand or know of has come into being, a UK court might take a different view and distinguish previous EU jurisprudence. That sort of situation is more than likely to happen at some stage.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, it has been a lengthy and thorough debate, and I fear it has not gone quite as smoothly as my noble and learned friend the Minister would have wished. I am pleased he has conceded that Scots rule approaches this from a different angle. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has not been able to be present today, and I do not think my noble and learned friend has entirely answered the concerns of either the Royal Society of Scotland or the noble and learned Lord. In particular, my noble and learned friend has not addressed the question of why there is no corresponding restraint on the powers of any other UK law officer—for example, the England or Wales law officer—but only on the Scotland law officer. I would like to understand, perhaps at a meeting before Report, why that is the case. It is quite serious.
My noble and learned friend spoke at length about why retained EU law is historic now, but we are in a situation where court cases may arise. For example, the chemical industry here is going to be covered by the fledgling UK REACH programme, but the industry would also hope to export to the EU and so will have to meet the terms of the EU REACH programme. Does my noble and learned friend not accept that there will be cases that relate to this?
I fear that Clause 7 is an exam question seeking to show that, on appeal, there will be no reliance on retained EU law going forward. I think that was the wrong question to put, as has been adequately set out to such an extent that a distinguished former President of the Family Division, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said it is offensive to treat judges in this way, as did my noble friend Lord Hailsham, in slightly less graphic language.
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, for speaking to the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I believe that work is not complete on this chapter but, with the promise of a meeting before Report, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I will move the Motion, in the name of my noble friend Lord Fox, that Clause 10 do not stand part of the Bill. I am relying on the persuasive report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which points out that the powers in Clause 10 to amend retained direct EU legislation affect over 50% of retained EU law, because 50% is retained direct EU legislation. At present, much of this can be amended only by primary legislation or Henry VIII powers. So Clause 10 in fact downgrades the status of retained direct EU legislation.
The DPRRC quotes the delegated powers memorandum from the Government, which says that they are doing this so that such law
“can be amended by ordinary powers to amend secondary legislation”
to “save parliamentary time”. As the committee remarks, perhaps somewhat caustically,
“the argument based on saving parliamentary time is unpersuasive. It should be for Parliament to say what is the best use of its time.”
So it seems a little forward of the Government to make that assertion on behalf of Parliament.
However, as the committee points out, retained direct EU legislation
“has a special status because much of it is of considerable significance in policy terms”.
Therefore, it is necessary for Parliament to keep control of which elements of the law to keep, amend or repeal. The committee says:
“Clause 10 … is an unacceptable interference with the position in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 that substantial policy changes should be for Parliament to decide in primary legislation rather than for Ministers to decide in secondary legislation.”
We have made that point repeatedly during the proceedings on the Bill. The Government broke a pledge. When the EU withdrawal Act went through, we were repeatedly assured that it would be for Parliament to make decisions about what retained EU law to amend and how to do so. But then the Bill comes along, and they do not even admit that this is a complete switch of approach and a grabbing back of powers for the Executive—but that is what it is.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 104, 115, 116, 122, 124 and 125 in my name, and in support of Amendment 141 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. Amendment 104 again substitutes the end of 31 December 2028 in place of 2023, as the statutory deadline, to enable more means for the Government or any of the devolved Administrations to consult, to analyse the results of such a consultation and to prepare legislation. This would also enable Parliament or the devolved legislatures to consider and pass the legislation. By the time the Bill receives Royal Assent, there simply would not be enough time, given the parliamentary recesses in place, to conclude such an exercise. So, in my humble submission, the deadline needs to be extended to allow time for proper legislative practice to be completed.
Amendment 115—
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Before my noble friend proceeds to the next amendment, she has gone on about the uncertainty created by revising this legislation, but surely the longer the period you create to consider all of that, the more uncertainty you cause.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I would agree with my noble friend if we knew which bits of REUL were being repealed, which were being revoked and which were being reformed—but, as we speak, we do not. As we know, many devolved measures are simply not on the dashboard at the moment, which makes that time even more unacceptable.
Amendment 115 requires a “relevant national authority” or “Minister of the Crown” to consult those who may be affected by regulations under Clause 15(2) before making them. All relevant national authorities will be required to publish the results of this consultation. The idea is to oblige the Minister of the Crown to consult the devolved Administrations before making regulations that concern them.
Amendment 116 makes similar provisions under Clause 15(3), so the same comments apply there. Amendment 122 also extends the statutory deadline from 23 June 2026 to a similar deadline of 31 December 2028, allowing more time than permitted under the present deadline to ensure that all legislation which will be encapsulated will be covered through a consultation, and to allow time for consulting and analysing the results of such a provision. Amendments 124 and 125 are simply consequential to that.
I do not know if the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, will speak to Amendment 141 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, but I conclude by saying that I support his amendment, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, has added her name. I welcome the fact that the
“amendment modifies the powers conferred on Ministers of the Crown when making regulations in devolved areas under this Schedule so that the power may only be exercised with the consent of the Scottish or Welsh Ministers.”
I hope that my noble friend the Minister, when summing up, will look favourably on those amendments in this group.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I will follow the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. I have added my name to the question on whether Clause 10 should stand part of the Bill. As noble Lords know, my view is that the Government really have a responsibility to withdraw the entire Bill; they should take it away and have civil servants work up all the policy developments that are assumed in it. As it stands, decisions on all these policy areas will simply be left to Ministers to make through delegated legislation; that is not acceptable at all. I was strongly supported by my noble friends Lord Wilson and Lord Lisvane and many others when I made this point in an earlier debate.
Clause 10 transfers powers wholesale from the EU to Ministers, who will then decide which regulations to propose. It includes extensive amendments to Part 1 of Schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. In omitting sub-paragraphs (1) to (5) of paragraph 4, the Government are further reducing the power of the UK Parliament with respect to retained EU legislation, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, with particular respect to retained direct EU law. The Government justify that on the basis that retained direct EU law did not have as much parliamentary scrutiny as other parts of retained EU law, but that was because the UK was bound to comply with retained direct EU law under the treaty of Rome. We are now not in the EU—we are in an entirely different situation—and the UK Parliament needs to take over responsibility for this area of law, which represents at least 50% of retained EU law.
As noble Lords know, we parliamentarians cannot amend secondary legislation. It would be extremely difficult in this context for Parliament to reject the secondary legislation involved, and therefore Parliament will have no option, in my view, but to accept the delegated powers we are talking about here. Surely this is entirely unacceptable. Ministers’ regulations across a vast range of policies will affect the entire UK population very considerably.
Clause 10 radically changes the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, affecting a huge transfer of powers from Parliament to Ministers. This is in conflict with stated government policy and the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill. Clause 10 should not stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher; I agree with everything she said. I also very much agree with the previous speakers, including my noble friend Lady Ludford.
I will make a point in response to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, when he questioned the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on whether her amendments would delay the process and whether that would be a problem. The fundamental problem we have is set out very clearly by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in paragraph 35 of its 25th report, which quotes from the RDEUL memorandum:
“Overall, the change in status will make it possible to amend or repeal a greater amount of RDEUL using secondary legislation, which will enhance the ability for amending RDEUL more quickly without the need for primary legislation. This is a more proportionate status for RDEUL, as when made it was not subject to the same degree of UK Parliamentary scrutiny as an Act of Parliament or even domestic secondary legislation.”
However, the committee goes on to say that
“RDEUL has a special status because much of it is of considerable significance in policy terms.”
Once again, we have spent most of the last three Committee days discussing issues relating to policy and asking for clarification on when that will be nailed down and understood and when Parliament can look at it before final decisions about the Bill are made.
I return to the question I asked on the first day of Committee: at what point will the dashboard be frozen? After it is frozen, how long will it be before it comes into law? Will it be 31 July, October or 30 December? How do Ministers respond to the issue that Parliament will have to give up a significant role in key policy terms, which is normally part of primary legislation, and which would be moved into secondary legislation under this clause? At the moment, we still do not have an answer as to when Parliament will be able to look at the detail of the dashboard to make decisions on it.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Before the noble Baroness finishes her remarks, I would be grateful if she could answer my question: if you delay the implementation of considering this legislation, do you not create greater uncertainty?
Baroness Brinton (LD)
It is fairly straightforward. Those of us with extreme concerns about the Bill do not want a Bill passed where time after time people, especially the wider public, realise that regulations have been sunsetted without their understanding of the consequences—and without our own Parliament’s understanding of the consequences. Frankly, that is the one delay that really should be put in place, because we do not know what is going to happen.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have tried to follow and to listen to as much of the discussions on the Bill as possible, and I confess that some of the legal arguments happening earlier were beyond me. I will raise a couple of points, the first of which is in relation to the delay. I said at Second Reading, and I maintain the point now, that the Bill has been a long time coming. The public perceive the debate about how we deal with taking control of our own laws, as the UK having left the EU, not in the sense that it has been rushed through, but rather that it has been sluggish and blocked, and that any attempts to try to force through that break from the European Union have been obstructed by people who did not approve of the decision taken in 2016.
I am very sensitive to the perfectly reasonable criticisms made throughout the arguments I have heard. The Minister must give some reassurance that there are no unintended consequences of the Bill and that important laws are not lost that the Government do not intend to lose—those they will lose by accident, as it has been described. That is of some concern. Reassurances that they are in control are not that reassuring when we look at the parlous state of the way everything else is falling apart at the moment. So I have reservations myself; I wanted to clarify that. But saying that we should delay things until 2028 will be seen, understandably, as quite simply putting off the task, and that does not work at all.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
I just wanted to say to the noble Baroness—and I probably will not go into lawmaking in the EU, as the noble Baroness was an MEP herself—that to say that lawmaking in Brussels is not democratic is, to my mind, ridiculous.
I particularly want to address her assertion that objections to this Bill are mired in politics. Had she been here, as I have, through the entire four days—now nearly four and a half—on this Bill, she would know that across the House the objections have been because it is an Executive power grab. Almost no reference has been made to the Brexit referendum or the policy of Brexit. It is about the way that the Bill is constructed and the power that the Government are concentrating in themselves. It is a question of the rights of Parliament and the type of governance we are objecting to. It is not political in that sense. The objections to this Bill are constitutional.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I appreciate that I have not been in the Chamber for all of that time, although I have been here a fair few hours, one way and another, and I have read everything that was said in previous discussions. I do not feel as though I am just wandering in to make this point.
I have also talked to people outside this House about their understanding of this discussion and I am trying to draw attention to that—
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I have got more questions flying at me today.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for giving way for my question to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. If the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is not concerned about Clause 10, does that mean that she disagrees with the very clear comments from the Delegated Powers Committee? It sees it as a power grab and thinks it is a completely inappropriate use of secondary legislation.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I am concerned about aspects of this Bill from a delegated powers point of view, as I have been on a range of Bills that we have had in this House. Maybe it is because, as in the previous intervention, it was made clear to me that there is a disagreement about what democracy is. I do not think that while we were in the European Union that was a democratic, accountable form of lawmaking. I did not make that point. That point has just been made back to me. I am saying that although I understand that the arguments put forward say that they are not replaying a lot of discussions from the past, I think that argument has been implicit in a lot of the discussions. That was certainly what I heard at Second Reading and I have picked it up.
I am also making the point that if there was a genuine enthusiasm from this House about how we can take the opportunity of having left the European Union to now study and look at all of those laws, there might be less cynicism outside this House. That was my point.
I also was making a different point about timing. I have not heard from this House, either while I have been in it or before I got in it and was watching it from the outside, an enthusiasm to rush things through, as soon as we voted in 2016, to say, “Let’s take all the laws. Let’s look at the EU retained laws. Let’s now make a decision about what we do with these laws.” People did not want to do that because they did not accept the decision. Now, people are saying that it is too rushed and that there is a danger that this will come over—as it is doing—as an attempt at blocking taking back control.
As to the delegated powers and the power grab, I am afraid that that is something I have broadly been worried about from this Government, not just with this Bill. I have spoken on it many a time.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 129 and 131 in this group in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and my noble friend Lady Boycott, who, I am sorry to say, are not in their places. These two amendments are about transparency, accountability, and scrutiny, so, in a way, they follow neatly from some of the points the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was making a few moments ago.
Transparency, accountability and scrutiny are surely not contentious concepts so I hope that the Government would agree and therefore sign up to these amendments. Amendment 129, very simply, would require the Government to seek advice from the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland as to whether any proposed changes to the regulations will reduce food safety or other consumer protections in relation to food.
Noble Lords will recall that the Food Standards Agency is the non-ministerial department in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with responsibility for food safety and consumer protection in relation to food. It would surely be bizarre beyond belief not to consult the relevant department and its Scottish counterpart before making any changes to retained EU law. The importance of this underlined by referring back to a previous debate in Committee. I quote from Hansard. I said on 23 February that
“I will quote what Professor Susan Jebb, the chair of the Food Standards Agency, said on 2 November last year:
‘In the FSA, we are clear that we cannot simply sunset the laws on food safety and authenticity without a decline in UK food standards and a significant risk to public health’.”
I then said:
“According to the government department in charge of food safety and standards, the sunset clause is putting public health at risk. There is no point in the Minister trying to deny it, because that is what a government department is saying.”—[Official Report, 23/2/23; col. 1832.]
I will now quote the Minister’s reply because she did indeed deny it by saying:
“Let me assure noble Lords that any decision on REUL reform will not come at the expense of our high standards.”
She added that
“our commitment to not reducing consumer protection remains in place.”—[Official Report, 23/2/23; cols. 1856-57.]
Here you have it in black and white. The head of the relevant government department, Professor Susan Jebb, says that we cannot sunset EU-derived laws without sacrificing consumer safety and other protections. The Minister told this House on 23 February that, in effect, that is a load of rubbish. Who would you believe? I know where my trust lies. It is with the department that has the responsibility and accountability for and expertise in protecting consumers’ interests in relation to food. There could not be a clearer demonstration of why Amendment 129 is essential
Lest this be thought to be some sort of political point, I want to say that when I was chairman of the Food Standards Agency, with a Government of a different political complexion, Ministers were keen to rush to reassure the public on issues to do with food safety, whether it was BSE or foot and mouth disease, and I really had to stand up against pressure from Ministers and say, “No, we can’t provide reassurance on safety”. If this amendment is accepted, it will ensure that the proper expertise, lines of accountability and scrutiny are in place to review any proposed changes in food law.
