European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted

Committee: 11th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted]

I thank noble Lords who have supported the amendment. If something is present in the National Archives, I wonder whether that means that it can then automatically be relied on in court without there being any necessity for certification or other requirements. If that was the case, it would fulfil the point that I was trying to make—there are other points that noble Lords have referenced. I did not want it to be that, in order in a court proceeding to reference a directive or draw the judge’s attention to it, one had to remember to go through the certification process, especially if there were a lot of them.

[Baroness Ludford]

My noble friend is much more an expert than I am on these technicalities, but other noble Lords as well as I have talked about more general accessibility for citizens and businesses. Someone like me knows that I can just put the number of the directive in Google and, hey presto, I get the Official Journal. However, it being in the National Archives is not as good as it being in whatever series is published under Schedule 5. If this is to be done in some voluntary capacity, why is that good enough? Why cannot it be in the Bill? It seems a very British solution: “Oh, well, it’ll be in the National Archives”. No one will be able to find it because they do not know that it is there. It might or might not be okay for the technical purposes that my noble friend is talking about, but it will not be squarely there in a series that can be made known. I cannot understand the Government’s logic.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted]

I thank my noble friend for that intervention. She also made some important points earlier about what has come into our law allegedly from directives. I must say that, since I have been looking at this withdrawal Bill, I have become astonished by what has been done under the European Communities Act, which I do not think I would have wanted if I had gone back and made the European Communities Act again—but that is a digression.

There are two outstanding points: whether you need to do anything to get it into court for technical purposes; and what the visibility is for citizens. I must say that anybody who thinks that our legislation is at all visible should go on to the government website and wander around it. If they are hoping to find out what the current law is, the first thing they will see is that the site is not up to date. I find it a far sight easier to find up-to-date European law, but again, I digress.

With the proviso that it may be necessary to return to this—possibly the Government will bring forward an amendment or provide further explanation—I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.