Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I know it is hard to believe. I would understand their opposition to the Bill. But noble Lords who profess to accept Brexit surely must accept the logic of the Bill. It makes no sense for this whole body of rules with special status to remain in place on our statute book for a prolonged period. Practically, our lawyers, judges and civil servants cannot deal with two separate statute books, with completely different interpretive principles and case law. We must find a way of changing this and assimilating these laws into our legal system, adjusting and redrafting as necessary.

I recognise that some critics of the Bill will say, “We accept that, but the pace and the process are the problem”. Responding to that, I point to the nature of the powers that will be granted, the criticism of which has been absurdly exaggerated. They are targeted at a specific set of laws, and they exclude any powers to deal with the fundamentals of primary legislation; they are about secondary legislation changing secondary legislation. I cannot see the difficulty with this. It is relevant that this legislation was passed by a body outside this country, often against the opposition of this Government.

To finish, these inherited EU laws have little real legitimacy now that we have left the system that created them. We cannot leave them there for decades while we get around to passing endless primary legislation to replace laws that never came in in that way in the first place.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Lord really must draw his comments to a close.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I will do. We lived for 47 years under a system in which we did not control our own laws. The Bill is not only necessary and essential; it is unavoidable and part of the logic of Brexit. I look forward to supporting it now and in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my environmental interests that are in the register.

In my 25 years in your Lordships’ House, I do not think I have ever heard a Bill so roundly condemned from all quarters. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, who, although he supported Brexit, is clear, as was his committee, that the Bill itself is unsupportable.

Lots of other noble Lords have said that the Bill takes powers from Parliament and hands them to the Executive, that it is a super-framework Bill or that it is super-skeletal, but I have a simple term for it: it is a pig in a poke. We are buying something that we do not know what it is going to be when we vote it through.

It is basically a deregulatory measure. The Clause 15 measures have been paraphrased as, “Ministers can do anything provided it doesn’t increase regulatory burden”, which is defined as

“a financial cost; … an administrative inconvenience; … an obstacle to trade or innovation; … an obstacle to efficiency, productivity or profitability”.

That is pretty clear and no-bones. It is about deregulation, despite the fact that regulation is often most simple and efficient way of achieving environmental outcomes.

I shall focus on the environmental issues in the Bill. Of the 3,700 pieces of EU retained law—as is currently the case; we have seen the dashboard wobble about quite a bit regarding the number of pieces of legislation that is estimated, so I do not think 3,700 is the last word—1,781 are in Defra’s court, four times more than any other department. This is the department that has already been ticked off twice in the last four months by its new environmental regulator, the Office for Environmental Protection, for not meeting the targets and deadlines that Defra itself set. So I do not really have a lot of confidence that Defra is going to be able to cope with reaching decisions about four times more pieces of EU retained legislation than any other department.

I am a very sad human being and I have read the list of 1,781 pieces of Defra legislation. I would agree with the Minister, were he to say this, that some are indeed minor, some have lost their relevance as a result of us leaving the EU, and some of them are a bit tech-y. I am sure the Minister will agree with me on that. For example, I enjoyed reading the one on

“additional guarantees regarding salmonella for consignments to Finland and Sweden of laying hens”.

That looked like a showstopper to me. However, some pieces of retained EU legislation in that list are substantial, long-standing and deeply woven into the fabric of environmental protection in this country at national and local level, and are accepted by many people as vital, operational and well constructed.

I know that the habitats regulations are a bogeyman for deregulators, but the one thing that we have to remember is that they are effective because we invented them. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, talked about safeguarding British self-interest—although I disassociate myself from Mrs Thatcher in that. We showed British self-interest in negotiating and leading the EU into adopting a highly effective protection system for biodiversity of species and the habitats on which they depend. We were a mover and a shaker in the EU; this was not stuff that was done to us.

I thank the Minister for meeting us last week over the Bill. When pressed, he will tell us that alternatives to the habitats regulations have already been devised in the Environment Bill and, now, in the levelling-up Bill, but that has not been made clear while we have debated these Bills. Not once during the passage of the Environment Bill was it stated that its priorities were—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Will the noble Baroness conclude her remarks?

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I will finish in two seconds. Not once during the passage of the Environment Bill was it stated that its provisions were intended to replace the habitats regulations. This is no sort of process, where alternatives are inserted piecemeal rather than laid out to show how they match up to what is being done away with.

