United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will keep my remarks brief and try to avoid duplication—difficult at this time of night. As a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I must put on record, along with the great majority of the 100 or so speakers today, my deep disquiet that, in proposing the Bill, our Government have shown such disregard both for the international reputation of this country and for one of the most fundamental principles of our democracy: the supremacy of Parliament.

I applaud my noble and learned friend Lord Judge on his very powerful speech. I agree with every word of it and will certainly be supporting his Motion. For the sake of Britain’s standing in the world, I implore the Government to ensure that the Bill never reaches the statute book unless Clauses 44, 45 and 47 are removed, along with most, I would say, of the Henry VIII clauses, which have absolutely not been adequately justified by the Government's memorandum to Parliament on the Bill.

For the sake of the health of our democracy, I trust that the Government will respond positively to the appeal, in a letter to Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg, from the chairs of the Constitution Committee, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Secondary Legislation Committee. The letter sets out the considerable concerns of the members of all three committees about the truly extraordinary delegation of powers to Ministers in recent Bills, not just this one—although this one, the internal market Bill, is undoubtedly the most extreme and troubling example of this trend.

Finally, I call on the Government to respect the conclusion of the Strathclyde review of the role of the House of Lords in relation to statutory instruments. The review made clear that,

“it would be appropriate for the Government to take steps to ensure that Bills contain an appropriate level of detail and that too much is not left for implementation by statutory instrument.”

Do the Government really want to completely disregard a report commissioned by a recent Conservative Government? I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, would want your Lordships’ House to challenge the exceptionally pervasive use of Henry VIII clauses in the Bill and, indeed, the terrible Clauses 44, 45 and 47, and I very much hope that we can do this on a cross-party basis.