I turn now to Amendment 131, which is about transparency. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, reminded noble Lords earlier in Committee, the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland published their first annual report on food safety and standards across the UK, entitled Our Food 2021, in June. Here is a quotation from the introduction:
“At a time when the UK is taking on new responsibilities for food following our departure from the European Union … consumers need strong watchdogs looking out for whether standards are being protected. This report—the first in a series to be published annually—will help us do so by providing an objective, data-driven assessment of the safety and standards of food over time.
Why us? Because the Food Standards Agency … and Food Standards Scotland … are together responsible for food standards across the whole of the UK—this is an important, long-term collaboration between our two organisations that should provide greater transparency and accountability for food quality across the four nations. This, in turn, will help us work with food businesses, local authorities and other partners to address any emerging threats or vulnerabilities.”
Amendment 131 simply seeks to put this annual report, or a slightly modified version of it, on a statutory basis. It will tell the public, businesses, the Government and others whether, as result of changes to our laws, food standards and safety are being compromised. How on earth could one object to this transparency?
As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, reminded us the other day in Committee, transparency is one of the keys to trust. It has taken years of work by the Food Standards Agency to rebuild public trust in the UK food system after the disasters of the 1990s, including BSE and salmonella in eggs. Indeed, that is why all parties supported the creation of the Food Standards Agency, so it could be a department that puts consumers’ interests first and rebuilds trust in our food system. Why would the Government wish to squander those gains now? I therefore look forward to the Minister warmly welcoming both my amendments, and to assuring us that the FSA and FSS will have the necessary resources to fulfil the duties that are implied by them. These are very modest changes to the Bill, aimed at improving it, and I hope that, if the Minister does not welcome them, he will at least agree to meet me and others to discuss the implications of not accepting them.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Will the noble Lord explain why the Government would want to compromise the health of the consuming public of this country and undermine our food exports abroad?
Lord Krebs (CB)
That is an extremely good question and I thank the noble Lord for asking it. That is precisely what I would say too. Therefore, if the Government do not want to risk undermining public safety or public confidence in our food businesses, and therefore our food exports, they should accept these amendments. After all, the chairman of the FSA could not have said it more clearly, and I shall just repeat it once more:
“we are clear that we cannot simply sunset the laws on food safety and authenticity without a decline in UK food standards and a significant risk to public health.”
It is not me who is saying this; it is the head of the government department with this responsibility.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I will not detain the Committee for long. Obviously, my noble friend and the Front Bench team oppose Clause 10 standing part of the Bill, for very good reasons, as outlined by the Delegated Powers Committee. I shall just address the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, on this point: no one disputes that what the country and the Government wanted was a transition. They voted for a transition, returning to Parliament the powers to make laws. That was actually what was contained in the 2018 withdrawal Act, and we now have a policy change: it will no longer be the responsibility of Parliament to revoke, retain or advise; it will be a government Minister.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, we have ensured that the Bill contains robust scrutiny mechanisms that will enable the appropriate scrutiny of any amendments or repeals of retained EU law made by the powers included in the Bill. The debate touched on two different things: we need to differentiate between the effects of Clause 10 and the application of pre-existing delegated powers contained in other Acts of Parliament, and the delegated powers included in the Bill.
Because of the points that have been made, I want just to touch on the scrutiny mechanisms. These include a sifting procedure that will apply to regulations proposed to be made under the power to restate and the powers to revoke or replace. This will afford additional scrutiny to the use of the power while retaining the flexibility of using the negative procedure where there are good reasons for doing so. We recognise the significant role Parliament has played in scrutinising instruments subject to sifting procedures previously and are committed to ensuring the appropriate scrutiny under the delegated powers in the Bill. Indeed, the Leader of the House of Commons has written to the chair of the European Statutory Instruments Committee proposing that the committee take on the role of sifting committee in the House of Commons to determine where the negative procedure may apply.
I wanted to give that background because there are these two different aspects to the debate, but I turn first to the clause stand part motion introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. Clause 10 must stand part of the Bill because it provides the answers to two fundamental questions. First, is it right that technical regulations should be treated as equivalent to an Act of Parliament? Secondly, are this Government happy with the risk of these regulations sitting stagnant on the statute book? The answer to both, as we have argued all along, is no. Clause 10 modifies powers in other statutes to allow them to be used to amend or retain direct EU legislation and directly effective rights. Over 50% of retained EU law currently identified on the REUL dashboard—I agree with the noble Baroness on that figure—is retained direct EU legislation. It is comprised mainly of EU regulations in which the UK Parliament had no real say. This legislation often does not reflect the UK’s priorities or objectives—to drive growth, for example. We are currently forced to treat some retained direct EU legislation as equivalent to an Act of Parliament when amending it. This is not appropriate; it does not fit with this Government’s vision of REUL reform following the Brexit process, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, referred.
I understand the concerns of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, but we do need to think of the opportunity that Brexit affords, while maintaining necessary protections. In doing so, we must ensure that parliamentary time is used appropriately. Furthermore, relying purely on primary legislation to amend these technical regulations to meet the UK’s needs would take decades. It is of critical importance that we ensure that these mostly technical regulations do not remain static and can be updated, amended and reformed in response to events and new knowledge, using appropriate delegated powers. Without the measures in Clause 10, thousands of regulations will become stagnant and will be unable to stay up to date, react to new information or implement new international agreements without requiring an Act of Parliament.
I will now move on to a set of amendments relating to the delegated powers, starting with amendments—
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
Before the Minister leaves the question of allowing Clause 10 to stand part, I am surprised at her disagreement with the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—a dangerously radical body containing wild revolutionaries such as the noble Lords, Lord Janvrin and Lord Goodlad, and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay. Their view was clearly set out in their report: that Clause 10
“effects a significant transfer of power to Ministers”,
contrary to what was set out in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The Act said it would be for Parliament to decide changes in primary legislation, rather than for Ministers to do so in secondary legislation.
I understand the argument the Minister is making, but it is not one likely to find much support across the House. We think we have a role in deciding what should be on the statute book; it is not simply for the Executive. I can see the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton—yet another dangerous radical—that it will take time so there will be, in a sense, continuing uncertainty. This is why I support an extension of the sunset deadlines—although that is not a sufficient cure, I think it is a necessary one for the Bill. But the noble Lord has to recognise that there is huge uncertainty now for economic operators across the country: they do not know which laws are to be amended, which are to be retained and which are to be extinguished. Once we know, perhaps it would be sensible to discuss how long it will take to make the necessary changes.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Surely the thing that concerns businesses is how legislation is going to be amended, not whether it is or not.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I thank the noble Lords for their interventions. I did say that I understood the concerns of the Committee. I was trying to explain that, in this particular case, we need to go forward with the arrangements we have because of the situation the EU law of 2018 has left us in and the need to tidy up the statute book, which, otherwise, would take decades to do.
Amendments 115 and 116 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering would insert a requirement to consult any interested persons or relevant devolved Governments before any secondary retained EU law could be revoked or replaced. Amendment 115 would require that no regulations may be made under Clause 15(2) unless Ministers comply with a set of conditions, including a requirement to consult any interested persons in relevant devolved Governments before any REUL can be revoked or replaced. Amendment 116 would insert the same consultation requirements regarding regulations made under Clause 15(3). These amendments would hinder the efficient removal of outdated and unnecessary burdens and regulations and their replacement with regulations that are more fit for purpose.
Furthermore, we have sought, as I have explained, to ensure that the Bill contains robust scrutiny mechanisms, including for the powers to revoke or replace. In particular, the sifting procedure will apply to those regulations proposed to be made under the negative procedure. The sifting procedure largely corresponds with the procedure under the EUWA and the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020. In both cases, sifting has been effectively used to ensure proportionate parliamentary scrutiny of legislation regarding EU exit. We are scheduled to debate the sifting procedure in more detail on Wednesday, and obviously I look forward to that debate. In addition, it is our expectation that the departments concerned will follow standard procedures regarding consultation and engagement with the devolved Governments during policy development, so I do not consider adding a requirement to consult on the face of the Bill to be appropriate or necessary.
Amendment 128, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, would create a new clause introducing additional restrictions on the use of powers under Clauses 15 and 16. Among the proposed extensive conditions is a requirement that Ministers provide a report outlining an assessment of the potential impact of proposed new regulations. This would include the difference between current and proposed new regulations for protections for consumers, workers, businesses, the environment, animal welfare, any changes to the regulatory burden, and whether the UK’s international commitments to the trade and co-operation agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol continue to be met. Such conditions are unnecessary. The Bill has been drafted to ensure that legislation made under these powers is subject to scrutiny procedures that are proportionate to the scope of the powers. It is our expectation that departments will follow the standard procedures for consultation and impact assessment where it is undertaken. Adding these conditions would significantly delay the process of REUL reform, impact departments’ delivery plans and could prevent departments maximising the use of the powers in Clauses 15 and 16.
Before coming to the sunsets, I turn to Amendment 129, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, which seeks to add a clause to the Bill introducing additional restrictions for food standards legislation. It is only right to have powers in the Bill which will help put the UK statute book on a sustainable footing. The powers will facilitate the much-needed review and reform of outdated retained EU law that not is fit for the UK, and they will ensure that we can capitalise on the benefits of Brexit. As I have said, the powers to amend are not intended to undermine the UK’s already high food standards. I say again that this Government are committed to promoting robust food standards nationally and internationally, so that we can continue to protect consumer interests, facilitate trade and ensure that consumers can have confidence in the food they buy. I also value the work of the food standards agencies, for all the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has outlined, but that is not a reason to amend this general Bill.
To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the Hansard that he referred to reflects the position that retained EU law that needs to be kept will be preserved. The FSA is saying publicly that retained EU law on food standards should be preserved. It is for the relevant department—the Department of Health—and the devolved nations to decide whether retained EU law in their area should be preserved. Therefore, I humbly suggest that the two statements are not in conflict.
Lord Krebs (CB)
To wind back a few sentences, the Minister quite rightly said that the Department of Health would be responsible ultimately for changes in the law that affect food safety and standards. However, my amendment was not questioning that issue; it was questioning where the Department of Health is going to get its expert advice from. I did not hear the Minister say that the Department of Health would not propose any changes unless the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland had agreed that they would not compromise consumer protections in relation to food, whether it is to do with safety information or health. Could she therefore confirm whether that is the Government’s intention?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I am sure the Ministers responsible at the Department of Health and in the devolved nations will consult the Food Standards Agency. In the work I do with the Department of Health which involves food, the Food Standards Agency is an incredibly important part of the decision-making process.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The noble Baroness should not therefore have a problem in saying that they will consult it. Can we not have a commitment from the Government that they will do so? That is all.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
As I said, I am sure that the Health Ministers will consult the Food Standards Agency. The food standards agencies have been set up for this purpose. If you are making changes to legislation, of course there will be consultation. I am not the Health Minister, so I cannot make a declaration of that kind, but I have already said that I will pass on to the Health Minister the discussions we are having on food safety.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
I think the question my noble friend was asking was what the Government’s position is—that is the answer we need.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I have given my answer. I have been very clear about the importance we attach to food safety from both a government point of view and my own historic point of view, which I hope adds some credibility. I do not think I have a lot further to say, apart from the fact that officials are working with the Food Standards Agency day and night on these areas.
Amendment 132, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, proposes that a Minister of the Crown should publish a report 30 days before the powers can be exercised. The report would have to include a list of criteria which relevant national authorities would need to take into account when exercising the powers under Clauses 12 to 17 of the Bill. The delegated powers within the Bill will enable Ministers to make active decisions regarding their respective retained EU law. It is only right to have such powers; they will help to put the UK statute book on a sustainable footing within a reasonable timeframe and facilitate the much-needed review and reform of retained EU law to ensure that we can capitalise on the benefits of UK autonomy. Furthermore, the Bill has been drafted to ensure that legislation made under the delegated powers is subject to scrutiny procedures proportionate to the scope of the powers. I therefore do not consider that publishing a report setting out criteria which Ministers must take into account when using the powers within the Bill is necessary given the scrutiny already provided for.
I turn now to Amendment 141 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead; I am sorry he is not here today. The amendment would impose a requirement to seek consent from a Scottish or Welsh Minister where a Minister of the Crown intends to exercise a power in the Bill separately on legislation which is in an area of Scottish or Welsh devolved competence. First, I assure your Lordships that the Government are committed to respecting the devolution settlements and the Sewel convention. Indeed, none of the provisions within the Bill, including the powers, affects the devolution settlements, nor is the Bill intended to restrict the competence of either the devolved legislatures or the devolved Governments.