The Bill is cosmetically and disastrously aimed at getting rid of EU legislation before the next election at any cost.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Baroness has exceeded the speaking limit by some margin. It is time for the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I recommend that your Lordships’ House not amend the Bill but not pass it.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, noble Lords have already heard from my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, a former Brexiteer who has seen the chaos we have already, before this Bill is enacted, and has said that she has had enough and wants to rejoin the EU, as the whole Green Party does. I was initially going to have a list—a chart—of all the practical problems but so many people have done such a great job on that already: the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, on labour rights, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, on all the Defra issues and Defra’s incapacity to deal with them, and the noble Lord, Lord Trees, on the issues being raised for the devolved Administrations, whom the Government so often seem to ignore.

That the Government lack the capacity to deliver the fantasy they are setting out in any kind of orderly way is clearly not stopping them, or perhaps not being orderly is the intention of at least some parts of the Government. In the financial sector there is a lot of money to be made from chaos, as Naomi Klein showed us so clearly two decades ago in her explanation of the shock doctrine of disaster capitalism.

It is very clear that this Bill, should your Lordships’ House not oppose it, will be a complete working out of the hashtag #ToryChaos. I urge all sides of your Lordships’ House to oppose the Bill—to vote it down. We have heard from a barrage of Cross Benchers and more than a few Conservatives how dreadful it is. The responsibility is in our hands. How bad does a swathe of Henry VIII clauses have to be before your Lordships’ House takes responsibility? I direct that remark particularly to the Benches to my right.

As I am speaker number 46, much has already been covered and I aim not to go over old ground. Instead, I am going to take a different approach and interrogate the Government’s own stated intentions with the Bill and see how lacking a base in realism they are. In the Government’s own words on the retained EU law dashboard, the justification is:

“This will allow us to create a new pro-growth, high standards regulatory framework that gives businesses the confidence to innovate, invest and create jobs.”


I want to unpack that. They say they want to remove outdated regulation that may be hampering growth. What does “outdated” mean? Is a protection for nature, for workers’ rights, for consumer rights outdated? Who is going to judge? What kind of growth? Surely your Lordships’ House will agree that we do not want growth in water pollution, air pollution or exploitation of workers. All-out growth, of course, is the ideology of the cancer cell.

On creating a high standards framework, I go back to our earlier discussion of the environmental improvement plan and the issue of plastics, highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. We do not have a bottle deposit scheme in England, but many EU countries have one, so it is not EU rules that have stopped that. The French are racing towards getting rid of single-use containers in fast food stores—that is within EU rules.

On confidence to invest, I will quote an Institute for Government report from last year on business investment:

“The UK has persistently lagged other comparable countries.”


It is well behind Germany, France and Italy; it is not EU rules that are holding them back.

The Minister used the phrase “create … jobs” again. That is curious, when the lack of people for jobs is currently one of the UK’s great problems. We have 47,000 nurse vacancies, an 11% vacancy rate in the care sector and an overall vacancy rate of 1.3 million. Do we not need to find a way to use the human resources that we have now? EU rules are not stopping us doing that.

Finally, in introducing the Bill, the Minister spoke of “countless opportunities”. I assume he meant that rhetorically, but of course it is literally true: the Government are still trying to count the number of regulations and rules that the Bill covers—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I suggest that the noble Baroness brings her comments to a close.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

How can you make a law when you do not know what it covers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with the furious frustration expressed today at being asked to grant an Executive a licence to legislate on thousands of legal instruments, all without accountability to Parliament or the public. I empathise because that anger at a democratic deficit was exactly what prompted me to vote to leave the EU. These very EU retained laws started life as secondary legislation impositions on the UK Parliament: they were directions from and obligations to the EU Executive. They were products of a supranational institution whose very design is to ring-fence swathes of lawmaking from national electorates and to delegate sovereign powers to unaccountable European Commissioners, the European bank, et cetera.

Do not get me wrong: there are problems with this Bill. The Government may have missed an opportunity to use the retained law issue as a spur for democratic renewal. They could have launched nationwide town-hall meetings and debates to guide decisions on what laws to keep or delete. But, to note, whatever the anti-democratic dangers of this skeleton Bill, there is a popular mandate behind the Bill’s intent: to fulfil a promise of taking back control of our legal system by abolishing EU supremacy. We do indeed need to give domestic courts more discretion to depart from retained EU case law—they can take it into account but should not be required to follow it. Also, the real constitutional outrage before us is not the Bill so much as the fact that some domestic primary legislation remains subordinate to EU law. I am not sure that complaints that the sunset clause means changes are rushed will cut it with the public. For many millions who voted to leave in the largest democratic vote in UK history, the impression is of sloth, prevarication and obstruction. They deserve a sense of urgency to finish what voters started in 2016.

