Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Fox Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Fox]

At end insert “but regrets that the Bill (1) weakens the scrutiny role of Parliament and proposes unparalleled delegated powers be given to Ministers of the Crown, (2) does not respect the constitutional role of the devolved administrations, (3) sets an arbitrary deadline for the revocation of many hundreds of laws protecting the United Kingdom’s high environmental standards, as well as employment and consumer rights and safety standards, with no indication of the rules that will replace them, and (4) imposes a cliff-edge at the end of 2023 that will create uncertainty for people and businesses”.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my non-pecuniary interests as a vice-president of the German-British Chamber of Commerce and a director of the German British Forum. I associate my thoughts with the Minister in anticipation of the two maiden speeches by the noble Baronesses.

As we have heard, the Bill seeks to make major changes to the body of retained EU law in UK domestic law. It aims to automatically revoke, or sunset, most retained EU law at the end of 2023. Any retained EU law that still applies after the end of 2023 would be renamed as assimilated law. At this point, I stop agreeing with the Minister, because this Bill hands huge powers to Ministers at the expense of elected MPs.

Your Lordships might have become immune to the Henry VIII clauses that have been propagated by Bill after Bill coming before this House, but this Bill represents a new, unprecedented level of transfer of power from Parliament to the Executive. It gives Ministers powers to legislate in areas that affect every aspect of our daily lives without any meaningful democratic input. Far from creating new high standards, as has been promised by Minister after Minister, the replacement legislation cannot increase standards: it can only keep them the same or make them lower. Moreover, the impractical timetable imposed by the sunset clause indicates clearly that this Government know that their race is run.

The reaction across key communities and committees across Parliament is very clear—I have never received so much comment from civil society as I have on this Bill. It is not only anti-democratic; it is ill thought through and badly drafted. For example, the impact assessment was roundly criticised by the Regulatory Policy Committee. Then, just last week, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee issued its verdict, which is damning. I am sure your Lordships will refer to it in more detail, but crucially, to my mind, the DPRRC highlights the false dichotomy epitomised by the Bill.

As the committee explains, the Government create such a dichotomy by saying that replacing all retained EU law purely through sector-specific primary legislation would take decades. That might be so, but the committee also notes that this is a false choice between replacing all such legislation with primary legislation and replacing all of it with regulations made by Ministers. There is another way. The choice is not all primary legislation or all ministerial edict. The advice of the Bar Council is a useful suggestion for the way we should go forward. It says of the legislation under review

“the question should be whether it remains fit for purpose: would alternative UK regulation achieve different and preferable goals, be better or more cost-effective in achieving its goals, or more certain in its application?”


In other words, this approach is to improve legislation where appropriate, which reflects the thinking on these Benches.

The Bar Council also outlines two overarching concerns regarding the Bill. First, it says, as do many others, that it is anti-democratic, noting:

“Important changes to our law should be made by Parliament after proper consultation, public debate, and scrutiny.”


This echoes many of the comments that we have heard. Secondly, the Bar Council says:

“The Bill and the attendant legal uncertainty that will follow its adoption as currently drafted will damage the UK’s reputation for regulatory stability, predictability, and competence, on which growth-promoting investment in critical sectors of our economy depends.”


I will be interested to hear what the lawyers in your Lordships’ House have to say about the need to establish brand-new case law right across the piece. For my part, I note that the Bill also grabs back power from the devolved authorities. I am sure my noble friend Lady Randerson will expand on that theme later today.

However you look at it, this is an unprecedented upheaval of the nation’s laws, yet when I listen to the Minister and his colleagues across Parliament, somehow it is depicted as a sort of tidying-up process. Indeed, Jacob Rees-Mogg described it as a “technical tidying up operation”. I do not know what tidying up looks like in the Rees-Mogg household, but this is not light dusting. To stretch a metaphor, it is the equivalent of tidying up the family nursery by completely dismantling Casa Mogg brick by brick and then putting it back together again. That is quite a task, and there is no guarantee of what comes out at the end.

In this case, what is rebuilt is up to Secretaries of State and them alone, and we all know how such grand designs end: in cost overruns, changes, delays and unexpected problems, but, unlike with the TV programme, there is no guarantee that this real and present story has any pleasing outcome—none whatever.

The tidy-up story would perhaps have a shred of credibility if Ministers were not at the same time pandering to the likes of Sir Bill Cash, who expressed the views of the ultras very well when he said that retained EU law is

“a massive ball and chain”,—[Official Report, Commons, 18/1/23; col. 419.]

implying that the UK must remove this regulation. Only last month, we also heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer talking up the need to remove, reform and take away regulations. This Bill makes all that possible without Parliament and elected MPs getting in the way, which is music to the ears of Sir Bill and his deregulating colleagues.

