Retained European Union Law

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Frost

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I would be very happy to publish such an organogram—I think we will need an A2 or maybe an A1 piece of paper to get it all on. But it is still a lot less complicated than it was when we were a member of the European Union, and the arrangements still fit within the norms of a trade agreement. I appreciate that they are complex, and I am happy to try to make that as clear as we can in public.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

On the crucial issue of democratic accountability and proper scrutiny of legislation and the legislative process, which I am sure we all want to see enhanced, will the Minister, with his experience, care to compare the degree of scrutiny and democratic accountability that exists in respect of laws that were made in Brussels and the degree of scrutiny and democratic accountability that exists in respect of legislative processes in this Parliament?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. It is obviously possible and has been the case for a regulation with direct effect to be agreed in Brussels, perhaps despite us having voted against it, and for that regulation then to become the law of this country without further ado, despite the best efforts of the scrutiny committees in both this House and the other place. There is no ability to amend such rules. It is right in a democracy that Parliament should be able to set the rules by which we live, and that is a principle that we will try to take forward.

Brexit Opportunities

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Frost

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome a number of the advantages that the noble Lord has identified of us being able to make our own laws again, but it might have been interesting or even entertaining if he had also listed the things that have not happened as a result of us leaving the European Union, which I have certainly listened to interminably over the last four years. At random, I say that we do not have the half a million unemployed that George Osborne said would occur; I seem to remember that it was said somewhere that the M20 would be a car park; and essential medicines were not going to be able to get into the country as a result of it all. It might be quite useful to have a list of that sort. However, the exhilarating thing in the Minister’s essential remarks is that if the Government make a mess of this, in two or three or maybe fewer years the British people will throw the Government out—they will have the capacity to do that. In contrast, when the EU has made laws via the Commission over so many years, many of them very bad, no one has been able to do that. That is at the heart of what has happened, and it is still exhilarating.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. That is a very good suggestion; indeed, a lot of things have not happened that the gloom-mongers said would happen, and they are not going to happen. He is right that this is about bringing back democracy; if you do not like what we are doing, there are ways of dealing with that. We believe we are doing the right thing for the country and that it will prosper under the agenda we are setting out.