I recognise that the extension power is not conferred on the devolved Governments. However, we are keen to ensure that the provisions within the Bill, including the powers, work for all parts of the UK. That is why the majority of the powers will be conferred concurrently on the devolved Governments: to enable them to make active decisions regarding their retained EU law. As such, introducing a requirement for a Minister of the Crown to seek legislative consent when using the powers on legislation within areas of devolved legislative competence is not necessary.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We keep being told that there is not going to be consultation or legislative consent, and that the Food Standards Agency would of course be mindful of what the Government have to say. We are being asked to take all these things on trust, but it is not as though the Government have an impeccable record on these things. Can the noble Baroness not appreciate that what the Committee is trying to get at is to understand how these determinations will come about? We are looking for some sort of signal from the Government that there will be openness and a willingness to involve, and an attempt to do more than what is absolutely strictly necessary within the letter of the Bill that she is referring to. Were she to endeavour to give us that reassurance or explain how that would be done, she might find a little—not a lot—more sympathy for the position she is taking.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I understand. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for trying to help to move things forward; we are certainly keen to do that. Clearly, this enabling Bill is going through Parliament ahead of the some of the work that has been going on around the dashboard and the individual governmental plans, which is perhaps a pity. I think my noble friend the Minister said that he would try to make more information available as that became possible. Indeed, we have given an extra couple of days for debates in Committee. Progress is being made all the time in departments on their plans. We have these two processes—
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
As the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said, the Minister has turned down every single amendment in this group, whether it is for more consultation or for the Food Standards Agency to have a proper say. Every time, she has simply said, “That would take decades”. I am not sure whether an impact assessment has been done to work out what lies behind that phrase; I suspect it is just a throwaway phrase which is meant to cast dust in our eyes. However, it is not terribly convincing, because not a single amendment on the Marshalled List suggests putting the cut-off date beyond 2028, as the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, suggest. Nobody is suggesting a period of decades. What those of us who support these amendments are suggesting is that the Government should follow the normal procedure, which we have always had in this country before, of consultation and legislation. Could we please not dismiss everything by saying that it would take decades?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I think I said “decades” once. This is of course a bit different from the normal laws that we debate and put through this Parliament, because it is dealing with retained EU law, and we think that there is a need for special arrangements. Equally, there is also a need for your Lordships to understand what our plans are. This is Committee; it is quite conventional at this stage to explain the problems with amendments, which I have obviously been doing.
Picking up on what has just been said, perhaps I should move on to the final issue in this group, which is timing. Amendment 104, in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, relates to Clause 12 and seeks to change the date on which the power to restate under Clause 12 is capable of acting on retained EU law from the sunset date—the end of 2023—extending it to 2028. The existing power to restate under Clause 13, which is exercisable up to 2026, provides an adequate opportunity for the reform of retained EU law and assimilated law while providing a deadline to ensure that retained EU law does not languish on our statute book indefinitely.
I turn to Amendment 108A in the name of my noble friend Lady Lawlor. Although she did not speak to it on this occasion, I am glad that one of her early interventions as a Member of this House has been on this important Bill. Her amendment seeks to bring forward the date on which the power to restate assimilated law expires to the end of 2024. This power already puts a protection in place after the sunset by allowing departments to reproduce the effects of retained case law and EU-derived principles of interpretation in relation to specific provisions of restated assimilated law, which sunset at the end of 2023 up to 23 June 2026.
Although I understand where my noble friend is coming from, I believe that it is necessary to make the power to restate assimilated law available for a sufficient window of time following the sunset date to ensure that the Government can mitigate any unintended consequences associated with the sunset in 2023. While we expect the power to be used only in exceptional cases, it would be irresponsible for the Government not to have a protection in place. Bringing forward the expiration date of the power to restate assimilated law to the end of 2024 would provide a limited time window for departments to use this power and could result in provisions not being restated that are necessary to maintain the desired policy effect.
Amendments 122 and 122A are also on timing. Amendment 122 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering would change the date on which the powers to revoke or replace are capable of acting on REUL and post-sunset secondary assimilated law, extending it to 2028. Exercising the powers to revoke or replace will allow the Government to seize our new regulatory autonomy and ensure that REUL can be tailored to meet the UK’s needs in a timely manner. We need to complete that important process.
The powers to revoke or replace are important, cross-cutting enablers. They will allow the Government to overhaul EU laws in secondary legislation across the many different sectors of the economy where, if left, many pieces of REUL risk becoming fixed features of the statute book that are ill suited to the UK. As my noble friend Lord Hamilton said, extending the date to 2028 would also add to uncertainty. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was right to remind us that some of the public think that the process of EU reform is sluggish, but I think that 2026 gives us ample time.
Lastly, I turn to Amendments 124 and 125 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. In broad terms, they would change the dates that enable the power to act upon assimilated law. I will not go through the detail of why these amendments do not work because I have already explained it quite clearly. The powers to revoke or replace are already capable of acting on assimilated law for an additional two and a half years after the sunset, which is adequate time to complete REUL reform and provide greater legal certainty UK-wide.
I am sorry to have spoken at length but there were a lot of amendments in this group. I hope this has provided noble Lords with some reassurance on the powers in the Bill, their timeframes and the way in which scrutiny will work, as I tried to set out at the beginning of my speech. With this in mind, I ask noble Lords to withdraw or not press their amendments.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
The Question is that Clause 10 stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
I believe I have a right to reply; I have been corrected so many times today that I do not know what my rights are nowadays.
The Minister seems to believe that robust parliamentary scrutiny is enshrined in a sifting, negative procedure power. I do not agree, I am afraid. Parliament is being sidelined in this Bill. Indeed, I wonder when this radical, revolutionary, un-Conservative Government will seek to abolish Parliament.
On the assertion that the UK Parliament had no real say in EU law, that is the nature of the organisation. Law is made at the level at which it is considered, obviously. However—I made this point at Second Reading—some Parliaments in the EU, notably the Danish one, kept their Ministers on a tight leash. Ministers went to the Council of Ministers from the UK Parliament; if they did not represent the views of the UK Parliament, we have to look at them and their record. The UK Parliament could have done the kind of scrutiny and accountability exercises that the Danish Parliament notably did; if it did not do so, that is the fault not of the EU but of the UK Parliament.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
I apologise to the noble Baroness for what happened earlier.
“(1A) Before making regulations under subsection (1) a relevant national authority must consult with any person who may be affected by the proposed regulations.(1B) If a Minister of the Crown proposes to make regulations under subsection (1) which concern devolved matters the Minister must, before making the regulations, consult with the relevant national authority.(1C) A relevant national authority and, where subsection (1B) applies, a Minister of the Crown must publish the results of any consultation conducted under this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires a relevant national authority or a Minister of the Crown to consult with those who may be affected by regulations before making them. All relevant national authorities are required to publish the results of the consultation.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted that we have reached this group, which concerns restatement powers. The two most radical amendments in this group will probably capture the Committee’s imagination more than my more modest ones; I look forward to hearing from the authors of the amendments on whether Clauses 12 and 13 should stand part of the Bill.
I want to speak briefly to the amendments in my name. Amendment 102 would require
“a relevant national authority or a Minister of the Crown to consult with those who may be affected by regulations before making them.”
This would require all
“relevant national authorities … to publish the results of the consultation.”
Why is this necessary? Under Clause 12, a relevant national authority
“may by regulations restate, to any extent, any secondary retained EU law.”
Clause 14 states:
“A restatement may use words or concepts that are different from those used in the law being restated”
and
“may make any change which the relevant national authority considers appropriate for … resolving ambiguities … removing doubts or anomalies … facilitating improvement in the clarity or accessibility of the law (including by omitting anything which is legally unnecessary).”
Given the debates that we have had, this will increase the uncertainty and lack of clarity. I am grateful to the Law Society of Scotland, which proposed Amendment 102. Its purpose is that such changes, which may obviously be considerable, should require to be consulted on.
Amendment 105 would require
“a relevant national authority or a Minister of the Crown to consult with those who may be affected by regulations before making them. All relevant national authorities are required to publish the results of the consultation.”
I will not rehearse this. It is very similar under Clauses 13 and 14 to what I referred to under Amendment 102. However, as these changes would again be major, they should be consulted on, as is laid out in this amendment. I beseech my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom that, if he is seeking clarity and certainty and wants a short deadline, he must share my concern that the clauses dealt with in this group will have quite the contrary effect to that which he referred to.
Amendment 107 has a similar requirement on a national authority to consult all the national authorities to publish the results of the consultation. Clause 13(8) states that:
“A relevant national authority may by regulations reproduce, to any extent, the effect that anything which was retained EU law by virtue of section 4 or 6(3) or (6) of European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 would have, but for sections 3 to 5 of this Act.”
Again, this is a significant regulation-making power which could affect a large number of individuals and businesses. Surely my noble friend and the Government would wish that they and the devolved Administrations consult before making such wide-ranging regulations as those envisaged in this clause. Therefore, under the terms of this amendment, a Minister of the Crown would be obliged to consult a devolved Administration before making regulations concerning devolved matters.
Amendment 108 looks to extend the statutory deadline from 23 June 2026 to 31 December 2028, a mere 18 months,
“within which a restatement of assimilated law or reproduction of sunsetted retained EU rights, powers, liabilities may be made.”
It cannot be right to have such a short deadline giving such wide-ranging powers. Therefore, in my humble submission, the deadline needs to be extended to allow sufficient time for the exercise of going through what the impact on the Government, the devolved Administrations and all the interested parties would be. A better and more realistic deadline, capable of being met, would be 31 December 2028.
Amendment 109 is purely consequential, extending the deadline from the end of 2023 to 31 December 2028. I am delighted to say that Amendment 110 would have a similar effect by leaving out Clause 14(7), which states:
“The provision that may be made by regulations under section 12 or 13 may be made by modifying any enactment.”
That is an extremely broad Henry VIII power to empower Ministers to amend any enactment. It is identified by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its 28th report, Losing Control?, as too broad a power. Therefore, Amendment 110 gives my noble friend and the Government the opportunity to explain why such a broad power is necessary.
I hope that my noble friend will look extremely favourably on this small but perfectly formed group of amendments. With those few remarks, I beg to move.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 103 and 106 in my name. My Amendment 103 is an amendment to Clause 12. It ensures that a legislative consent Motion must be passed by the relevant devolved legislature if a Minister of the Crown seeks to make regulations to restate secondary retained EU law where the provisions of those regulations fall within the legislative competence of a devolved legislature.
Amendment 106 is an amendment to Clause 13. It has the same effect as Amendment 103 but refers to the restating of secondary assimilated law, and therefore is exercisable from only 1 January 2024. Both clauses are commented on in the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which was concerned about the way that they “inappropriately delegate legislative power”. It recommended that they should be removed from the Bill. The committee said that both clauses gave Ministers power to legislate and achieve effects that ought instead to belong to Parliament and be achieved in subject-specific primary legislation. My noble friend Lady Ludford will speak to Clauses 12 and 13 not standing part of the Bill.
Our debate on Amendment 58 last Thursday warranted far more time and attention than we gave it. We saw there that the UK Government appear ready to take over the powers of the devolved nations when they think that they can. I was particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, who is in his place, for probing powers over sunsetting and what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, referred to as the
“equality of treatment between the various Governments of the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 2/3/23; col. 467.]
I am sure that we will return to this issue at a later stage of the Bill.
With the UK Government’s attitude to the devolved legislatures in mind, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s very significant sentence in the report seems pertinent:
“The powers conferred by clause 12 are open-ended, there being no requirement for consultation, for criteria to be met or for pre-conditions to be satisfied.”
The committee was of course concerned about the powers of Ministers to legislate, to achieve effects that ought instead to belong to Parliament. The powers of the Senedd are implicit in this, and the belonging should also extend to them.
I want to make a few comments about consent, the Sewel convention, and the powers of the Senedd. I was part of the first intake of Members to the Welsh Assembly, as it was then, in 1999. I have watched its powers grow as a result of the votes of the people of Wales in referenda over the years. I welcomed the introduction of the Sewel convention and its assertion that the UK Government would not normally legislate in devolved areas without consent, to protect and defend the powers of Welsh Ministers and the Senedd itself. That welcome was tempered by a concern shared by many others about the definition of “normally”. Our concerns have been justified. Despite assurances from Ministers during the progress of the Bill, recent history has shown that reality is completely different. Over the last three years or so we have been faced with an increasing disregard for the powers of the devolved legislatures, and an attitude which borders on contempt for the legislative consent Motions.
It is now accepted that the Sewel convention is no longer working. Sadly, its operation is seen as the biggest constitutional issue facing Wales. The First Minister has called for the re-establishment of the way in which the convention was respected from 1999 to 2019 and has supported the intergovernmental agreement that will lead to “some work” being done on how the Sewel convention could be strengthened. As he said in his recent appearance before the Commons Welsh Affairs Committee,
“if you cannot repair the Sewel convention, then one of the major underpinning props of the devolution settlement has simply been kicked from under it.”
Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, we have heard much about the former Health Secretary’s thoughts via WhatsApp, but today’s Question is about care homes. The Government claimed early in the pandemic to have thrown a “protective ring” around care homes in response to the alarm bells that were ringing across the country about elderly, frail patients being transferred from hospitals without being tested for Covid. Tragically, over 17,000 residents lost their lives in the pandemic’s first year. Between the advice given by the Chief Medical Officer about the necessity of testing and Matt Hancock’s final decision to act, residents were left exposed and isolated, and staff put at risk.
The latest revelations will be deeply distressing for families up and down the country who lost loved ones. Why were care homes not urgently prioritised when the impact of Covid was there for all to see? Will the Government ensure that the Covid inquiry gets full disclosure of the texts, minutes and documents on this matter and receives whatever support it needs to report by the end of the year?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)
My Lords, for the record, noble Lords are aware of the Covid testing business that I set up at the beginning of the pandemic. We offered testing to the Department of Health and Social Care on a not-for-profit basis. That offer was not taken up and the business never had any government contracts. I wanted to make that clear at the beginning of my answer.
To answer the noble Baroness’s question on the Covid inquiry, the team is staffed to make sure that all the information that is needed is provided. Everyone agrees that we need to learn any lessons from what happened and that all the information that is available is brought to bear.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
Mr Hancock denies that he rejected Chris Whitty’s advice in April 2020 that everybody going into a care home should be tested. On 19 May, I said to the then Minister in the Lords:
“The Secretary of State has repeated his claim that he has prioritised testing in care homes, yet he still repeats that testing for everyone in care homes … will be only ‘offered’ by 6 June.”
My noble friend Lord Rennard asked whether the Minister had heard the programme “More or Less” and the
“total demolition of the claim that 100,000 tests were being conducted each day”.—[Official Report, 19/5/20; cols. 1086-94.]
The following day, I said that
“Dame Angela McLean said testing had been prioritised in the NHS over care homes. Today, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said the Government had prioritised the NHS over care homes as well.”
The Minister said that
“we rolled out outbreak testing for all symptomatic care home staff and residents.”—[Official Report, 20/5/20; col. 1177.]
Two weeks later, I said that
“a number of CCGs are still pushing care homes to take block-bookings of patients coming out of hospital without having had Covid tests.”—[Official Report, 3/6/20; col. 1417.]
