Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Lord Hacking and Lord Wilson of Dinton

Report stage
Wednesday 17th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not get into the debate with the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. The fate of the Bill and how it is here has been correctly described by my two noble friends.

I endorse particularly what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said a few minutes ago. He said that this is an impossible task on Report and that it surely should not have been inflicted upon us. Indeed, the Bill should never have been inflicted upon us. A sensible course, which was the earlier position of the Government, was to let all EU legislation lie where it lay, and if there were a problem with any of it, to bring it to the forefront and deal with it. However, that is all history. What we are having to deal with now are the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has introduced into Schedule 1.

I took the trouble—there was not much time to do so—to read through all 111 pages of the explanatory spreadsheet as best I could. There was an immediate difficulty about that, because the regulations are not listed in the same order as they are in the Bill. That was an unnecessary complication when trying to check through. I noted that, time and again, the explanation, the “reason for revocation”, to use the exact words, reads that this regulation

“is no longer in operation, or is no longer relevant to the UK”.

That description and justification of these 928—in my arithmetic—regulations appear time and again. It must have occurred 100 times as I read it, and possibly 200, and the latter figure is the likely one. The big question is: if this has all been properly researched, is the particular regulation

“no longer in operation, or … no longer relevant to the UK”?

It must be one or the other.

My particular reason for looking through the spreadsheet was to look at what is happening to two sets of regulations, both of which I referred to on our first day on Report. I refer to the Habitat (Salt-Marsh) Regulations and the Civil Aviation (Safety of Third Country Aircraft) Regulations 2006. I could not find the latter regulation at all. I do not know where it was, but I could not see it when going through the 111 pages. The Habitat (Salt-Marsh) Regulations appeared a number of times on a number of pages, all separate and quite disconnected from the original order. I did that because I thought they were rather important environmentally. The first time they appear, they are described as being

“on agricultural production methods compatible with the requirements of the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the countryside”.

I thought that was central and something we should be thinking about. Yet, time and again, a feeble and inadequate “reason for revocation” was given.

I have to say frankly to your Lordships that this is a futile exercise, an exercise we should not have been asked to carry out, and I greatly regret that we are.

[Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)]

My Lords, as a former head of the Civil Service, I feel bound to say that the criticisms of the Civil Service which have been made are ill-judged and grossly unfair. The Civil Service will ride out these criticisms—it has a thick skin, it will put its head down and go on doing its duty—but there is a serious worry underneath this debate.

It took us 10, 15 or 20 years to join the Common Market/European Union. It was only reaching the Home Office when I became Permanent Secretary in 1994. It will take us 10, 15 or 20 years to leave the European Union. Brexit, whatever your views on it, was undertaken without a proper appraisal of what it entailed—the work and the consequences—and we are living with it with this Bill. It is the most terrible experiment with government and an enormous learning experience for the Government. It will not be done quickly, and what will slow it down is not the Civil Service but the huge volume of work involved in it.

We are dealing with 50 years of complex, detailed regulation that has been put together in consultation with vested interests and public authorities and reaches into every household in the country. I tell Ministers on the Front Bench that there are things buried in these 500-and-whatever-it-is regulations that will embarrass them, will have unforeseen consequences and will go wrong. We are in an impossible position. We cannot look at this schedule in the detail required. It is not the fault of the Civil Service but the responsibility of the Government. The consequences of it will be severe and will take years. History will write this up. It will read these debates and think about the moral involved, which is, “Do the work before you implement the policy”. I will sit down now, but I wanted to defend the Civil Service. It is not its fault that this is such a terrible and deeply worrying mess.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Lord Hacking and Lord Wilson of Dinton

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)]

My Lords, as the former Permanent Secretary to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I would like to tell your Lordships that that is how he was as Secretary of State. I am so proud of the speech that he made, because I agree with it all. I also agree very much with the noble and learned Lord’s amendment.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, should begin to be a little concerned that former civil servants and diplomats are beginning to mobilise behind him, because I agree with virtually everything that he said, which should be unnerving—except for one point. I want to focus on the idea of “incentivising” the Civil Service. The view that I have expressed already is that the work should have been done in government before the legislation was introduced, and that is still my view. We are discussing an administrative task, not a legislative one. I know that the noble Lord knows how to incentivise the Civil Service, because in the 1980s, when I worked for Mrs Thatcher, he used to sit in the Cabinet Room behind her listening to her “incentivising” her Ministers and civil servants. Although I cannot see him right now, he jolly well knows how it is done.

What we should have is the Bill being paused or withdrawn. The Prime Minister should assemble all the Permanent Secretaries, together with the heads of the Civil Service, and the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, who is sitting on the Front Bench. Then he should say to them, “I want this sorted out by the end of, say, June”—the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, described this accurately. After they report back, the Government should then introduce in Parliament whatever legislation is needed to implement it. We would then have something to discuss, rather than operating in a policy void as now.

By all means, let us accept one of these amendments—I would go for that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—but let us recognise that this is an administrative task. It should have been handled properly, in an administrative way, before Parliament had to spend time on it.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, with whom I have university connections, and even more of a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Deben, with whom I used to joust in the Cambridge Union more years ago than I can remember. He was persuasive then and he is persuasive now.

Before I speak to the two proposals I have put my name to, I will just refer to what my noble friend Lord Whitty said about the devolution of laws when the Empire, or the Commonwealth, was broken up. He was entirely accurate in what he said to your Lordships. I raise this point because I remember particularly that, several years ago, I was defending an accused who had been convicted in the courts of Jamaica. He was attempting to appeal to the Privy Council in London and I was his counsel. We had to refer back to the relevant laws in Jamaica and, in doing so, to go back to a homicide Act of 1926 and to a Court of Appeal presided over by Lord Reading. That was disastrous to my client’s case. I am very happy to tell your Lordships two things: first, that my client was relieved of the death penalty which hung over his head when I took on his defence and, secondly, that in Jamaica they paid swift attention to those out-of-date laws, so that Lord Reading’s pronouncement is no longer binding in Jamaica. That is the process which one would expect to happen if we adopted EU law, as I say we should; then if something uncomfortable comes to our attention, it is dealt with in a fair and swift way.

The two proposals that I have put my name to are Amendment 42 and the opposition to Clause 1 standing part of the Bill. I will also speak to my noble friend Lord Whitty’s Amendment 44A. I would like to address the parliamentary consequences of any of those amendments being voted in on Report. Given the large opposition that has been put to a number of provisions in the Bill, which is exactly what these three proposals are doing, the high chances are that they will succeed in Divisions on Report. The consequence of that, which we should take strongly in mind, is that it would kill the Bill because all three start from the premise that Clause 1 should be left out. I think the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has a different introduction, so let us just refer to those three and their consequences.