Many of the core objections we have heard today seem to be driven by a failure of imagination. Many noble Lords have cited professional bodies, NGOs, employers organisations, trade union leaders and lawyers—all who appear unable to imagine social and economic progress happening without retained EU laws. Nowhere is this more gallingly illustrated than in accusations that the Bill will create a bonfire of workers’ rights. Surely this legalistic presumption is insulting to decades of self-organisation by working-class people who fought tooth and nail to win those gains. Maybe tell the RMT rank and file members—many of whom I campaigned alongside for Brexit—that their rights are safer in EU retained law than on their picket lines. Do I trust the Tory Government with workers’ rights? Of course not. But I do not trust EU law either. The first time I heard of the model strike-breaking legislation in the form of minimum service requirements was when it was being eulogised in the European Parliament. And, yes, I will be opposing it when it comes to this House.

The TUC briefing warns that this Bill jeopardises the agency workers directive, but we might note that this very directive is a device used to avoid paying agency staff at the same rate as employed staff. It has been used by the ECJ to break collective bargaining agreements via the 2007 rulings in the Viking Line and Laval cases. Other briefings warn us this Bill will drive a wrecking ball through women’s employment rights and equality legislation. Actually, a far greater threat to equality law in 2023 is not this Bill but the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Act. How disappointing that all those condemning this so-called dodgy legislation today have not been clamouring to oppose this material assault on women’s sex-based rights that threatens the UK-wide Equality Act.

The 4,000 retained EU laws were put on the UK statute books without Members of this unelected House crying democracy. Earlier, we were assured that it was all okay because, as one noble Lord explained, there were special behind-closed-door committees that scrutinised them. There was no mind that, no matter how many British voters might object to any one of those laws, there was nothing—zilch—they could do. The lack of outrage at that democratic deficit—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Baroness has exceeded her time limit. Perhaps she could bring her comments to an end.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Well, noble Lords get the gist.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I am starting to wish we had degrouped this debate, because there were so many issues that, really, it was two or three debates rolled into one. It would maybe have been a good idea to spend a bit more time on some of the things that were raised. I say that even though we will probably spend the best part of two hours on this group—but I still think that we have skirted over some of the things that we might have wanted to delve into had this been a more sensible process.

We looked at toy safety. I remind noble Lords of where we started this group: the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, spoke to a really good amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, raising some important issues. I was a child in the 1970s, when nothing ever came with a plug attached or anything like that. Now, I do not have to worry about my children: they can have whatever toys they want and put them in their mouths or ears or whatever they want to do, and no one needs to worry too much.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said with regard to food, the improvement applies across the board, and successive Governments can be quite proud of it. A Tory Government do not come in and say, “We’re going to delete everything that was passed by our predecessor Labour Government because of where it came from”, but that is exactly what we are doing here. We are placing in question sensible measures that I have not heard anybody disagree with—I do not think the Ministers disagree with any of this—so I do not understand quite why we have to leave this question mark over these things.

The General Product Safety Regulations, which we have talked about, are really important. These are things that most consumers just take for granted, and so they should. That is where we would like to keep the situation, but concern is now being raised. Consumer organisations such as Which? and others are starting to say, “Hold on a minute, there’s a potential problem here.” Ministers will say, “This is just scaremongering—it’s causing anxiety where there’s no need for it”, but the Government are declining to take the steps needed to remove that anxiety in a very straightforward way, which they could do if they are right about that and should they wish to do so. I still very much encourage them to take that route.

The issues raised about the level playing field are incredibly important. We are expecting the poor generalist lawyers who draft these SIs to be experts not just in product safety, food manufacturing or asbestos, which are really important issues, but in international trade. They have to understand the TCA, the agreements that we have with Australia, the CPTPP, and how it will all work together if we diverge. We could end up diverging without realising that we have done so, until a court somewhere else decides to ask us about it. This just has disaster written all over it, and for what, if the Government are saying that they do not really want to change anything?

