Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Collins of Highbury

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

It is a very serious deficit. I will apply it to this amendment, as my noble friend the Whip insisted. I have chosen this amendment because it is so obviously true that the Government will not change that requirement, so why do we throw this into doubt? Why do we say to civil servants that they have to go through all this in a very short period of time, including requirements that we will not change? As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I am aware that almost all departments are struggling to do what they have to do anyway. If we add this, they will do it rather than what they ought to do—and what I, as chairman, am desperate for Defra, for example, to do—because this has a sunset clause.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

We talked about the regulations that might fall off after the sunset and those that might be thrown out by a Minister, but the last part of the letter that the noble Lord referred to also says that

“the powers in the Bill could be used to preserve, extend and reform retained EU law”,

and then that:

“Anything preserved will be subject to clauses 3-6 of the Bill which repeal retained EU interpretive effects”.


What does the noble Lord think about that? Even when a Minister says that we will keep a law or regulation, does everything that has built up, in terms of case law, get thrown out?

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I almost dare not go down that line because it has been suggested that what I have been saying is not applicable to these amendments. I think it is applicable, and we have to talk about this principle if we are to discuss the Bill properly. On what the noble Lord rightly put forward, all this throws everything into doubt, and it is very un-Conservative. I have never known a Conservative proposal to throw aside all the interpretation that has grown up over the years, because that is exactly what life is about: learning through the years. Citing the fact that it happens to be interpretation of European Union laws is to ignore the history. We have been a member of the European Union, and we are no longer; I am sorry about that, but I am one of those who wants to draw a line underneath that and behave sensibly from now on. I do not want this appallingly reactionary approach, which says, “Because it’s got ‘EU’ on it, there’s something wrong with it”. Let us consider it properly and separately.

So if we are not going to get rid of the first point about motor vehicles and seat belts for children, let us therefore have a different way of doing it. Let us decide that we will have a reform of the laws in general and that we will bring before this House proposals for what those changes will be in a timetable which is sensible and which the House can deal with. Therefore, we would not do the last non-Conservative thing, which is so outrageous as to be almost inconceivable: taking the power over law from Parliament and giving it to Ministers. I can think of nothing less Conservative than that.

Let me put it like this: we are not even giving it to these Ministers; we are going to give it to whichever Ministers are there—and they may not be the same lot. All I want to say is that no Conservative in my knowledge of history has ever proposed that the decision on something as important as, for example, children wearing seat belts shall not be our job in this House and in the elected House, but the job of Ministers alone.

Arms Exports to Saudi Arabia

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Collins of Highbury

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, could we not turn things round the other way and say that we are not going to grant licences unless there is a very clear argument that a particular licence is acceptable, rather than what we are doing at the moment, which seems to be that, unless you can find a very good example or reason not to, you grant the licence? Saudi Arabia is not a country we should be granting licences to, and it is time we said that.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Collins of Highbury

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 15th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I was fortunate enough to take part in the Space Industry Bill on exactly this basis. That is the reason I come to this amendment. I hope that my noble friend will recognise that this is about not just this amendment in this Bill but a whole range of ways of looking at taking into our domestic legislation the things that we have to. I choose to speak on this simply because this is not an issue on which I can be accused of having a parti pris position—although I will be perfectly happy to be accused of that when we have the withdrawal Bill, on which clearly I take a very strong view.

On this, I am talking about an amendment to a Bill which has a great danger. If you produce a Bill called the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, it is very easy to put almost anything in it and feel that it is perfectly reasonable to support what you have put in—because none of us is in favour of not having sanctions and all of us are opposed to money laundering. Therefore, this is the moment in which I always become particularly careful. I am worried about this because it seems to be an area in which lawyers have taken a major part. That always worries me, and I feel that one has to make sure that one is not being led astray down some legal path that is other than sensible.

On this occasion, I think that what is being proposed is not acceptable within the constitution. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, this is a constitutional matter. If we are here for anything—and I believe that we are here for a very good purpose—dealing with the constitution is clearly the central part of it, and dealing with it in the detail that we can, when the House of Commons is unable to deal with it in that detail, makes this even more important.

I cannot believe that my noble friend really intends to say that Ministers should have these powers. I know that I have said it before, but I was a Minister for 16 years and I have to tell him that I should not have been given those powers. I do not agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that it does not matter because of the excellence of the Minister. In a sense, it matters more because of the excellence of the Minister. It is very important as a Minister to recognise that there are restrictions on any Minister, however good. In a sense, that is when I particularly want those restrictions to be strong.

I say to my noble friend that there is a reason why this amendment is very important, and it is a constitutional reason. But there is a practical reason, too. It is that we do not want to feel that the Government are not prepared to understand the distinction between constitutional propriety and the urge and necessity to change the law in order to face up to the regrettable effects of Brexit. This is an opportunity for us to say that this is not about this issue; it is about the constitutional concern. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give the House some reassurance that, now that this has been pointed out to him, he will look again at the debates on the Space Industry Bill, think forward to the debates that we will have over the Trade Bill and the withdrawal Bill, and recognise that perhaps this is a moment to find a way of accommodating a very serious criticism.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord and noble Lords for their contributions. I agree wholeheartedly with their comments in relation to the thrust of this legislation. We are here because of another decision. We are here because we are being forced to take action speedily because of the precipice that we will be facing.