We all knew what was going on at the time because we were being told by care homes and by the families of residents. Will the Government now apologise to the many families who lost loved ones as a result of the delay in getting full testing into care homes?
Lord Markham (Con)
It is to the regret of everyone that so many deaths were caused in care homes. That is something that I know everyone feels very deeply about. At the same time, the testing capacity was expanded very rapidly. As we know, at the beginning of the pandemic in mid-March, there was capacity for only 3,000 tests a day. At that point, the decision was made that they should go to NHS front-line staff. However, it was then rapidly expanded: on 15 April there were 39,000 tests, and by May there were about 100,000 tests a day. Obviously, at that point, the Government were able to expand the tests more fully to care homes.
Was that prioritisation right? That was the subject of the Gardner review but, clearly, the body that can decide best on whether the right decisions were made at the right time is the inquiry, with which everyone will co-operate fully.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, what is so devastating in reading the Telegraph’s WhatsApp lockdown file is that it has confirmed that the most susceptible to Covid were victims of a lack of targeted testing in care homes, while the least at risk were hectored and frightened into getting tested to reach one government Minister’s self-set arbitrary targets. Will the Minister take back that we urgently need this public inquiry? Will it scrutinise the process of target-setting that lost sight of its original aim? Also, after the revelations that Minister Helen Whately raised concerns about the inhumane policies of separating people in care from their families—so lonely and distraught that they gave up—will the Minister support the Rights for Residents campaign to enshrine in law the right to maintain family contact in all care settings? It was not just the lack of testing that killed people but some of the policies too.
Lord Markham (Con)
We all agree that visiting should be allowed as much as possible. I know that the policy is that people can receive at least one visitor, but I know that there are also examples where that is not happening enough. It is very clear, from our side, that it is a priority that everyone should have visitation rights, because they are vital. Can we say that that will always be the case in every circumstance in the future? Well, clearly no one foresaw the pandemic, so this is one of those situations where we can never say so definitively, but we all firmly agree that visitation is a key part of people’s care and well-being.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Is my noble friend aware that I should declare an interest, in that my wife is a retired GP? In the period February-March 2020, it was very clear to those of us who were in contact with the medical services that things were not right in care homes. On 21 April 2020, I put down a Question—and I have a copy for my noble friend—which read:
“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been the COVID-19 testing policy for hospital patients that have been discharged to nursing and care homes over the last four weeks.”
That took us back to 23 March 2020. I got an Answer some three weeks later, which read:
“As outlined in the Adult Social Care Plan, published on 15 April 2020, any patient who moves from the National Health Service to social care will be discharged in line with the current NHS COVID-19 Discharge Requirements. NHS England and NHS Improvement published a letter on 16 April addressed to all accountable officers of all hospitals (public and private sector) working for the NHS and discharge teams outlining the new requirement to test patients being discharged from hospital to a care home.”
This did not answer the Question that I had asked about what had happened between the latter end of March and early April.
I recognise that my noble friend has only recently joined the Front Bench but, as far as I am concerned—I have taken a detailed interest in this—it is fundamental that we are honest. If things went wrong, as I am sure they did, they must come out in the public inquiry. I am happy to give a copy of my Question to the opposition parties, so that they do not have to scratch around to find it.
Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, it is vital that we understand exactly what happened when and that we learn lessons. I am sure we will see that some mistakes were made, and we need to learn from those. From our side, that was the whole point of setting up the Covid inquiry. We will ensure full co-operation.
The Lord Bishop of London
In advance of the outcome of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, which will take some time if it is going to be thorough, can the Minister tell us what attempt the Government have made to learn from how decisions were made during that period and to ensure that better decisions are made today?
Lord Markham (Con)
The first major finding was setting up the UK Health Security Agency, because of a feeling that the bodies that were there at the time were not best placed. That was the first learning. From that, things such as the 100-day vaccine challenge were set up to make sure that we are well placed should another pandemic occur. We have tried to learn lessons all the way through and have made sure that testing capacity is still in place, so that we are able to react quickly, and stocks are there. I like to think that sensible measures are being taken and that we are not waiting for the inquiry, but I am sure we will learn more as the inquiry is fully engaged and when it makes its own findings.
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, the Government’s defence of their entire testing strategy has been that we should trust them but, based on all that we have seen of the former Health Secretary over recent months—far too much, would be many people’s reaction—can the Minister say whether he is a person who displays consistent good judgment or is he capable of making some quite serious mistakes?
Lord Markham (Con)
I do not know the said ex-Minister, so cannot comment on that. If we cast our minds back, it was a very pressurised environment in which lots of decisions had to be made very quickly. Mistakes were undoubtedly made as part of that. As to how we did overall, it is best for the inquiry to make findings rather than for me to give my opinion.
Baroness Browning (Con)
Can my noble friend confirm that, when the results are published, the contingency plan brought forward by the Government will include, quite clearly, what will happen with care homes in future situations? We are all concerned that this was very last-minute.
Can I ask my noble friend to reflect on my own circumstances? My aunt Vicky, aged 99 years and nine months, died in April 2020 in a care home that she had been in for some time. The death certificate said “Covid”. She was symptomless and not tested. When the family challenged it, it was changed to “died of old age”. I ask my noble friend to reflect on that.
Lord Markham (Con)
I am sorry for my noble friend’s loss, albeit one of too many losses in those circumstances. Yes, we absolutely need to learn the lessons around social care settings. Most people would accept that, of the many things that were done well during Covid, that was probably one that we would have done differently, in the early stages, if we had our time again. The Covid inquiry is all about making sure that we learn those lessons, going forward.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Following the question asked by the right reverend Prelate about what is happening today, I actually agree with part of the Government’s response, which referred to selective snippets of WhatsApp conversations. That is what we are hearing today. While we are waiting for the official inquiry, which will give us a clear, independent view of what happened, it is clear that there were big problems in our care homes. What are the Government doing today to look at the problems that continue in our care homes, particularly those associated with excessive profit taking and privatisation, particularly in homes under the management of hedge funds?
Lord Markham (Con)
I know that that is something in which Minister Whately is very engaged. The House has already seen some of the plans around social care and there is further work on discharge going on as we speak. I have spoken many times in the House about the need to resolve this, not just to make sure that the right care is in place for those involved but to free up hospital beds to improve the performance of the whole system.
Turkey and Syria Earthquakes
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Statement from Andrew Mitchell and the Government’s emergency response to the situation in Turkey and Syria. I also congratulate the people of the United Kingdom on their response.
We have seen a terrible death toll—50,000, plus hundreds of thousands now homeless and many more injured. First, how are the Government working with NGOs to support hospitals and health facilities, in particular to ensure the provision of emergency medical kits and supplies?
The speed of search and rescue teams in the initial 72 hours clearly saved many lives. With new demands for food, water and shelter, we must now move to a long-term strategy for aid and support, which was the point made by Sarah Champion, the chair of the IDC in the other place. Following the calls for the Security Council to play a greater role, what steps are we taking at the UN to offer political leadership and direction on that longer-term strategy? Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, said that the 2023 response plan alone will require $4.8 billion. What steps are the Government taking to encourage our international counterparts to support the plan by financial donation?
Of course, the opening of border crossings between Turkey and Syria is vital for the delivery of aid. I know that the Government have done much to assist in that, but can the Minister tell us how the FCDO is monitoring operations, so that NGOs are alert to any blockages and can make the necessary plans?
Finally, it was reported late last year that the Government intend to cut funding for the Syria country team by up to £8 million. Is that still the case, and will this humanitarian crisis make the Government reconsider their position? We obviously need to do more, and Syria’s situation is particularly difficult. I would appreciate the Minister responding to the points I have made.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, further to the very pertinent questions from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, the Minister’s visit as outlined in the Statement is significant, and the Government’s support so far is to be welcomed.
More than 50,000 people have now lost their lives, and 18 million are affected overall. According to the Disasters Emergency Committee, 54,000 buildings have been lost. On an evening such as this, when more winter weather is forecast in the UK, we can imagine not being able to go back to a warm and secure home, as is the case for many hundreds of thousands of people in the affected area.
It is worth reminding ourselves that in the north-west region of Syria, 60% of the people were already displaced because of conflict. It is regrettable that UK support to that region has fallen from £232 million in 2021 to £158 million. Can the Minister explain why that has happened? What is the latest estimate of the UK’s support for the people of Syria next year?
The British people, however, as has been said, have responded in a truly stunning manner, raising more than £100 million for the DEC appeal. When we first had a Statement on this subject, I asked the Minister’s noble friend Lord Ahmad whether the Government would provide aid match support. It is welcome that they have, but it is only £5 million. More than £100 million from the British public being matched by only £5 million from the British Government is jarring. Will the Minister commit to the Government being open to lifting the cap on the £5 million if the British public continue to donate to the appeal?
Given the need for long-term support, including foodstuffs, particularly for young families and mothers, can the Minister explain why, in the response to the Statement last week, Andrew Mitchell said that the Government did not intend to provide extra support to the World Food Programme for this emergency? Can the Minister also explain why, in stark contrast to the German Government, who have provided emergency visa support for families seeking to host people in Turkey affected by the earthquakes, the Home Office has ruled out the proposal put forward by my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece? Are the Government’s minds closed on this? There are still families in the UK diaspora community who are willing to help and provide guarantees and support, but the Home Office seems set on denying families support and refuge.
Why have the Government not provided any clarity about a safe and legal route for those in Syria who may seek asylum in response to the Assad regime’s reaction to this emergency? The Syrian routes to the UK were closed in 2021, but why is no consideration being given to opening them?
Finally, in the House of Commons last week the Minister was asked why the Government’s humanitarian crisis reserve, which recently stood at £500 million, has now been depleted to only £30 million, which means that the UK’s response to any other emergencies or disasters will be greatly reduced. Why has there been such a massive reduction in a crisis reserve for humanitarian assistance?
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, I join both noble Lords and others in offering sincere condolences to all those affected by the devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria last month. Today, the death toll across these countries stands at more than 51,000, which is possibly an underestimate, with at least 108,000 people injured. I pay tribute to the hundreds of British personnel engaged in specialist health and humanitarian rescue work in Syria and Turkey. They have done and continue to do outstanding work to save lives and help those suffering.
As has been noted, this disaster has intensified the humanitarian need in Syria in particular, affecting what is already one of the most vulnerable areas, weakened by the appalling Assad regime’s brutal war machine. Our consular teams are supporting British nationals who have requested assistance.
In response to the initial point made by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, the UK Government have responded, and very quickly, to the request put out by the Turkish Government immediately following the disaster; I thank him for recognising that. We deployed a 77-person search-and-rescue team in Turkey, along with state-of-the-art equipment. Although the team has now returned to the UK, having saved a significant number of people trapped in the rubble, they have done so in line with the response of other countries that have sent search-and-rescue teams, because we are now in a new stage, as the noble Lord pointed out.
On the quantum of our support for the crisis, and in response to a question by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, we announced £4.3 million of new support for Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, who carried out life-saving search-and-rescue and emergency relief operations and have helped thousands of civilians overall. The MoD and Foreign Office set up a field hospital in Türkoğlu, which included an emergency department and a 24/7 operating theatre. Some 150 UK-Med and MoD personnel were working alongside Turkish medics to save lives and have treated nearly 6,500 patients to date. In northern Syria, UK-funded charities and NGOs are caring for the injured through mobile medical teams and health centres. The UK has delivered more than 478 tonnes of relief items to Turkey and Syria through civilian and Royal Air Force flights, including tents, blankets, solar lanterns, water purification tablets, hygiene kits and so on. We have also contributed to the UN’s distribution of food and other essential items, including through the UN’s Syria Cross-border Humanitarian Fund. On 15 February, we announced a further £25 million of funding to bolster our humanitarian response. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that that will further support the work of the UN, aid agencies and the efforts in Turkey led by the Government there. This includes a particular focus on protecting women and girls, including support with childbirth and efforts to reduce the risk of gender-based violence.
Both noble Lords mentioned the issue of access. We obviously welcome the UN-brokered agreement opening two further crossings into Syria, but it is crucial that there are clear monitoring processes and that we, as well as the international community, ensure that the Assad regime upholds its commitment not just now but for as long as aid is needed. We will continue to monitor that situation very closely.
There has been a difficulty in relation to Syria, for all the obvious reasons. Difficulties of humanitarian access to north-west Syria are a direct product of the ongoing conflict, including in areas hit by the earthquake, and the Assad regime’s sustained use of aid as a political weapon. Even before the earthquake, it was clear that the single remaining UN-mandated border crossing in Bab al-Hawa was wildly insufficient to address the needs in north-west Syria.
Both noble Lords asked about the UK’s past and future ODA contribution. We have supported the international response through our existing support for key multilateral organisations helping in Turkey and Syria. I will give some figures. Clearly, we are a committed humanitarian donor globally, but we responded quickly to these earthquakes, providing over £43 million of immediate aid to Turkey and Syria, including the items I listed earlier.
The UK assists Turkey in other ways by providing humanitarian assistance through the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey programme, having already committed approximately £957.1 million from 2016 to 2023 through the UK’s contributions to the EU budget, which will continue to 2025 under the terms of the withdrawal agreement, and through additional contributions paid by the FCDO.
It is worth pointing out that the UK is the third-largest bilateral donor to the Syria crisis, having committed over £3.8 billion to date, which is our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis. That includes £2.1 billion since 2012 to support over 5.5 million refugees in the region. Since 2012, across Syria and the region we have provided over 28.3 million food rations, over 24.9 million medical consultations, 6.3 million cash grants and vouchers, 11 million relief packages and 15.4 million vaccines. We are a significant contributor.
The UN’s global fund, Education Cannot Wait, announced a $7 million grant for Syrian children affected by the earthquake and the Global Partnership for Education will provide $3.75 million to support the emergency education response. Again, the UK is a significant donor to both funds. We are also a long-standing partner and donor to the World Bank, which announced $1.7 billion to assist Turkey, and to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, which has released $50 million for the crisis.
