European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jay of Paddington and Lord Goodlad

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jay of Paddington (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 70. If I am in order, I shall speak also to Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. I declare an interest as serving as a trustee of the Hansard Society under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord.

Way back in what now seems like pre-Neolithic times at the time of the Queen’s Speech, when we raised some general issues about the potential passage of the Bill, I spent some time, I think rather to the House’s amazement and considerable boredom, trying to emphasise some of the points about the role that secondary legislation was likely to play in the passage of the Brexit legislation as we now see it coming before us. The estimates since we spoke about that have varied widely, but I have to say that the director of the Hansard Society, who I regard as one of the country’s leading experts on this whole area, has mentioned a figure of 2,000 statutory instruments coming before this House.

The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has competently and eloquently described, both today and in Committee, the importance of his Amendment 70. Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, myself and two other colleagues is what I see as a belt-and-braces addition to Amendment 70; as the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has already said, it would be only a so-called nuclear option in particularly difficult circumstances. Given what has been described as the vastly uncharted waters in which we now embark on this, and remembering my time as the chairman of the Constitution Committee —on which the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, whose name is also to this amendment, was one of my most helpful colleagues—we need at this stage to put some detailed amendments in the Bill that enable the principles that we have discussed so often during the passage of the Bill about the pre-eminence of parliamentary authority over secondary legislation to be put very firmly on the statute book. I think the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, is sufficient. With the addition of the one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, to which I have put my name, we will have, as I say, belt-and-braces protection.

[Lord Goodlad (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. In my view, it strikes the right balance between the role of the Government and that of this House and its committees in the scrutiny of statutory instruments. Amendment 71, so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, follows the recommendations made by the royal commission that was chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham, those of the Leaders’ Group on working practices, which I chaired in 2011, and those of the committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, which we debated in January 2016. That amendment hits the nail pretty well on the head and, if it is reached, should be supported.

I find myself in agreement with the conclusions of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Blencathra, in its 23rd report of this Session, published in April, on the defects of the Government’s amendments as then tabled. In my view, the responsibilities must rest with this House and its committees and the discretion thereto, not with the Government. So I support this group of amendments.