European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Goldsmith

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith]

Leaving aside Article 191—we can argue about that and there is a decision that appears to demonstrate the point: the case of Artegodan, where the court appeared to be willing to extrapolate from the precautionary principle a general principle of EU law—does the Minister accept that, so far as the other general principles of EU law are concerned, to exclude them from the ability to found a cause of action and not just be an interpretative tool would be a diminution of the rights that people currently have and would include a diminution of many of the rights that the Government are saying are already protected under English law?

[Baroness Ludford]

So that the Minister does not have to bob up and down, may I also ask him a question? He talked about our approach in this Bill. That leads me to reflect on how far the approach in this Bill fits, for instance, the Prime Minister’s speech on Friday, in which she envisaged not only strong commitments in the area of trading goods but binding commitments in competition law. The noble and learned Lord talked earlier about how there would be EU law and then retained EU law in this country, the interpretation of which could diverge. How will the Prime Minister’s commitment to binding commitments in some areas to stay fully aligned with EU law be reflected in this construction of the Bill? If we diverge, would we then have to have domestic legislation to bring us back on track with the EU?