As the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Collins, said, the British people showed extraordinary generosity through their response to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, raising over £100 million. As has been noted, that figure includes £5 million from the UK taxpayer, via the Government. I make the obvious point that the Government’s contribution through part matching that sum is not government money but public money, and that is clearly not the extent of our support for the region following the disaster that we are discussing today.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, our Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary spoke to their Turkish counterparts to offer condolences and reaffirm the UK’s support. His Majesty the King wrote to President Erdoğan to convey his condolences. His Majesty also visited Turkish diaspora groups and members of the British Syrian community at the opening ceremony of Syria House, a donation point in Trafalgar Square, on 14 February. The Foreign Secretary visited Syria House on 16 February, which the Government have helped to organise with the Asfari Foundation. My noble friend Lord Ahmad spoke to Syrian opposition leaders and the White Helmets.
I have not answered the question on visas and the US visa scheme put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, so I will briefly touch on that before I draw this to a close, and let others speak. We want to support British nationals with relatives impacted by the disaster. Where family members do not have current British visas, they will need to apply via one of our standard visa routes, which remain available, and applications can be submitted in-country. Our visa application centre closest to the affected region in Adana, in Turkey, has now reopened following temporary closure after the earthquake. It will support people looking to apply for a UK visa and enable those who have applied to submit their biometrics. Currently, we have no plans to create a new bespoke route for family members of British citizens affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, but the Home Office will keep both Houses apprised of that.
The House will understand that the scale of the human tragedy is immense. The devastating impact on the lives of millions of people continues, and goes way beyond the numbers that I cited at the beginning of my response. The UK will continue to stand resolutely with Turkey and the people of Syria during these testing times. I welcome this opportunity today to respond to the Statement.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, the Minister touched, as did both Front-Bench speakers, on the catastrophe of attempting to get aid to north-west Syria. It has been nothing less than shambolic, particularly the role played by the United Nations itself. On the one hand, the humanitarian chief, Mr Martin Griffiths, said that we have failed the people of north-west Syria in attempts not to assert themselves over border crossings and deliver aid to the rebel-held areas of northern Syria, and then we had the UN Secretary-General himself ordering the UN not to go there through those crossings for a period of time until there was other intervention.
What is the Foreign Office’s legal assessment of the UN position? The noble Lord will know that this was challenged by international lawyers and that the International Court of Justice itself intervened by publishing an open letter that said:
“There can be no doubt that the provision of strictly humanitarian aid to persons or forces in another country, whatever their political affiliations or objectives, cannot be regarded as unlawful intervention, or as in any other way contrary to international law”.
Did His Majesty’s Government attempt to tell the United Nations Secretary-General that he was misinterpreting international law and in doing so collaborated with the Assad regime in adding to the disaster that had befallen the poor victims of that earthquake?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I cannot provide a direct answer because I do not know what advice has been sought or received by the Foreign Office. I will convey the noble Baroness’s question to my noble friend Lord Ahmad when he returns.
I do not know whether the UN Secretary-General or the UN as an institution misinterpreted international law. The difficulties that the international community has faced in providing assistance to north-west Syria are a product of the Assad regime’s behaviour over recent weeks, months and years and, as I said earlier, its continued use of aid as a political weapon. The blame needs to be placed squarely at the feet of Assad himself. I will be working with the UN to verify that the UN-brokered agreement to open those additional border crossings into north-west Syria for an initial period of three months happens, and happens on the terms that have been agreed.
I should add that, according to the latest figure I have, the UN has sent 583 trucks with aid from six UN agencies, via Turkey, to north-west Syria using three border crossings: Bab al-Hawa, where 473 truck-loads managed to enter; Bab al-Salam, where 91 truck-loads entered; and al-Rai, where 19 truck-loads were able to enter the region.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (LAB)
My Lords, perhaps the biggest danger that we will face now is that public attention will fade, and gradually that outpouring of grief and generosity that we have seen up to now will fade because of other events taking place. Are the Government going to maintain public interest in the subject? I also draw attention to the role of Turkey in the present crisis. The Turkish people have been the worst affected by this terrible catastrophe. Although one may have differences of opinion with President Erdoğan and his Government at the moment, there is little doubt that the Turkish people have carried a huge responsibility and shown immense generosity over the years to those who have fled from Syria and are presently in refugee camps in Turkey. I hope that, in recognising that, the Government will pay specific attention to the sensitivities of Turkey at this time.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Lord makes the important point that Turkey has faced the brunt of this disaster. The vast majority of those people killed and displaced are in Turkey. The numbers continue to mount. Frankly, we do not know the real figure but, as I said earlier, 51,000 people are known to have perished. As the Assad regime has caused such mayhem, Turkey has been left to pick up many of the pieces, and it has done so in a generous fashion, as the noble Lord said. The UK Government are not going to take their eye off the crisis that has hit Turkey and Syria. We have been one of the biggest responders. We will remain at the forefront. We have made serious commitments to Turkey and the Syrian people, and we will honour those commitments and continue to negotiate within the international community to ensure that the international donor community—not just Governments, but the multilateral agencies—provides as much support as it can to deal with the immediate aftermath of the crisis and to help with the process of rebuilding.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I will follow on from the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, and look at today and forward to the days, weeks, months and, indeed, years ahead. It is obvious that people today are still suffering enormously from grief, the uncertain living circumstances they find themselves in, and, for the injured, the medical services are struggling to provide treatment. I am trying to get a grip on what financial contribution the UK Government have made and what they might make in the future. Looking through the figures in this Statement, I see that there is £4.3 million to the White Helmets in Syria, £25 million to the humanitarian response and £5 million as the seed fund for the Disasters Emergency Committee. There is also talk of 429 tonnes of relief and of medical teams. Can the Minister tell me whether that £25 million includes the cost of that relief and the medical teams?
The Statement also refers to contributions from multilateral funds—the humanitarian fund, Education Cannot Wait and the World Bank. Are the Government planning to make extra contributions to those multilateral funds to reflect Britain’s share of the funds that have had to be put into this emergency, unexpected situation—which, by definition, is what an earthquake is? Also, is this money extra money? We know how desperately strained all our overseas assistance budgets are. Will this money be taken from somewhere else in our overseas assistance budgets or will we genuinely put the extra money in—given that, as the Front-Bench speakers noted, the British people have been hugely generous, donating more than £100 million?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I will not go through all the figures that I cited in my response to the two Front-Bench contributions but I will make a couple of points, if I may. The first is that the UK, notwithstanding the reduction from 0.7% to 0.5%—this House has a clear view, which I certainly share, that we need to return as quickly as possible to 0.7%—a significant proportion of our ODA has been put aside and effectively ring-fenced for humanitarian response. The very nature of humanitarian crises is that they are not, on the whole, anticipated long in advance. That is what that money is for and, therefore, where it is coming from, which is exactly as it should be.
The noble Baroness mentioned the World Bank and a number of other multilateral institutions. We are one of the biggest investors in the world in the multilateral system. Again, despite the cuts that we have seen in recent years, many of those institutions exist to help countries through problems such as those faced by Turkey and Syria today. Therefore, our contribution through the multilateral system is directly contributing to alleviating the crisis in both those countries. As we go through the figures on our bilateral contribution to either organisations in Syria or the Turkish Government, it would be wrong to discount the contribution that we make through the multilateral system, which has been the major provider of support following the crisis.
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Monday 6th March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 View all Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-V Fifth marshalled list for Committee - (6 Mar 2023)
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to the proposal that Clause 12 should not stand part, which is in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Fox and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. I will also speak to the proposal that Clause 13 should not stand part, and to Amendment 111, which would require consultation, reasoning, et cetera for proposed restatement regulations.
My noble friend Lady Humphreys quoted the powerful view of the Delegated Powers Committee that Clauses 12 and 13 should be removed from the Bill because they inappropriately delegate legislative powers and appropriate powers that ought to belong to Parliament and be achieved subject to specific primary legislation. That committee brought to our attention, or reminded us of, the delegated powers memorandum, which says:
“This power cannot substantively change the policy effect of legislation.”
The DPRRC says:
“We doubt whether this is correct. Where there is ambiguity—
allowing Ministers to make changes to resolve ambiguities is one of three factors that a restatement is supposedly able to address—
“as to whether policy A or policy B is intended and the legislative restatement emphatically resolves in favour of policy A, the restatement has … made a firm policy choice”.
That view of our committee makes sense. It invited us to ask the Government to explain why none of the law that can be restated under the powers in Clause 12 would instead merit being restated in primary legislation. I hope the Minister will do so in his response.
The committee also draws attention to the powers that Ministers have, I think in Clause 14(6), to reproduce the effects of the supremacy of EU law, the retained general principles of EU law and retained EU case law, to ensure that the restatement has the same practical outcome that existed previously. These three elements are the ones that are otherwise abolished by the Bill; we debated that today in relation to Clauses 3 to 5. So the Government want to bring back, under Clause 14(6), the power for Ministers to reproduce the effects of the things they are abolishing, to ensure that the restatement has the same practical outcome that existed previously.
The DPRRC comments:
“This power may give rise to significant policy questions”,
but they are given to Ministers to answer rather than Parliament. I add to that a suggestion that it will also create legal confusion, because, on the one hand, you have abolished these three elements—supremacy, general principles and retained rights—yet, on the other, Ministers can bring them back. I have not quite worked out how that is supposed to work.
My noble friend Lady Humphreys quoted the fact that the powers in Clause 12 are completely “open-ended”, with
“no requirement for consultation … criteria … or … pre-conditions”.
That explains our Amendment 111, which again seeks to repeat the elements we constantly introduce.
The other thing that Clauses 12 and 13 give to Ministers, in restating REUL in secondary legislation, is the power to use different words or concepts from the original instrument and to make any change considered appropriate. That is rather worrying, and requires the Minister to explain what is meant by “restatement” if the restated law will be different in concept from the original law. To what extent can different words be used before the restatement changes into a new and distinct law? It is no longer a restatement; because different words and concepts have been used, it becomes, in effect, a new and distinct law. When does it morph into a new law, having started off as a restatement? There is quite some confusion on that.
Finally, if I have understood correctly the email from, and blog of, the distinguished legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg, it appears that he has been highlighting the fact that the pensions of some 11,000 serving or former part-time judges were going to be abolished because they relied on EU law. But apparently the Deputy Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Justice, announced that he was going to save these pensions and that there was no intention to grab them back from affected judges.
I presume that this is the first announcement we have had of what is to be preserved under the Bill. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that. Obviously, I think it is a good thing. I do not think that judges’ pensions, any more than former MEPs’ pensions, should be whipped away. I suspect the Minister might agree on that point. That is a good thing, but we are still fighting for confirmation on things such as water safety, air quality, product safety, employment rights and everything else. When are we going to hear about what is going to be preserved from those other areas of deep concern? I am very pleased for judges, and indeed gratified, but it seems quite odd that we have had an announcement about that but we do not know whether anything else is going to be preserved. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us in his reply.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, I support Clauses 12 and 13 no longer standing part of the Bill. Opposition to those clauses has been led by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. I support them on the very simple premise that the Government are attempting to sweep all legislation, including primary legislation which creeps up on secondary legislation; in other words, the secondary legislation has been adopted as primary legislation.
Before I go further—and I think I have attempted to do this already—I would like to put right the misconception that the EU law coming into our country was all under the carpet, that it was not considered and endorsed by Parliament. I suppose the Government have not put it quite so colourfully, but they could well say, on that basis, “What’s all the fuss about? The EU legislation arrived under the parliamentary carpet, why are you making all this fuss now?”
I want to correct that misconception. I sat for a number of years on the EC Committee and then the EU Committee in the 1980s and 1990s. I must have had about 10 to 12 years sitting on those committees—it was the same committee but it was renamed when the EC renamed itself the European Union. When I was on that committee, we had very alert clerks and very good relations with Brussels. The result was that when a regulation that caused concern was being considered by the Commission, with great co-operation from the Commission we were shown the draft of that regulation, really in its final form, before it was introduced as a regulation. We would examine it. It happened on a number of occasions; I cannot count the number. Your Lordships’ European Committee considered in detail the regulation, took evidence, wrote a report and sent that report back to Brussels.
I do not want to fancy ourselves too much, but the House of Lords European Committee had a great reputation in Brussels. Of all the parliaments in the union, we were the most constructive. I suppose I have to include whatever the other place was doing. With our good relationship with the Commission, when the Commission read our report it was influenced and changed the drafting of that particular regulation.
Of course, of the many regulations that were brought through when we were in the European Union, I am referring to only a few, but it is an example of how we were involved in the creation of regulations in an influential way.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, in particular, for her speech. She said a lot of the things that I was going to say, and noble Lords should all be grateful to her, because she has saved them listening to me. We agree that we have real problems with Clauses 12 to 14. Our concerns about Clauses 12 and 13 are mainly about the extent of the powers that are going to be held by Ministers for national authorities, and the lack of consultation. I also want to mention Amendment 103 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, because it seems appropriate, on the face of it, for the devolved Administrations to have rather more involvement than these clauses, as currently drafted, seem to allow for.
In Clause 12, it would be good to get a bit more clarity from Ministers on this issue of restatement. I am not entirely clear what is meant by restatement. It is rewriting, I think, because if it were not some sort of rewriting, it would just be “retain”; we would not be having another category called “restate”. Can the Minister define what is meant by “restate”? Obviously, it means that the language can be changed, which could change the meaning, the scope, the power of the law. It could be altered, maybe inadvertently or perhaps intentionally; so who is going to check that the restatement has the effect that Ministers would want, that the devolved Administration would want, that those who are subject to the law would want, or that Parliament would want? I understand if it is about wanting to bring different pieces of law together, perhaps, or to resolve some sort of ambiguity, but how is the Minister going to determine that something is ambiguous? If it is ambiguous, by definition that must mean that there is more than one way of interpreting this piece of law; if there was not, it would not be ambiguous. So how are they going to determine what the right answer to that should be?
