Brexit: Options

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Because we do not believe that an extension would solve our problems; it would only delay the date by which a decision must be made. As I have said before, the legal default in legislation passed by both Houses is that we leave on 29 March, with or without a deal.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not continuously misleading for the Minister to present the number of secondary legislation instruments that have been tabled as though that were the end of the matter? There is a big difference between the number that have been tabled and the number that have been subject to scrutiny. While I draw attention to that again, let me also say that the Treasury has now developed the habit of tabling instruments without any impact assessment in them at all, which is surely totally unacceptable in respect of the effective scrutiny of instruments.

[Lord Callanan]

I totally agree with the noble Lord that I said how many had been tabled, but I also said how many had been completed. If I did not, the number is 210, so I totally accept that there is a long gap in the process in between. The appropriate scrutiny must be provided, and I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord’s committee and that of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne in the excellent scrutiny work that they are providing on this important legislation.

Brexit: Article 50

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

It is the turn of the Conservative Benches and then we shall hear from the Labour Benches.

[Lord Callanan]

I remind the noble Lord that as well as getting the meaningful vote passed by Parliament we need to legislate for it. Clearly, that is quite a challenging programme, but we will attempt it. The most important thing is to keep putting forward relentlessly the argument that the best way to avoid no deal is to vote for a deal.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling]

My Lords, since the Minister mentioned scrutiny, does he think that for departments to submit compendium statutory instruments covering multiple subjects replete with errors—in one case, a fatal error was referred back to the department and the department then said that it intended to withdraw the instrument but has not done so—expedites scrutiny?

[Lord Callanan]

It is difficult to comment on that specific example without seeing it. I hope that departments want to work with the noble Lord’s committee to make sure that the quality of statutory instruments is appropriate and that the appropriate scrutiny is applied to them. It sounds from what he says as though the appropriate scrutiny is being applied.

Brexit: Statutory Instruments

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

As I said, we remain confident that we will be able to deliver the programme in time. We do not expect to have to use the urgent procedure under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, but we cannot rule anything out at this stage. We have no expectation of having to do so.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw the Minister’s attention to a statutory instrument produced by BEIS. It runs to 636 pages, weighs 2.54 kilos and covers 11 disparate subjects addressed to this House as one statutory instrument. Regarding procedures, this is unprecedented. Can the Minister assure the House that this is not simply an underhand way to reduce the number of statutory instruments we need to scrutinise, thereby reducing delays? It would take days for this document alone to undergo proper scrutiny in this House.

Brexit: Legislative Timetable

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for his extremely constructive attitude. It allows me to come back to a point raised by the noble Baroness which I did not answer. She said that there are 600 SIs to table. That is the total that will be required, and the figure has been revised down from our original estimate of between 800 and 1,000. We have already tabled more than 50% of them. The rest will be tabled in due course to allow for proper parliamentary scrutiny using the sifting committee chaired by the noble Lord.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, as chairman of the other scrutiny committee, let me challenge what the noble Lord has just said to the House. He said that more than 300 secondary legislative instruments have been tabled, but 300 have not yet been scrutinised.

[Lord Callanan]

I accept the noble Lord’s clarification. We have submitted over 300 of them for the appropriate scrutiny, and the rest will be submitted for scrutiny in due course.

Council of the European Union: UK Presidency

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I thank the noble Baroness for those points. Those are exactly the kinds of things that we need to take into consideration.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling]

My Lords, why would the United Kingdom not want to take up the presidency—not just of the whole of the European Union but of each Council of Ministers? It would give us significant influence in those Council discussions over a six-month period which will be crucial to the negotiations for Britain leaving the European Union. It would be madness not to take up this opportunity.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The noble Lord speaks with great experience—far more than I have had after only 36 hours in the job. I absolutely heed what he says but, as I said, that is exactly why we are taking our time to consider these matters.