Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Baroness Humphreys and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Committee stage
Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.”

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Baroness Humphreys and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 51, I shall speak also to Amendments 53 and 56. I look forward to hearing from others who are speaking to their amendments in this group: the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, my noble friend Lady Lawlor, the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Fox, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, with whose amendments in this group I have much sympathy.

Amendment 51 is a simple amendment which would leave out “Minister of the Crown” and insert “a relevant national authority”. The point of the amendment is to ensure that any relevant national authority, as defined in Clause 21(1), can extend the sunset referred to in Clause 1.

The reason I move this amendment is that the Bill currently proposes, in Clause 2, that only a Minister of the Crown can make regulations to extend the sunset period. In my view it is inappropriate that Ministers in the devolved Administrations cannot carry out the same function in respect of the retained European Union law that applies in their respective devolved competencies. Limiting this power to a Minister of the Crown appears to be at odds with paragraph 60 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill:

“The Government also remains committed to respecting the devolution settlements and the Sewel Convention, and has ensured that the Bill will not alter the devolution settlements and will not intrinsically create greater intra-UK divergence.”


The point of this amendment is to assist the Government in this regard. It provides devolved Ministers with the power to extend the sunset deadline. Amendment 53 is merely consequential on this amendment.

Amendment 56 intends to delete Clause 2(4) at line 18 of page 2. Clause 2(1) provides that:

“A Minister of the Crown may by regulations provide that … the reference in section 1(1) to the end of 2023”


should specify a later time. Clause 2(4) provides that the later time cannot be

“later than the end of 23 June 2026”,

which happens to be the 10th anniversary of the date on which the referendum on UK membership of the European Union was held.

In my view and that of the Law Society of Scotland, which helped me draft this amendment, government policy in relation to the applicability of retained EU law should not be made on the basis of symbolism. There is no need to set such a deadline, and I seek to understand why my noble friend the Minister is putting such an arbitrary deadline in the Bill. Were any deadline to be necessary, this should be made on the application of good legislative practice, including consideration and analysis of the legislation involved and consultation with those who will be affected by the variational revocation proposed by the regulations in question. In any event, in the opinion of the Law Society of Scotland, with which I agree, the sunset provision should operate from 31 December 2028 at the earliest. Clearly, the possibility of any extension of a sunset provision should run for a period after that date.

In an earlier debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and others referred to the political dimensions of parts of the Bill. I ask my noble friend to confirm that it is not purely for political symbolism that the Government have fixed on this deadline.

I also request that the point I raised in the debate on the first group of amendments be now positively responded to. In summing up this group of amendments, can my noble friend tell me how the Government intend to respond to withdrawal of consent by the Scottish Parliament? How do the Government intend to respond to the amendments the Scottish Parliament has published and tabled in this regard? With those few remarks, and looking forward to the other contributions, I beg to move.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 54 in my name, Amendments 51 and 53 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and Amendment 58 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, all of which I support. I thank the noble Baroness for explaining her amendment so clearly.

Amendment 51 would ensure that any national authority could extend the sunset and, usefully, points to the definition of “national authority” in Clause 21. Amendment 53 would extend the sunset until the end of 2028. The noble and learned Lord’s amendment would very helpfully give Scottish and Welsh Ministers a power to extend the sunset date for devolved retained EU law, equivalent to that conferred on a Minister of the Crown by Clause 2.

My Amendment 54 continues on from those three amendments by clarifying what provisions would be devolved and would therefore be under the competence of Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers or the Ministers of the Northern Ireland Executive for decision, rather than a Secretary of State. I am grateful to both noble Lords for tabling their amendments, which highlight and address the anomaly that has stood out in this Bill: they give the Minister the opportunity to explain fully the reasoning behind the Government’s decision to allow an extension to the sunset beyond the end of this year for the Secretary of State while withholding the availability of such an extension for Ministers in the devolved Administrations.

I should add that the Minister has already dealt with that issue in her response to this morning’s debate but I am afraid that I missed the detail. I shall read Hansard and reserve the right to come back to this issue at a later stage if I need to, but perhaps if she or her noble friend have anything to add then they will do so. I am also grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his Amendment 58, which puts the powers of the Welsh Ministers over devolved retained EU law on a par with that of the Secretary of State.

Why do the devolved Administrations need these amendments? The arbitrary cut-off date of the end of 2023 has no logic other than a political one. The cynic in me believes that the UK Government want to clear the decks before the next election, probably next year, so that they can claim that EU law no longer exists in the UK, no matter the damage which that causes and the complexity of the task.

In an earlier debate I referred to the Welsh Government’s response to the Bill, and I shall use those points again in relation to the debate on these amendments. The Welsh Government feel that the Bill is unnecessary and that the EU laws have worked well for them. Their preference would be to continue with the present laws and amend them gradually over time as the need arises. An extension to the sunset until 2028 would allow them to deal with the process in a more timely and considered manner. The workload for Members of the devolved Administrations and their comparatively small teams of civil servants has already been referred to. They have dealt with a massive amount of UK legislation over the last few years. They have struggled with complex Bills that have provided increasing challenges to their devolved settlements and have led to increasing calls for the codification of the Sewel convention.

