European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and declare my interest as being employed by Cambridge University; essentially my day job is teaching European politics. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, have pointed out, this amendment fills a gap in the proposed legislation, although I understand that it is probing in nature. At present, Clause 2 talks about saving EU-derived domestic legislation—that part is clear—while Clause 3 looks at incorporating direct EU legislation. However, the gap lies in EU legislation which has been agreed or adopted, and here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.

If the legislation has already been adopted by the European Union it will not then be amended, so the issue is that if the 28, including the United Kingdom, have already agreed legislation but the UK has not yet transposed it, that is legislation which we would have expected to be in place at the snapshot point of 29 March 2019. If the legislation has not been transposed by then, there is a question of where we are on 30 March 2019. If, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, said, it is simply a question of adopting things later, that is one thing for a crash-out Brexit, but if there is going to be a transition period and we are supposed to be absolutely at one with the EU 27 on the day we leave, surely that includes legislation that has been adopted but which we have not yet transposed and which we therefore have a duty to transpose.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, it is fairly clear that this Bill already has enough to do in trying to deal with the situation of withdrawal, and it cannot be right that it should take account of any transition period or implementation period, whatever you like to call it, until we know a good deal more about it than I do at the moment. That ignorance is possibly shared to some extent by other noble Lords.

On this point, the true position is that once a directive has been adopted by the European Union with a period for implementation by a member state, the obligation on that member state is to bring it into law in its own domestic arrangements within the period stated. The directive therefore does not become part of the domestic law of that member state until its implementation before or by that date. This Bill is intended to deal with the state of the law on the day of our withdrawal and therefore strictly speaking such directives, however desirable they may be, are not really part of our domestic law any more than an Act which has been passed but not commenced is part of our domestic law. I have a fair amount of experience of that happening.

The situation is clear so far as what this Bill should do, but so far as what my noble friend Lord Deben wants, that is another matter. It is perfectly reasonable that the Government should have a policy on that if they want it.