The DPRRC is very helpful and clear about this. Apart from anything else, it says that both Clause 12 and Clause 13 should be removed from the Bill—we think it is completely right—because they “inappropriately” delegate legislative power and give
“Ministers powers to legislate to achieve effects that ought instead to belong to Parliament and be achieved in … primary legislation.”
But they also refer to restatement, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, drew to our attention. We are concerned that that could take the Government somewhere they perhaps do not intend to go. Given the pressures on time, which we have already discussed at length—do not worry, Minister, I am not going to go through all of that again—restatement could have a different outcome from that intended. That is before we even get to the powers to revoke, which in some ways might be more concerning. That is a real problem for the Government, and it would be good to know whether they have recognised that potential issue and if so, what measures they have put in place to help prevent any undesirable outcomes that may arise.
I will leave it at that because we will probably come on to similar arguments in the next group. We are very concerned. We do not generally have clause stand part debates, but we are very worried about these two clauses in particular.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, and I will do my best to assuage the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. The main objective of this Bill is to end REUL as a legal category, as we have said many times. We view the powers to restate as critical to ensuring that the Bill delivers this vital objective, while at the same time ensuring that UK legislation is clear, accessible and improves legal certainty.
I will start by addressing the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, spoke to. Clause 12 is critical in ensuring that the UK and, crucially for the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, who I do not think is in the Chamber any more, devolved Ministers—
Lord Callanan (Con)
Oh, she is! I apologise to the noble Baroness. She was sat somewhere else earlier.
My point is that devolved Ministers would also have this power and are able to clarify, consolidate, codify and restate any secondary retained EU law to preserve the effect of the current law, while removing it from the category of retained EU law. Removing this power will remove the ability of departments to restate retained EU law to preserve the effects of retained EU-derived principles of interpretation in order to maintain the existing policy effect where it is considered appropriate for the UK in a post-Brexit setting.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, queried whether restatements were just bringing back principles removed by the Bill. I can understand why she might think that, but other parts of the Bill are clear that supremacy and general principles are being abolished and Section 4 of the EU withdrawal Act is being reprieved. These principles or rights will not be recreated in general terms; rather, this power is limited to restating specific individual effects of these principles in particular case law. Indeed, this power will, I submit, provide greater legal certainty to the UK statute book by enabling Ministers—both UK and devolved Ministers—to restate REUL and codify the effects of retained EU case law or EU-derived interpretive effects in a clear and more accessible way.
On the query from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, the general legal definition of “restate” is to articulate the principles of REUL for a specific area of law—which is in fact what these powers do. I submit that there is no need to remove this clause from the Bill.
Turning to Amendment 102, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh, I assure her that we have sought to ensure that the Bill contains robust scrutiny mechanisms, including for the power to restate under Clause 12. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, cited the comments from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I reassure her that the restatement power—I think this also goes to the heart of the query from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman—can be used only to retain a current policy effect of specific individual implications of interpretive effects or retained case law; that is, it maintains the policy status quo, so there would be no changes to the underlying policy.
Regarding consultations, our expectation is that departments will follow the standard procedures with the devolved Governments during policy development. The UK Government are, as always, committed to respecting the devolution settlements and the Sewel convention. Indeed, as I said earlier, the majority of the powers in the Bill—including the powers to restate under Clauses 12 and 13—are indeed conferred concurrently on the devolved Governments. We will of course continue discussions with the devolved Governments moving forward to ensure that the most efficient and appropriate approach to REUL can be taken in a way that provides certainty for all parts of our nation. Therefore, we do not consider that adding a requirement to consult on the face of the Bill is necessary.
Amendment 103 would prevent the power to restate from being able to operate fully on devolved REUL. It is pivotal that there are no impediments or delays in delivering this much-needed REUL reform. I recognise the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, made. Indeed, she may have concerns about the potential impacts of the power to restate within areas of devolved competence. However, I will endeavour to convince her that her concerns are unfounded. None of the provisions in the Bill, including the power to restate REUL, affects the devolution settlements, nor is the Bill intended to restrict the competence of either the devolved legislatures or the devolved Governments.
I turn now to amendments relating to Clause 13 and the powers to restate assimilated law, starting with the Clause 13 stand part notice; the noble Lord, Lord Fox, cannot be here, so the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, spoke to it. Clause 13 is critical to ensuring that the Government are able to reproduce the effects of retained case law and EU-derived principles on the body of law that was REUL and becomes assimilated law at the end of 2023. This is essential to ensure that a consistent approach to the UK statute book can be taken following the sunset by enabling Ministers to exercise this power on former retained EU law that has not been revoked by the sunset and which remains on the UK statute book as assimilated law.
On Amendment 105, I reiterate that this Government recognise the importance of ensuring that legislation undergoes the appropriate level of scrutiny and consultation, and we are committed to working collaboratively and constructively with the devolved Administrations. Therefore, we do not consider it appropriate or necessary to add a requirement to consult to the Bill, because doing so would limit the ability of departments to use the power before it sunsets on 26 June 2026.
Amendment 106, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, would require legislative consent to be sought from the devolved legislatures before a UK Minister makes regulations under the power to restate assimilated law in areas of devolved competence. I reassure the House again that none of the provisions in the Bill, including the power to restate assimilated law, affects the devolution settlements, nor is the Bill intended to restrict the competence of either the devolved legislatures or the devolved Governments. The majority of the powers in the Bill, as I have said, will be conferred concurrently on the devolved Governments. This will enable them to make active decisions regarding their retained EU law or assimilated law within their areas of devolved competence, and it will provide them with greater flexibility to decide how to regulate those areas currently governed by REUL within their competence.
I will move on to Amendment 107. As I have said, we are committed to devolution and to working collaboratively and constructively. We are committed to continuing discussions with the devolved Governments moving forward to ensure that the most efficient and appropriate REUL can be taken to every situation in a way that provides certainty for all parts of the UK.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, this has been a good debate. There is a body of opinion which is strongly opposed to the three clauses subject to the clause stand part notices, two of which are in this group.
I will express my personal disappointment. I am grateful to my noble friend for the replies that he gave, as far as they went, but I was told earlier by my noble friend Lady Bloomfield sotto voce that I could expect a reply on what the Government’s response is to the Scottish Parliament having withheld its consent. I thought that this was the group in which we would hear that. It echoes entirely the concerns about legislative consent Motions from the Welsh Assembly expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys. Both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are concerned that their views are not being heard. I place that on the record.
I have no reason to doubt that my noble friend is right that there will be consultations. One of the Law Society of Scotland’s concerns, which I share, is that it is becoming an increasing habit of this Government to hold consultations over sometimes a 12-week period, and sometimes substantially less, and not publish the results in detail. For legislation such as this it is extremely helpful to know a little more detail. They would be published online anyway, so it is not as though people have to print it off at vast expense. The Government should not be afraid of publishing the results.
For the moment, without prejudicing what might happen at a later stage of the Bill, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
“(1A) Before making regulations under subsection (1) a relevant national authority must consult with any person who may be affected by the proposed regulations.(1B) If a Minister of the Crown proposes to make regulations under subsection (1) which concern devolved matters the Minister must before making the regulations consult with the relevant national authority.(1C) A relevant national authority and, where subsection (1B) applies, a Minister of the Crown must publish the results of any consultation conducted under subsection (1A) or (1B).”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires a relevant national authority or a Minister of the Crown to consult with those who may be affected by regulations under subsection 15(1) before making them. All relevant national authorities are required to publish the results of the consultation.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, I am happy to briefly introduce Amendment 112 on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. It is a pleasure and I thank her for inviting me to do so. Amendment 112 would require a relevant national authority or a Minister of the Crown to consult with those who may be affected by regulations under Clause 15(1) before making them. All relevant national authorities would be required to publish the results of the consultation.
We have been discussing Clause 15 on and off since we started. It is about the power to revoke and has caused a great deal of interest among noble Lords as we have gone through this. We have tabled Amendment 113, which would remove some important measures from the scope of Clause 15. We went for what we thought were the least controversial topics imaginable, so we have the Cocoa and Chocolate Products (England) Regulations 2003, some regulations on toy safety, regulations on the control of asbestos—which we discussed at length on day one—and the Civil Aviation (Denied Boarding, Compensation and Assistance) Regulations 2005.
What we are trying to get at here is this issue of desired policy effect. Repeatedly, we have been assured by Ministers that we have nothing to worry about; every time we raise a particular measure, we are told, “No, that’s all fine; we are going to keep that one.” If that were the case, then an amendment such as Amendment 113 would pose no threat to Ministers because they would be able to back up their assurances with something within the Bill that would mean something.
Not anticipating that that is about to happen, I thought that I should explain a little further why we are quite so concerned about this. Clause 15(2) talks about the right of the relevant national authority to
“revoke any secondary retained EU law and replace it with such provision as the relevant national authority considers to be appropriate and to achieve the same or similar objectives.”
It is quite a broad power to be able to revoke a law and replace it with something else that the national authority thinks is appropriate—never mind what anybody else, this House or the other place might think. Achieving similar objectives is all very well, but the Bill does not say that the replacement law must have the same effect, which is very different. The DPRRC draws our attention to this as well. In fact, the committee says:
“Clause 15 is the most arresting clause in the Bill for its width, novelty and uncertainty,”
which is pretty strong language for this kind of report. This is something that we will definitely want to come back to at a future stage.
I find Clause 15(3) to be the most concerning thing. It states:
“A relevant national authority may by regulations revoke any secondary retained EU law and make such alternative provision”,
but it does not say what the desired policy effect would have to be. The Government do not set out anywhere what their policy outcomes are intended to be, so we cannot challenge the Government by saying that their replacement law is or is not going to meet their policy objective.
We have touched before on the issues raised by Clause 15(5). Ministers know that we are very worried about the last part of that subsection, which says that any changes must
“not increase the regulatory burden”.
A law can be revoked and replaced, but the regulatory burden must not be increased. When we have touched on this previously, we have been told that our understanding is not quite correct, because we were talking about categories of law and the burden must be the same in total across a category of law; a particular measure may result, on its own, in an increase in burden. The “burden” is defined as a financial cost; an administrative inconvenience; an obstacle to trade; an obstacle to efficiency, productivity or profitability; or a sanction, criminal or otherwise. That seemed very odd to us. We are not clear what a “category of law” is and, as far as I can see, it is not stated anywhere in the Bill. This would seem an appropriate set of amendments where the Minister might further explain exactly what is intended.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 114 and 120 in the name of my noble friend Lord Fox, who, as the Committee knows, is unable to be with us today, sadly. I will also speak to the clause stand part notice.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said, this clause is fundamental to discussion of the Bill. She referred to the DPRRC report and, if we thought that it was scathing about Clauses 12 and 13, as the noble Baroness rightly said, it is extremely concerned about Clause 15. Not only was there the phrase that she mentioned, but its conclusions were pretty damning, at the end of the day. It said:
“Clause 15 contains an inappropriate delegation of legislative power and should be removed from the Bill. It gives Ministers an extraordinarily wide discretion to revoke and replace secondary REUL merely where Ministers regard it as appropriate to do so. Clause 15 contravenes the commitment given at the time of the 2018 Act, a commitment that was enshrined in section 8 of the 2018 Act, that substantial policy changes to REUL should be for Parliament in primary legislation rather than for Ministers in secondary legislation … We have recommended that, of the six most important provisions containing delegated powers in this Bill, five should be removed from the Bill altogether.”
This is a very strong recommendation from the DPRRC, whose conclusions we always take extremely seriously in this House. The noble Baroness also referred to the difference between effects and objectives. That was the purpose of Amendment 114.
I really want to speak about some of the impacts of Clause 15(5), also mentioned by the noble Baroness. During our extensive debate on Clause 1, on Thursday 23 February, I mentioned the potential sunsetting of product and consumer safety regulations as an example of the extreme danger posed by the Bill and that, far from there being a need to deregulate, there is in fact scope for improvement in safety standards, particularly regarding online transactions.
Under current product safety legislation, online marketplaces are not accountable for the safety of products being sold by third parties, which enables non-compliant and unsafe toys to be sold in the UK. I went on to give some examples of products, particularly one involving magnets and a young girl called Rebecca McCarthy, who was left critically injured after swallowing 14 magnets that were above the legal limit. I referred also to the fact that Which? has regularly found unsafe products offered for sale in online marketplaces, including Christmas tree lights that were a fire and safety hazard, baby carriers that posed a suffocation risk and electric blankets that were so poorly made that they risked giving electric shocks.
I mentioned a recent report by the National Audit Office that found that product safety regulations had not kept pace with the trends in online commerce; it noted that online marketplaces were used by about nine in 10 adults but were not responsible for the safety of goods sold by third parties. I also pointed out that the Office for Product Safety and Standards had been consulting on the UK’s product safety framework, in particular addressing the lack of obligations on online marketplaces to place only safe products on the market, in a similar way to how obligations apply to traditional retailers.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, mentioned the review at the time. Of course, that makes the ambit of Clause 15, the subject of this debate, particularly relevant: not only is sunsetting available under the Bill but there is the right to revoke until 2026, as we see in the clause.
We can debate changes to Clause 15, such as those contained in Amendments 114 and 120, but it is the whole clause that creates the damage. In her letter of 28 February, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, refers to the review of the Office for Product Safety and Standards and seeks to reassure us about the ambit of Clause 15. I recognise that this letter has not had universal acclaim. I think that perhaps one of the kindest comments was made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, who said it was
“a letter which can be described only as obfuscatory, tautological gobbledegook”.—[Official Report, 28/2/23; col. 169.]
If that is the kindest thing that we can say, we have more to discuss.
In the letter, the noble Baroness explicitly says that
“it is possible for additional regulations and higher standards to be introduced through the powers to revoke or replace, so long as”—
this is the crucial bit—
“the package of reforms contained within each statutory instrument does not increase the overall regulatory burden for that particular subject area”.
My bafflement is equal to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. The letter continues:
“For example, through removing unnecessary or unsuitable regulations or consolidating multiple regulations into one, it will be possible to add new regulations with higher standards provided that the overall regulatory burden is not increased Therefore, it will be possible for a single instrument made under the power in clause 15 to increase the regulatory burden, so long as this increase is offset by a decrease of regulation in the same subject area”.