My Amendment 54 would clarify what is devolved and, if placed in the Bill, would bring certainty for Welsh Ministers to act on devolved matters without interference. This Bill has added further pressure on the Welsh Government, as Members have already said, and one feels the sense of their being overwhelmed. There are difficult decisions to be made, as they consider whether more civil servants will have to be employed or whether the redirecting of officers to work on the Bill will be sufficient. The latter, of course, has an impact on the legislative programme that the Senedd would wish to implement and the former has an impact on its budget.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Humphreys and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I preface my remarks by saying that what will replace the European structural funds is a matter of interest not only to the devolved Administrations but to the regions, such as Yorkshire, as well. I was fairly agnostic about this group of amendments before the debate commenced but now I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and the other noble Lords who tabled these amendments have done the House a great service.

In the briefing on the spending review, the emphasis now appears to be much more on UK-wide spending. It states:

“The Spending Review takes advantages of our departure from the EU to benefit the union. We will ramp up funding, so that total domestic UK-wide funding will at least match EU receipts … for the introduction of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, we will provide additional UK funding to support our communities to pilot programmes and new approaches. We will also deliver £1.1 billion to support farmers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, £20 million to support fisheries—and we will build one freeport in each part of the UK.”


It goes on to say that the spending review is UK-wide and refers to the UK shared prosperity fund and the shared rural network. Although I welcome the funding that has been announced, it is incumbent on us today to find out whether, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the Government are now working around the devolved Administrations rather than with them.

I am particularly concerned with one aspect relating to economic development, which I hope is relevant to this group of amendments. England and Defra have clearly stated that they are committed to phasing out direct payments to farmers from 2021, but the new system involving an environmental land management scheme will not be in place until 2024. As I understand it, however, the Scottish Minister has announced that direct payments to farmers will be retained for the foreseeable future. That begs the question of what the impact on economic development will be for English farmers as opposed to Scottish farmers and whether that will potentially distort the market between England and Scotland. That would seem to flout the principles of mutual recognition and non-discrimination, which we have heard so much about during the Bill’s passage.

I welcome this debate. I am particularly supportive of Amendments 64 and 67, both of which have been spoken to so eloquently by their authors. I urge my noble friend the Minister to say how the payments under the shared prosperity fund will be distributed. Obviously, I would add a rider that Yorkshire would like to have its fair share of that fund, but it is incumbent on my noble friend to state whether we are departing from what we have become accustomed to under devolution or whether this is simply a red herring.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 64, which seeks to remove Clause 42 from the Bill. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for tabling such an important amendment and for his excellent explanation and analysis of its intent.

Clause 42 empowers the UK Government to provide financial assistance for economic development in any area of the UK. At the outset, I want to make it clear that I have absolutely no objection to the UK Government making investments for economic development in Wales—nor, I believe, would anyone else in Wales. It is the intrusion into devolved powers that is so offensive. Those of us who live in the Objective 1 area of West Wales and the Valleys understand that our economy is weaker than those in other areas of the UK and that we live in one of the poorer regions of Europe. We have appreciated the EU’s investment in the past 20 years; for example, the investment in the A55, which provides such a vital transport link across north Wales, and the projects that we have seen come to fruition under the rural development fund.

In my contributions on Second Reading and in Committee, I said that investment in our region is desperately needed—it was before we received Objective 1 funding and it will be when it ends—but this clause gives the Government extraordinary powers to act in areas of devolved competence and in areas where the EU structural funds have never operated. It is extremely disappointing that, throughout this clause, there is no mention of consultation, joint planning of schemes, joint programmes of work or joint management of projects—all examples of the collaborative approach to investment programmes initiated by the EU that we have become used to. There appears to be no clear setting of objectives, other than, I suspect, that the Government’s prime objective is to see projects in the UK—in the Prime Minister’s words—emblazoned with the union flag. I have no problem with that either. In West Wales and the Valleys we are used to seeing EU blue flags or plaques on projects. They are an indication that the needs of our area have been recognised, and so it would be with the union flag.

There is, however, still no clarity on how needs will be determined and recognised in the UK under the shared prosperity fund, whether projects will be imposed or applications sought and, crucially for us in Wales, what impact there would be on our financial settlement. We still do not know whether a UK Government investment in a road-building programme, for example, would lead to a reduction in the Barnett allocation, or whether projects imposed on us would be financed by loans that require repayment by the Welsh Government. All this curtails the Senedd’s ability to deliver on its objectives and will have an impact on its ability to deliver on its manifesto commitments.

Of all the attacks on the devolution settlements in this Bill, this is probably the most blatant—so much so that the powers and responsibilities of our Parliaments do not even merit a mention. It is another example of the introduction of a new constitutional settlement by stealth, as I referred to in my speech on Monday. It is another item to add to the list of examples fuelling the interest in independence, which, under this UK Government, is reaching a level never seen before in Wales. People are witnessing the performance of an almost colonial Government emanating from Whitehall and comparing it with the more progressive Government and Senedd we see in Wales—a progressive Senedd that voted last week to allow councils to change the electoral system for local elections by introducing the STV system and open up the franchise for local elections to 16 and 17 year-olds in addition to their existing rights to vote in Senedd elections; importantly, it supported voter participation by paving the way for automatic voter registration.

I must admit, I am surprised that, after listening to concerns expressed by the noble and learned Lord in Committee and hearing the support for his stance from other noble Lords, the Government have not come back on Report with an amendment of their own that recognises and ameliorates the impact of this clause on the devolved Parliaments.

In a Bill about the regulation of the UK internal market, this clause and its assault on the devolution settlements has no place, and I support Amendment 64 to remove it. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be minded to call a Division on the amendment. If he does, he will have the support of these Liberal Democrat Benches.