Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Well, it is more than some of the EU legislation did. I did not mean to start a debate on this.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, while not forbidden, it is considered discourteous to interrupt the Minister in his opening speech. If the noble Lord wishes to speak, he should put his name down for the gap.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My name is on the list.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I will take the noble Lord’s point.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I merely want to ask the Minister: what proportion of the legislation was, as he described it, imposed? Presumably, it was only the laws that we voted against.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Given his direct experience, the noble Lord knows exactly how the procedures work in Brussels. The point I was making was that the vast majority was introduced into UK law directly, without any appropriate scrutiny from Parliament beforehand. Obviously, there were lots of discussions in Brussels. He took part in some on behalf of the Council, and I took part in many in the European Parliament as well. But there was no scrutiny in this Parliament for much of that legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, the Bill we are debating today surely represents the triumph of ideology over common sense and pragmatism. A huge number of existing laws are to be scrapped at the end of this year not because they are bad laws or inadequate laws, but simply because they are laws based on decisions taken collectively by EU institutions of which we were a full and active part when they were adopted. They are to be scrapped irrespective of whether by that date they have been replaced by a new statute or not.

To look first at the quantum of laws to be scrapped in this way, even the Government do not know the exact number. It is somewhere in the region of 3,000 to 4,000, and the figure is augmented by new discoveries in the National Archives which means it keeps going up. To initiate a vast scrappage scheme without knowing what you are scrapping is surely unprecedented. Whatever the final figure turns out to be, the replacement of this massive body of law will absorb the Civil Service and Parliament to the exclusion of other, perhaps higher, legislative priorities. Is that a sensible choice of priorities? If an oversight is discovered later this year or after the guillotine comes down at the end of it, there will be a void in our statute book on a matter that could be of great significance and importance for people’s everyday lives.

Secondly, look at the replacement process proposed in the Bill. This represents a massive extension of executive power, with Parliament having little or no say given the inadequacies of parliamentary oversight in the statutory instrument process. You might think it is an odd interpretation of taking back control. There will be little or no time to conduct the wide consultancy processes which ought to precede legislating on complex or sensitive matters.

Add to those drawbacks a third category: the implications for devolution and the relationships with the devolved Assemblies. Many of the laws to be scrapped cover matters that have been devolved to Scotland and Wales. What say will they have in the decision to scrap one of their laws? They will have none, so those devolution complications will necessarily take a good deal of sorting out.

Fourthly, what will be the implications for our relationship with the EU if the replacement legislation diverges too sharply from that of the EU on matters that fall within the ambit of the trade and co-operation agreement? That agreement has provisions for what is known as a level playing field, and it has provisions for the other side to compensate itself for any failure to maintain that, possibly leading to worsening of the already suboptimal conditions for trade between us in goods and services for what remains our biggest overseas market.

Of the four major categories of defects in the Bill I have identified, on not one are the Government in a position to provide clarity or reassurance at this point in time. They really are offering an irrevocable leap in the dark with this overhasty legislation. What will be the consequences for investment, so necessary if we are to achieve the growth the Government are promising? Sharply negative if the view of the director-general of the CBI is anything to go by.

The conclusion surely is that this Bill in its present form, with its detailed provisions and cut-off deadlines, requires meticulous scrutiny and, very probably, considerable amendment. No one, so far as I can see—and no one who has spoken—is arguing that no retained EU law should be replaced. This is simply not the best way to do it. Would not a sectoral approach be better than this sledgehammer method? Would not a longer timetable make sense? If we legislate in this way in haste, repentance will be painful and durable for an economy not currently in particularly robust condition.