Here is the rub:
“It will be for the relevant Minister or devolved authority to decide if they are satisfied that the use of the power does not increase the overall regulatory burden in a subject area”.
So it is for the Minister to decide—itself hugely objectional, as discussed on the third day of Committee—but let me set the Minister a hypothetical if he is to decide in this area. If the product safety review recommends that we need a major increase in product safety regulation to cover products sold on online marketplaces, how on earth is that going be balanced by a decrease in regulation within the same package of reforms so that it does not fall foul of Clause 15(5), especially given the definition of burden under subsection (10), which is pretty extraordinary in itself and which I am not going to quote? What would the Minister suggest? Some heavy deregulation on toy safety perhaps, or for baby carriers?
This clause is nonsense and potentially extremely dangerous nonsense. However, in the debate on Amendment 16, the noble Baroness tried to reassure us that the Government are committed to protecting consumers from unsafe products. How on earth could and should something as desirable as product safety for internet-purchased products need to be balanced by deregulation on product safety elsewhere?
It begs the question of how wide the package is within which the Minister will make a judgment. This is the nub of what the noble Baroness was hoping to elicit at some stage—I hope she does. How wide is the package within which the Minister will make a judgment? Is it across the whole of what we described in the debate on the first day as “a bucket”? If so, what is the potential size of a bucket, dear Liza? This is especially relevant as the Minister’s letter says the search is still on for retained EU law. It is the hunting of the Snark, clearly.
Finally, the DPRRC made it clear that we should delete Clause 15. I have a particular objection to subsection (5). I very much hope that, if we have a satisfactory debate today, we will move on to Report and delete Clause 15 at that stage.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I support the opposition to Clause 15 standing part. Other noble Lords have explained potently why it should not. It is the epicentre of taking back power to the Executive and not to Parliament. It is at the heart of the debate we have been having for three days—it is now the fourth day and the fifth is to come. If Clause 15 stands part, the taking back of control to the Executive and not to Parliament will have been consecrated by Parliament, and that would be a terrible error.
The clause contains a bizarre reference to the overall regulatory burden not being increased. This is a phrase in legislation without a metric. There is no description whatever of how this will be judged. I can perfectly well see a Minister from the Front Bench, whenever an attempt is made to change a government proposal, nodding his head sadly and saying, “Ah, yes, I’m afraid you can’t do that, because the regulatory burden will be increased”. It is just a catch-all, kill-all argument yet again for the Executive to have absolute authority. Those are the reasons why I argue that Clause 15 should not stand part.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 118A in my name. I thank my noble friend Lady Chapman for her kind words about my modest amendment, and other noble Lords. From the discussion at Second Reading when my noble friend Lady Crawley referred to human rights and equality, and from earlier in Committee, it became clear to me that it is necessary to provide protection for human rights and equality and their infrastructure in the UK in the Bill.
I actually have been on the dashboard. I went to have a look to see whether I could gain some knowledge and possibly reassurance about the consequences of the Bill. I spent an hour or so putting questions about a variety of issues; of course, human rights and equalities are not a government department so I had to work out how to identify them across the variety of departments concerned. Digging into workers’ rights, I found descriptions of all kinds, many of which have been mentioned in the Committee over the past few days—maternity rights, trade union rights, and so on—but what I could not find out was what might be retained, what might be changed and what might be abandoned, so clearly I either need to spend more time communing with the dashboard or perhaps the criticism levelled at it in earlier debates has been borne out.
As a result, like other noble Lords I decided that the only safe solution was to require, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, proposed earlier today for the Food Standards Agency, that any proposed change, revocation or alternative provision should require an opinion from the EHRC on its impact on equalities and human rights before the powers can be used. Parliament gave the EHRC powers to advise on the equality and human rights implications of laws and proposed laws and to publish information and advice, including to Parliament, on any matter relating to equality and human rights. The breadth of law within the scope of the Bill is considerable and has considerable implications for equality and human rights. They include, but are not limited to, parental leave, annual leave, rights for part-time workers, maximum hours for heavy goods vehicle drivers, and other employment rights. The Bill could also impact on laws on minimum rights for refugees and disabled people’s access to rail and air transport.
So rather than going into detail about all the things that might be affected by this, I thought it would be worth putting on the record five concerns that the EHRC has about the Bill and why this amendment is important. These are:
“Uncertainty about the Government’s policy intentions and potential effects on equality and human rights protections … lack of parliamentary scrutiny of potential changes … limited time available before the proposed ‘sunset’ date … Legal uncertainty resulting from the Bill … implications for devolution and the Union”,
which are immense. So it seems to me that this amendment should help the Government. It is a logical answer to those concerns, and I hope that the Minister might see it in that light.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am much more a supporter of this bit of Bill than some, but even I am astonished by Clause 15(5), which seems to introduce uncertainty and immense delays in the process without offering any great benefit. After all, what we are talking about here is essentially declaratory legislation. It is the Government saying, “We are not going to increase the burden of regulation by what we do under this Bill”. It is a political promise. It will, by and large—unless the Government chose to commit suicide, which is always possible—be delivered before the next election, so there is no benefit to be gained from this declaration. The Government will do it anyway and they will make the changes they wish to make, but the Bill introduces huge uncertainties.
I go back to my previous intervention when I queried the letter that we got as a result of the first day in Committee, which I think misinterpreted the way this subsection works. It is clear to me that, in deciding whether you are allowed to deregulate, you have to look at all the previous regulations made under this section within that subject area and decide whether your particular regulation plus all those adds up to something deregulatory.
It is going to get challenged in judicial review. If you give a water company a couple of hundred million quid fine for dumping turds in the Thames, you will find that its lawyers look at opportunities. Through this section we have introduced so much vagueness, such widespread uncertainty, that whether the regulation is in any way valid can be questioned at enormous length—including, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, says: what is the subject area? Has the Minister got it right? Should it have been narrower? Should it have been larger? What is the right way of measuring these things, of all the things that can be taken into account in regulatory burden? Have they been weighed correctly?
It is total apples and pears mathematics anyway. How on earth do you summon these things to produce a single-digit answer? There is no formula in here as to how you can weigh an obstacle to trade and innovation against an administrative inconvenience. There is no way you can use this clause to arrive at a safe answer. The Government will never know—because of Clause 15(5)—whether any legislation that they have passed through Clause 15 is valid. It will be open to endless challenge. Because of that, in deciding whether to bring forward regulations under this clause, civil servants will have to go through the most enormously detailed and tiresome exercise to discover whether they will be able to make this balance work. That must add hugely to the delays.
I entirely appreciate what my noble friend on the Front Bench said on our previous day in Committee: that the Government want to get on with this and that he has his suspicions—which I hope do not embrace me—that there are people who do not want him to get on with it quite as quickly as he would like. I want these things to happen with speed and accuracy but the work that will have to go in to satisfy Clause 15(5) is huge, and an enormous diversion of effort away from the purposes of this Bill.
As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, pointed out, the only way of avoiding it is to introduce some whacking bit of deregulation smack in the middle of the most important subject areas, such as—let us take the environment since that is something I am heavily involved in—some enormous bit of environmental deregulation; then you know that you are safe because the rest of it cannot add up to excessive regulation.
We have been promised that that is not going to happen, in any segment of the Bill, so that is not open to the Government. They will have to weigh these little changes, pluses and minuses, in detail, every single time—to achieve what? As I said, to achieve nothing, because all of this is totally in the Government’s control. They can choose whether a particular instrument increases or decreases the regulatory burden and they will do it all within their term in office. There is absolutely no net benefit at the end of the day for all the work, difficulty and uncertainty of this, except that it will reduce the chances that my noble friend will achieve what he says are his objectives.
Of course, I am well used to getting things wrong in this House, and it may well be that I have here. In that case, I have Amendment 134, which mimics Clause 15(5) and says, “If you’re going to do this and we’re going to have declaratory legislation, then let’s do it for the environment”. Let us put in this Bill the promises the Government have made in front of us in this Committee about their environmental legislation, and then we can all be comfortable and spend the rest of the decade challenging their interpretation of that.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, I want to draw attention to two paragraphs in Clause 15 to which there has not been any reference in our Committee. Indeed, I do not think there has been any reference to them since Second Reading, but concern was certainly raised then about Clause 15(4)(c) and (d), and it is those that I now want to address.
We should remind ourselves that immense powers are vested in the Minister under Clause 15. Subsection (1) allows them to
“revoke any secondary retained EU law without replacing it”,
while subsection (2) allows them to
“revoke any secondary retained EU law and replace it with such provision as the relevant national authority”—
that is, the relevant Minister—
“considers to be appropriate and to achieve the same or similar objectives.”
That is a power, without reference to Parliament, resting entirely in the hands of the Minister.
I now turn, more precisely, to Clause 15(4)(c) and (d). I shall read those paragraphs out to your Lordships. When replacing revoked secondary EU law, the Minister has the power to
“create a criminal offence that corresponds or is similar to a criminal offence created by secondary retained EU law revoked by the regulations”,
and, in paragraph (d), to
“provide for the imposition of monetary penalties in cases that correspond or are similar to cases in which secondary retained EU law revoked by the regulations enables monetary penalties to be imposed”.
It has been a cardinal feature of our law that the creation of criminal offences and the penalties that arise from the breach of those offences rest entirely in primary legislation. If, hidden under some carpet, there have been EU regulations that create a criminal offence or monetary penalties, then I am ashamed and embarrassed. But for the Government now to seek powers to replace them—again, without putting that before Parliament—is another wrong. My simple contention to your Lordships is that two wrongs do not make a right.
The Earl of Lindsay (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 121 and 123 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley. At Second Reading I welcomed the opportunity created by the Bill to review, improve and update a wide-ranging tranche of important legislation. However, I expressed some concerns about process, and one of those is the constraint that I believe Clause 15 imposes on improving and updating existing legislation. That constraint is also a concern to the Chartered Trading Standards Institute and Which?, among others. Here I should declare an interest as the president of the CTSI, my predecessor in that role being the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley.
The principal constraint I am referring to has been well articulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and others: Clause 15(5) —namely, the proposed requirement that any changes to retained EU law should have an overall effect of not increasing the regulatory burden. I say immediately that I am a long-term advocate of better regulation. Over the years, I have served on the better regulation commission and various other bodies advising government on what better regulation looks like and the framework for its development and oversight. I fundamentally believe that regulation should be avoided wherever there is an effective alternative and that, when there is no alternative, it should be designed so that it achieves its desired effect with the least possible burden.
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, I would also like to speak in support of the amendments on the definition of regulatory burden, because the truth is that throughout our history, one person’s burden has also possibly been somebody else’s vital protection. This is particularly true in respect of employment rights.
It was good to hear the Minister talking positively about the living wage, which started life as the national minimum wage. As somebody who campaigned for it, I vividly remember huge opposition and resistance to the introduction of a national minimum wage, precisely on the grounds that it would be a burden on employers, cost too much and so on. Of course, today, it is now seen as one of the most successful policy innovations this country has ever delivered. I might add that it has been delivered on the advice of one of our few remaining tripartite bodies to make recommendations to government—the Low Pay Commission.
I am also particularly concerned about this clause’s impact on equality. Equal rights for part-time workers, which we also campaigned for, meant that, for the first time, millions of women in particular had access to occupational pension schemes. Without doubt, some might describe that as an administrative burden and an added cost for employers. I would argue that driving up labour standards is good for productivity, protects the decent employer against the bad and is ultimately good for our country. We want a country where people can work and retire with dignity. This clause is really unhelpful: the definition of “burdens” is unhelpful and does not appear to consider the impact on ordinary working people at all. It would be wise to drop it.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, we have heard some excellent contributions in this debate, not least the latest one from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, and those of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones made an extremely powerful case on product safety in online marketplaces. In the course of his contribution, he, like others, tested or tried to probe what “subject area” means—the Bill says, “a particular subject area”. I am afraid we are rather used to this, but the letter that we received from the Minister simply repeated that and did not explain it. It said:
“it will be possible for a single instrument made under … clause 15 to increase the regulatory burden, so long as this increase is offset by a decrease of regulation in the same subject area.”
But it did not enlighten us about the scope of a subject area, because that is a very subjective definition.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said that if civil servants were considering one new measure they would have to look at all of the past measures. I suggest that they would have to look at all of the anticipated future measures as well and be Mystic Meg, because they need to know what is coming down the track to take any kind of view of what a single instrument might do to the weighting of the scales in the balance and amount of regulation. It is a bit of a lottery whether any single measure will fall foul of the overall regulatory burden test.
I note that the Minister’s letter admitted that
“There is no definition of regulatory burden in the Bill, as the Government considered that such a definition could unnecessarily constrain departments given the considerable variety in what is covered in regulations across Government.”
This is not the first time that we have been told that we must not unnecessarily constrain departments—which means unnecessarily constrain Ministers. So consultation, analysis, publication of the results of consultation and the role of Parliament all have to fall by the wayside because we must not unnecessarily—that is a loaded word—constrain departments: that is, constrain Ministers. The Government are acting in a very arrogant and high-handed way. They are getting too big for their boots by saying that nothing should be allowed to constrain ministerial powers. I am quite fed up with it.
So we are not getting any satisfactory explanation of how Clause 15 will be applied, and we cannot have any confidence, given the factors in Clause 15(5), that it will not lead to a de facto lowering of standards. That is the whole thrust of what has been talked about, and the whole rhetoric around the Bill, which started as the Brexit freedoms Bill, so it is very difficult to trust the assurances we have had that Ministers do not intend to lower standards.
During an evidence session with the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee, the Secretary of State for Defra referred to the goal of the Environment Agency
“to change quite a lot of the water framework directive”.
That immediately makes one somewhat worried. It may well be that we need a sensible approach to looking at the water framework—and even my favourite one, the urban waste water treatment directive—but it is well known, and a source of great public concern given the state of our rivers and seas because of the discharge of raw sewage, that tackling the dire state of our waters will not be possible without substantial investment, which would trigger both a financial cost and the profitability limbs of Clause 15(5). So how will Clause 15 be a route through which the Government deliver improved environmental outcomes? There is a simple contradiction at the heart of all this.
The noble Lord, Lord Benyon, has told the Committee several times that the Government are committed to maintaining high environmental standards and that they want to see standards improve in future, but the whole thrust of Clause 15, particularly subsection (5), pulls in the opposite direction. You can just see water companies coming along and saying, if we require them to improve our pipes—which are bursting all the time, not least in my neck of the woods in Islington—and to stop raw sewage discharges by having better treatment facilities, that it will reduce their profits, which are of course being creamed off, with no benefit to consumers and citizens. So it is clear that the thrust of all this is towards a lowering of standards, and it is really impossible to believe the opposite of the case.
Finally, I will speak to the weakness of the “same or similar objectives” test. The reason for us wanting to replace “objectives” with “effects” is because you could have a law which might have the same or similar objectives of protecting consumers, but which will achieve the objectives in ways which are controversially different. I will leave noble Lords with the example of parental leave. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, talked about various employment areas, and one of those rights is to parental leave. If Ministers wanted to have replacement regulations under Clause 15, they could argue that they could decide to give employers the right to refuse leave rather than just postponing it, as they are able to do in narrow circumstances where the operation of the business would be unduly disrupted. The Government could say, “Oh, well, we would be pursuing a similar objective of creating provision for parental leave while protecting businesses from being disrupted”. But if you gave employers the right to refuse leave—pursuing the similar objective because it is about parental leave—you would be driving a coach and horses through the parental leave rights.
Clause 15 is riddled with weaknesses and dangers; it is a “Here be dragons” clause, and it should be removed. It cannot be improved, and it should be taken out of the Bill.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, this has been a good debate, probing our powers to revoke or replace, which are important cross-cutting enablers of the REUL reform in the Bill. They will allow the Government to overhaul retained EU laws in secondary legislation across many sectors of the economy, as we have heard, and replace them with domestic laws that are tailored to and beneficial for the UK.
It would make sense to begin with the debate on the clause stand part notice, which was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and explain why we believe that Clause 15 must stand part of the Bill. Retained EU law no longer aligns with EU law, nor does it keep pace with the evolving needs of the UK’s citizens or businesses. That is why reform is needed. Although the Government recognise the importance of ensuring that delegated powers are appropriately limited and have the necessary safeguards in place, we judge the powers under Clause 15 to be necessary in order to deliver this reform. I am afraid we do not agree with the DPRRC recommendation to remove Clause 15 from the Bill.
At present, the problem is that there is a distinct lack of subordinate legislation-making powers to remove retained EU law from the statute book. This is an oddity. It results from our EU membership and it is appropriate to take a power which covers the gap. Removing Clause 15 would significantly damage the UK’s legislative dynamism and potentially hinder the UK’s ability to regulate adequately. There must be scope for reform over the next two to three years if we are to deliver post-Brexit benefits.
I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, raised concerns in particular around Clause 15(3). We recognise that the power under Clause 15(3) is a broad one, but we want to ensure that departments have the necessary tools to create a regulatory environment which is the right fit for the UK. In addition, Clause 15(3) may still provide only “alternative provision” to the retained EU law or assimilated law being replaced. Any replacement legislation must therefore cover similar ground to the retained EU law or the assimilated law it replaces. Therefore, the power cannot be used to create new regulations in wholly unrelated policy areas, for example. Moreover, I add that nothing in this legislation prevents the Government introducing sector-specific primary legislation where that is considered necessary and appropriate for that subject area, as exemplified by the Procurement Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill in recent times.
I turn to Amendment 112, introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Mcintosh of Pickering. Although the latter has gone home, I listened to this with care. The amendment would hinder the removal of regulations that have been identified as outdated and unsuitable for UK citizens and businesses, which we do not think would be efficient lawmaking. As I touched on before, we do not consider adding to the Bill a requirement to consult to be appropriate or necessary. Equally, I understand the concerns that have been raised.
I turn to Amendment 113, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. Honourable Members—sorry, noble Lords: exempting regulations and judgments on customer protections, which range from aviation to pensions and, indeed, to toy safety, which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, spoke to, from this power would obviously reduce the scope for reform that the Bill sets out to deliver in an orderly manner. There is simply no need for any carve-outs for individual departments or specific policy areas or sectors. Doing that would prevent the UK Government carrying out the necessary work to overhaul secondary retained EU law, which sits across so many different sectors of the economy.
I think my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy talked about tides and how EU law had become entrenched in UK law. Where protections are necessary, these will be kept, but there is an opportunity to improve and in some places simplify laws passed over many years in Brussels.
Turning to Amendment 114, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, Clause 15(2) has already been restricted such that any replacement legislation must be appropriate and must
“achieve the same or similar objectives”
as the legislation it is replacing. This amendment seeks to further restrict that subsection. The use of the word “effects” instead of “objectives” would further restrict the functionality of this limb of the power and prevent departments undertaking reforms that would adjust the existing policy to better fit the UK context. It is important that we ensure departments are able to amend their legislation to better fit that UK context, so this is an important clause.
Amendments 120 and 121, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lindsay, both seek to amend the limitation on Clause 15 that states that the replacement legislation must not add to the overall regulatory burden—so allowing extra burdens. In seeking to remove Clause 15(5) and (6), both amendments would increase the scope of the powers and enable them to be used to introduce additional regulation. Consequently, they would create a wider power than the Government have proposed or intended. As such, these subsections are a necessary check on our powers. Comments have been made that Clause 15(5) and (6) mean that regulation made under these powers could be challenged by the courts. That is of course correct, and like any delegated legislation, an entirely appropriate check.
We recognise that it will not always be a scientific test precisely to establish what the value of regulatory burdens are, or to balance one burden against another. That is why we have sought to ensure an appropriate level of discretion for Ministers in the interpretation of Clause 15(5) and (6). When doing so, the Minister is required to act reasonably and to take into account relevant factors. This strikes the right balance between limiting the scope of the powers and providing Ministers with a pragmatic degree of discretion in deciding whether the regulatory burden test has been met. The restriction to the powers to revoke or replace set out in Clause 15(5) and (6) will help the UK to establish a more UK-specific regulatory approach in order to go further and seize the opportunities of Brexit.
We have sought to ensure that the powers to revoke or replace cannot be used to add to the overall regulatory burden for a particular subject area. However, it will be for the relevant authority to decide. I thought I would share with noble Lords a hypothetical example from my own experience. There may be instances where there are multiple reporting requirements for businesses across a number of regulations in a similar area. Through consolidating these reporting requirements in a single regulation—aligning dates, for example—it can be administratively easier for businesses to comply with the regulations, and it may be possible thus to lower the regulatory burden while maintaining exactly the same standards and, indeed, possibly providing better enforcement. I hope that example reassures my noble friend Lord Lindsay, who I know does so much to try to tackle overburdensome regulation.
In responding to the interesting point made by the noble Lord, Lord, Hacking, about the ability of the powers under Clause 15 to create a criminal offence and provide for monetary penalties, I hope I can be reassuring. Any offences or penalties must correspond to, or be similar to, those which the revoked provisions provided. In that sense, the power does not provide licence to create wholly new offences or penalties, but rather allows like-for-like replacements for what already exists: for example, similar conditions for the commission of an offence and similar penalties. Furthermore, any instruments made under Clause 15(3) will be subject to the affirmative procedure, as well as any instruments made under Clause 15(2) which recreate a delegated power or create a criminal offence present in retained EU law.
To conclude, it is right—
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I wanted to interrupt the Minister before she got much further because I was much struck by her phrase “damaging legislative dynamism”. What would be more dynamic than changing retained EU law in product safety so that it covered online marketplaces? If that is legislative dynamism—very desirable legislative dynamism—what would prevent it? Well, Clause 15(5) would prevent it. How could it be possibly balanced against any other form of deregulation, however much discretion the Minister had? That would be around the edges. Can the Minister answer the hypothetical that I put in my speech?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
There is a balance here. What we have got are powers that allow us to make changes, such as the example that I gave, which will improve the state of regulation. There may be a bit of an extra burden at the margins, but if you are bringing regulation into a new area, which I think is what we are talking about, in my opinion—and I am not an expert in this particular area—that might be a case for primary legislation. Of course, we are about to have further primary legislation in the digital area in the coming months.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
I thank the Minister very much indeed for sitting down. The Minister did not quite answer my cardinal point that it is well-established in our law that all criminal offences, and all penalties arising out of those criminal offences, are part of primary law, not secondary law. That means that, if there are EU regulations that are creating criminal offences and penalties, they are no more right than the current proposal that Ministers will now do it. Both are wrong.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The point I was making is that we are not creating new offences with these provisions. I will look further at Hansard, but I think that what I said was right and not a cause for concern—obviously, there were penalties attached to Section 2(2) and so on, in my experience.
I need to move on. Amendment 121A was tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. As I made clear in relation to the previous amendments, the restrictions to the powers set out in subsections (5) and (6), combined with a non-exhaustive list under subsection (10), will help the UK to establish a more nimble and innovative approach to seize Brexit opportunities. Furthermore, the ability for the powers to act on assimilated law after the sunset date will enable the Government to have sufficient time to undertake necessary reform. However, the Government agree with the principle that adequate limitation should be in place on the exercise of powers. We have sought to ensure the powers are restricted in their use and are available only in a time-limited window—this ends on 23 June 2026.
In the same spirit, Amendment 123, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, seeks to remove the non-exhaustive list in Clause 15(10). Let me again assure the Committee that the requirement not to add to the overall regulatory burden has been drafted in a manner which will allow the relevant national authority to determine how best to achieve the desirable policy outcome.
I turn to Amendment 134A, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas and pick up on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. Honourable Members—sorry, I should say noble Lords. I think I need to pay 50p for any such mistakes; I am sorry about that. As outlined by my noble friend Lord Benyon on day two of Committee, the Bill will not alter our commitments to the environment. The Minister made it clear in his speech that the default position of Defra is to retain EU laws. This will allow us to keep protections in place, providing certainty to businesses and stakeholders, and to make reforms tailored to our needs. The Government also recently announced the environment improvement plan, on 31 January 2023, which sets out comprehensive action that the Government will take to reverse the decline in species abundance, achieve our net-zero goals, and deliver cleaner air and water. I hope this will help reassure the Committee that the Government will not be trashing the kind of protections that we want to continue and improve. There will also be a further opportunity to discuss the environment in a later grouping on Wednesday.
Lastly, I turn to Amendment 118A—it was the last amendment to be tabled so I have come to it last—for which I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. Her proposed criteria include a requirement to share the draft instrument with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and for the commission to provide an assessment setting out the potential legal impact on human rights and equalities, including in relation to the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998. As such, no replacement provision could be made under Clause 15(2) and (3) unless the Equality and Human Rights Commission had confirmed that there was no negative impact as a result of the proposed draft instrument.
We fully intend to maintain the UK’s leading role in the promotion and protection of human rights and the rule of law. We have a long, proud and diverse history of freedoms and we will ensure that our international human rights obligations continue to be met. The powers to revoke or replace are important cross-cutting enablers of retained EU law reform in the Bill. Clause 15 has been purposefully drafted to be broad in scope, and we have sought to ensure that there are important safeguards in place. This amendment would restrict the ability for the powers under Clause 15 to be used to undertake important REUL reform, so we do not believe that it is necessary.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
Could the Minister write to tell me what the safeguards she is referring to are? She probably does not want to explain them at this time of night, but I cannot see anything in the Bill that tells us what safeguards there are. Perhaps she could write and tell the House what they are.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I think the safeguards were in relation to the clause as a whole, but I will certainly write to the noble Baroness. This has been an important discussion, but for now I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, the Government are taking huge powers in the Bill to abolish EU legislation and are asking us to believe the promises they have made; for instance, on environmental law, that they will not decrease environmental protection. I entirely accept those promises. This is a well-run Government who are capable of controlling what they do and living up to their promises. In that case, what is the problem with just saying, “And we’re not going to increase the regulatory burden”? We would say, “Okay, we believe you; we don’t need you to have a power to stop yourselves doing that”. What kind of Government need to legislate to stop themselves behaving well?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
This clause has got to the guts of the Bill. It is a real mistake for the Government to be quite so certain in their position on this and to not give even the slightest indication that they want to consider some of the suggestions made by noble Lords in this debate. I think the Government may come to regret batting things back without really taking on board the very serious and well-considered points that have been made. This is certainly something we will return to on Report.
I have worked on a lot of Bills—not as many as others in this place—but never one where nobody has turned up to support their Front Bench on the Government side on anything.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Even the support there has been has been heavily caveated, and it has hardly been what you could describe as overwhelming and unquestioning support. I would say it has been very questioning support. I think that noble Lords on all sides are looking for a bit more from the Government on this clause in particular, but the same applies to most of the groups we have debated on all four days. Your Lordships might say that I rush to criticise the Government sometimes; I do not think I do. Other people are much more reluctant to do so, but their criticism is there none the less. I genuinely think that Ministers ought to reflect on this.
We are very disappointed with the failure of the Government to engage with the DPRRC on any of its findings and to recognise that the power in Clause 15(3) is very wide. This issue about categories or subject areas and that the regulations must be “similar”—whatever that means—is going to have to be looked at again. If we need to force the Government to do that through votes in this place, we would be very happy to work with noble Lords on all sides to work out the best way to do that.
The Minister said a couple of times that there would be no carve-outs but there is a carve-out for financial services and it looks like judges are getting one for their pensions. It is interesting to think about how the Government set priorities for themselves when these issues are being exempted but the environment and consumer protection are not. It is no wonder that noble Lords are a little reluctant to take all this on trust. Whatever the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, says—I am sure he is a Minister who says everything with the utmost sincerity—there is no default position for Defra of retention. That is not possible in this Bill. It is a real shame that a basic understanding of what is going on here seems to be being overlooked, perhaps wilfully, from time to time.
We are disappointed. We are going to come back to this issue. I urge Ministers to have some further thoughts and deliberations, and perhaps come back with something a bit more sensible on Report.