European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Lisvane

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lisvane]

My Lords, I speak as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is unable to be here today because he is absent on parliamentary business. No doubt noble Lords have a copy of the 51st report of the Delegated Powers Committee. The argument set out by the committee is brief, concise and telling. I will not attempt to summarise it or indeed to read out the report, because paragraph 5 could hardly be summarised more briefly than it has been set out by the committee.

The committee acknowledges in paragraph 4:

“The principal justification for clause 2 of this Bill is that it might be necessary to legislate at speed next week”—


in other words, this week—

“to change exit day. The affirmative procedure might cause delays, with the risk that exit day in domestic law might not be aligned with exit day agreed under EU law”.

The committee goes on to say that on the other hand, there are powerful and telling arguments in favour of the affirmative procedure. It notes that were Clause 2 to be removed from the Bill, we would simply return to, as it were, the default setting.

Because this will be a matter of business management, the most helpful thing for your Lordships might be to have some indication from the Minister as to whether there is a balance of advantage of using the negative or the affirmative procedure. On that basis, it may be for your Lordships to decide whether Clause 2 remains in the Bill.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, again, I am disadvantaged as being neither a member of the committee or a lawyer. I am surprised that the noble Lord has not drawn the attention of the House to the fact that, as I understand it, the committee report makes it clear that this House would no longer be able to be consulted on those matters. Is that not correct?

[Lord Lisvane]

It is indeed; the noble Lord is correctly quoting from the final bullet point of paragraph 5. I did not want to delay your Lordships further, but that is a helpful, additional piece of information set out in the report.