Of course, this process also effectively does away with much of the legislation delivered by thousands of statutory instruments passing through your Lordships’ House. As your Lordships no doubt recall, these incorporated retained EU law into British law to avoid what was then described as a chaotic bonfire of regulation as we left the EU, but it seems we delayed that bonfire a few years because a bonfire is what is now proposed in this Bill. This fire will impact a vast range of areas, including consumer rights, safety regulations of all kinds, protecting the environment and, of course, employment rights. No doubt many noble Lords will have detailed examples of these issues as we debate the Bill today.

As well as a power grab and a deregulator’s paradise, this Bill is also likely to deliver something that this Government have excelled at, which is chaos. The Bill, say Ministers, is designed to support business interests—indeed, we heard the Minister say that just now—but we hear from business that it will create chaos and poor governance, rather than stability. This will undermine confidence and will be likely to have a negative impact on business investment in the economy, something I am sure the Minister would prefer to be going in the opposite direction.

Speaking last month, Tony Danker, the director-general of the CBI, argued that scrapping these 4,000 or so EU-derived laws by the end of 2023, as facilitated by the Bill, was

“creating huge uncertainty for UK firms”.

As he put it:

“Do we really want to subject the public—and industry—to another round of mass confusion and disruption, just when we’re trying to exit recession?”


In his view, and ours, EU laws should be reviewed and, where needed, repealed as part of a wider strategy to deliver smart and better regulation. He noted that the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, is currently reviewing how the UK can better regulate emerging technologies—for example, some of those that the Minister reeled off. The sensible thing, said Danker, would be to wait for that review and act on it systematically. We see the same attitude and response across business. The Federation of Small Businesses, the car makers and most of UK manufacturing do not want the confusion that this Bill will deliver.

Your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has worked fast, and should be credited for that, to ensure that its extensive report is available to inform this debate. The committee focuses on the sunset provisions and the lack of effective scrutiny of secondary legislation, but in a broader sense, its view is important and something I would like your Lordships to take on board. It said:

“Amending the Bill so that the shift in power between Parliament and the executive is reversed will require a great deal of thought and creativity, and commitment to the overarching aim of redressing the current imbalance of power.”


In other words, there is a lot to do to this Bill to make it acceptable. We agree that this going to be a difficult job, but we commit to doing it, because we feel it is vital to ensure that MPs maintain a grip on the legislative process rather than, as the Bill commands, hand decisions solely to Ministers.

This amendment highlights why this Bill is wrong. It is wrong because it weakens the scrutiny role of Parliament and gives unparalleled delegated powers to Ministers. It is wrong because it does not respect the constitutional role of the devolved Administrations. It is wrong because it sets an arbitrary deadline for the repeal of numerous laws that protect the UK’s environmental standards, safety standards, employment rights and consumer rights, and it is wrong because it creates uncertainty for businesses and individuals. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, Monsieur Barnier recently warned Britain not to tear up EU laws—well, he would, wouldn’t he? This should come as no surprise. For all its trumpeted advantages, the EU is performing worse than Britain. Whatever way you look at it, Britain is doing better. As Britain escapes the cloying and destructive stranglehold of EU regulations and red tape, we will leave the EU trailing even further behind. It is no wonder that Monsieur Barnier is nervous.

Many claim that Britain has suffered economically from leaving the European Union. That is nonsense, driven by those who wish for us to rejoin the European Union. Last year, Britain’s GDP grew faster than those of Germany, France and Italy. Our economy has grown by 5.7% since 2016—the same as that of Germany, the financial powerhouse of the EU. Yet, in 2022, real wages fell further in Germany than they did in the UK. While food prices are up by 19.9% in Britain, they have risen by 21.1% in the eurozone and 24.1% across the whole of Europe.

However badly the British economy might be faring in these challenging times, the European Union is doing worse. That is in relation not only to economics; our Covid vaccine development, procurement and rollout is a good example of what can be achieved free from EU restrictions. It was such a success that the EU tried to keep it for itself and to block shipments to Britain. By March 2021, Britain had vaccinated 40% of its population, while the EU had vaccinated only 12% to 14%. Just think how much more the rest of our life sciences sector and other industries can achieve when they are fully freed from the EU’s shackles.

We must support the Bill; it will help to remove the remaining EU bureaucracy from our statute book that continues to impede our economy and society. Some noble Lords may complain, as indeed they have today, that too much discretion is being given to Ministers, but we should remember that the retained EU laws only exist because edict after edict was imposed on the UK without this country being able to alter so much as a comma. Noble Lords have far more scrutiny now, and under the Bill, than they ever did when the legislation was created.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Nonsense.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

It is not nonsense; it is true.

Above all, we should celebrate that our country is a sovereign nation and be grateful that we are not subject to the 25,163 new EU laws created since we left. I urge noble Lords to support the Bill, which recognises that our country is now governed from Westminster and not by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels.