European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Baroness Ludford

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

[Baroness Ludford]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I invite her to agree with me that the fears that she raises are not fanciful. Indeed, the reason the Brexit Secretary had to make his speech was that we have on record numerous statements by Conservative politicians who are now Ministers expressing a desire to deregulate. I quoted one from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, the other day. In 2012, Liam Fox said:

“To restore Britain’s competitiveness we must begin by deregulating the labour market. Political objections must be overridden. It is too difficult to hire and fire and too expensive to take on new employees. It is intellectually unsustainable to believe that workplace rights should remain untouchable”.


That is on the record, and I have lots of other quotes in a similar vein.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, three pretty clear themes are emerging around the House. First, you should be able to use the subordinate legislation to change EU retained law only where it is necessary to make EU retained law work. Secondly, it should affect only technical matters; and thirdly, it should not take away any individual’s rights. So there are three requirements: it must be necessary to make it work, affect only technical matters and not take away anybody’s rights. The argument for being allowed to go further has not been made anywhere, and I would be very interested to hear the Minister say why those three principles should not apply to every piece of subordinate legislation under the Act. If the Government want to go further, primary legislation should be used. Unless there is a case for going further, this Act should be appropriately limited.