European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Viscount Ridley

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

Will my noble friend explain something to me? He has just said “passed into our law”, but there is confusion, particularly in relation to what the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, about environmental law. This is surely about environmental principles, which are really quite different. They are, on the whole, aspirations, with which many of us may agree, but they are not part of the legislation as such.

[Lord Deben]

I fear that my noble friend is not right on that, for two reasons. First, all environmental law in the European Union has been intimately connected with the principles upon which it is based. Indeed, you cannot understand the law unless you understand the principles. That has always been the situation. All we are saying is: let us make our law understandable by the principles to which we have assented and to which, we are told, the present Government wish to continue to assent. The distinction between principles and law is not correct in this case. Secondly, even if he were right—and I am not sure that he and I would always agree on the same aspirations as far as the law is concerned—it is very peculiar for the Government, having said that this is what they want, not to be prepared to put it into the law, because these are the very words to which the Prime Minister and other Ministers have referred. This is a distinction without a difference in this case.

Since my noble friend has raised it, I say that when we voted on these laws—some of which I did as a Minister—we did so on the whole package, which was the principles as adumbrated in the law itself. It is not possible to take the legal bits out without the principles, as he would suggest, because it is the principles that enable one to interpret what the law says. That has always been accepted. The Government, in their statements, certainly gave every impression that that was what they wanted to do. I very much hope that whatever my noble friend says about additionality—