I said at Second Reading and will say now that we support this Bill because we are required to have a proper and full sanctions regime. I completely share the concerns expressed by your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. But, as I said in Committee, your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee examined these clauses in some detail and did not quite share the view of the Constitution Committee. It referred to its previous memorandum on the subject and said that the reason for this clause related to the enforcement of the prohibitions and requirements set out in the regulations. In Committee, the Minister said that the Government were replicating existing enforcement regimes. He said:

“To be clear: these types of offences already exist”.—[Official Report, 21/11/17; col. 165.]


In Committee, I said that if that was the case, and the Minister was hearing us in terms of the concerns over principles, I hoped that he would come up with something better to address the concerns of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I am afraid that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, I do not think that the Minister has come up with adequate provisions to address these concerns. They are limited, as the noble and learned Lord said, to some of the all-embracing powers such as determining evidence and the process for evidence. I welcome those changes but I do not think that the Government have gone far enough in terms of being very clear how these wide-ranging powers will be dealt with. If the noble and learned Lord presses this issue, I hope that the House will support him.

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Collins of Highbury

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

It would obviously be unsuitable for me to make any comment whatsoever about the current strike, given my relationships. Therefore, I will keep away from that. However, I will take on very clearly the point that the noble Lord has made. One cannot possibly suggest that a railway strike is effective if it does not affect the railway passengers. To say, “I am striking but I do not mean to upset the passengers” is really a metaphor without meaning. The staff are striking because they do mean to upset the passengers, because that is the only way they think they can bring their case properly to the eyes of whichever British transport company is concerned. I do not in any way want to make the noble Lord unhappy, but one of the problems is that we pretend. We should not pretend: the purpose of a strike is to cause inconvenience in order that the management of whatever it is should give way.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

I just want to correct the idea that nobody is concerned about the consequences of industrial action. Of course we are; all sides are very concerned. The evidence before us is that, in the day-to-day life of industrial relations, strikes are a matter of last resort. The evidence shows that most industrial action ballots result not in strike action but in speedier negotiations. In relation to this clause, does the noble Lord think it would help the process to have a continuous run of industrial action ballots if the negotiations have not been concluded within four months? The problem is that the negotiation period will move. It will not be four months and then a ballot; it will be before then. Will that help the speedy conclusion of negotiations?

[Lord Deben]

First, I did not accuse anybody of not caring about the passenger or the customer. I merely pointed out that in all the speeches I have heard from the other side nobody mentioned these people, so I cannot believe it is front-of-mind; I cannot believe that it is actually there. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, whom I listened to with great care, and respect considerably, suggested that she had a suspicion about the nature of these proposals. The suspicion was that they were not really about improving industrial relations, but were in some way of a party-political kind. Of course, we can all have our suspicions. I have a suspicion that people who do not mention the customers or the passengers or the rest are not as interested in them as they are in the trades unions themselves—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Deben]

I hoped that I was addressing this with a certain degree of care. I do not want to enter into the argument as to whether trade unions or employers have behaved in one way or another. I believe that industrial action from time to time is necessary. I have never disagreed with that. But it seems to me important—I think the party opposite agrees—that this should in fact be the last resort: you do not have industrial action unless you really need to have it. I hope that one of the reasons the party thinks that, although it has not referred to it, is that it inconveniences—and more than inconveniences—the public as a whole. It is not unreasonable to think seriously about some of the things that can be done to ensure that people are careful about this. That is on both sides; I do not suggest anything other than that.

It seems reasonable to say that you do not call a ballot unless you really need to have industrial action, and it is unlikely that the circumstances four months later or thereafter will be the same as when the ballot was held. That is the point that the noble Lord who spoke last put forward. I am afraid that that does not support his case; it supports my case. If there have been significant changes in those four months, it does not seem reasonable to rely on a ballot that took place in entirely different circumstances. You should have a ballot close to the point at which the industrial action is taken. I think that four months is rather a long time. A week is a long time in politics and four months is a long time in industrial relations. There are other things in the Bill that I am not very happy about, but this proposal seems perfectly reasonable.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

The Bill removes the requirement to take industrial action within 28 days. Does the noble Lord think that that is correct? That is what it will do: take 28 days out and say four months. That will not aid the process. I accept what the noble Lord said about strikes being a matter of last resort and that they are to be avoided, but on industrial action ballots the Government should not try to interfere with industrial relations in the way they have. The fact is that the most leverage a union has on an employer is not the industrial action it takes, but the mandate achieved through industrial action ballots.

[Lord Deben]

I give way regularly because I much prefer debate in this House. I do not much like the system that we have where you put down your name to speak and then nobody ever interrupts you; I always thought that that is not of as much interest and I am all in favour of changing it. I have given way, but I will not be led astray on to other issues. The issue I put forward is very simple: it does not seem sensible to rely on a ballot that took place more than four months ago to take industrial action, given that the change in circumstances may well be considerable, as the noble Lord said. That is why I would like to hear more about the customer and the fact that we ought to rely on a system where people know, with some immediacy, what the question is, vote on it and then take action.