Alex Norris Portrait Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
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Having listened to the discussion on affirmative procedure, does my hon. Friend agree that it is not inevitable—indeed, given the complications, it is quite unlikely—that every subsequent decision would be merely technical, and could be safely dealt with under negative procedure?

Alan Whitehead Portrait Dr Whitehead
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is underlined by the fact that, as has been alluded to on several occasions, we are not talking about a common or garden piece of legislation that simply places something on top of something else and thereby moves us forward. We are talking about a complete replacement for something that existed previously and will no longer exist. It will have no back-up or reference if we have not got everything in new regulations, replacing the previous regulations that no longer exist or have any currency as far as the UK is concerned.

With this legislation, we would be placing it on trust that everyone had got everything right first time as far as the new regulations were concerned, yet it has been stated in Committee that it is quite possible that there will be further amendments to those regulations, because we will need to be ready on exit day for the basic provision—