The Food Standards Scotland letter that I think everyone has had is really revealing. It makes some very good points, but the sentence that jumps out is where it says that Food Standards Scotland was invited to give evidence on this Bill that we are looking at. The Scottish Parliament is not looking at the Bill—we are—but Food Standards Scotland was invited to give evidence in the Scottish Parliament about it. When do food standards people get to come here and tell us what they think? We are the people debating the Bill. Where is the engagement and the opportunity for organisations to come in and allow us to benefit?

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that what people really want from these types of regulations is certainty, long lead times and consultation, but they have not had any of that from this process. The Minister is meant to be business-friendly and to understand what businesses want. I do not know what has happened to him here, because I have done Bills with him before when he was much more in tune with what business is saying. I am not seeing any of that today, which is a real shame.

Rather than go through all the amendments one by one and say what I think—I support all of them; they have all been very thoughtfully put together and spoken to—maybe we could make life very easy for the Minister. Perhaps she could answer on just one issue: asbestos. That is probably the least controversial thing that I could have picked. Will the Government revoke, retain or amend the regulations around asbestos?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

One word.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I will come to that.

I thank noble Lords for their amendments relating to product, food, environmental and consumer protections and safety. While we all commend the sentiment, the Government believe that it is simply not necessary or appropriate to introduce individual carve-outs for specific regulations or policies in the Bill.

I turn first to Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which was so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I reassure them that the Government remain committed to protecting consumers from unsafe products being placed on the market now and in the future—and this of course includes toys. Our current product safety framework is largely a mix of retained EU law, domestic law and industry standards; as a result, it can be complex and difficult to understand. While the Bill is unlikely to give us the powers needed to implement a new framework, we hope that the powers in it will make it possible to amend or to remove outdated EU-derived regulations and to give us the ability to make some changes to reduce burdens for business.

The Government are finalising for publication a consultation into product safety this year. We will use available legislative powers, including those in the Bill, to take the necessary steps ahead of the sunset date to ensure that we uphold this commitment to consumer protection. This will take account of modern-day hazards and risks, the challenges posed by new supply chains, such as the growth of online marketplaces, new technology and supporting innovation, and net-zero ambitions.

I turn to Amendment 25 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, relating to the control of asbestos regulations—

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister just as she is getting into her flow, but she seems to be moving on to the next amendment. Before doing so, can she tell us whether that consultation, which presumably would allow adequate time for all the relevant bodies to feed into it before the sunset time arises, will actually give us a clear list of what is in, what is out and what is being changed? Will it be there? If so, why can we not have it now?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am told by my noble friend, Lord Callanan, that it will include all the appropriate information necessary for a full consultation. I cannot commit to saying whether it will have the full list of all the regulations; it depends on what stage it is at. We will launch it soon, and that will inform noble Lords more about the intention of the Government on product safety.

Amendment 25 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox—

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I understand, from trading standards, that the government product safety review was due last spring and then expected at the end of 2022, but it has not been published. Do we have a date for it to be published yet?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am afraid that I will have to write to the noble Baroness on that; we do not have an answer at this stage. The consultation is a new initiative and will be launched soon.

Amendment 25 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, relates to the control of asbestos regulations. The noble Lord has provided a good example of an area where we regained the ability to regulate autonomously upon leaving the EU. Both the post-implementation review 2022 and the Work and Pensions Select Committee evidence suggest that further clarity around the categorisation of asbestos works, particularly regarding non-notifiable licenced work, would be beneficial, and the Health and Safety Executive has committed to considering how this could be developed further. HSE will undertake research and engage with stakeholders to consider an evidence base for the introduction of mandatory accreditation for asbestos surveyors. If this is taken forward, it will be as a result of a change to the CAR. Indeed—

[Lord Fox (LD)]

How does the Bill make that happen, when Clause 15 does not allow an increase in regulatory burden? The Bill does not facilitate what was just stated at the Dispatch Box: it cannot happen as a result of the Bill; indeed, the Bill stops it from happening.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I did not suggest that it was happening as a result of the Bill; it is happening anyway, and that will inform our decisions on further regulations.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The regulations are on the dashboard.

--- Later in debate ---

I do not even understand what this means. What the Minister is saying now seems to contradict the purpose of the Bill. She is creating more confusion. It would really help this House to consider what is going on here if we could have a pause in this process and maybe some sort of paper from the Government as to how they want to proceed. It is not good enough. We should not be asked to make these sorts of decisions about the Bill and then there suddenly be a big reveal from the Dispatch Box halfway through Committee.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I do not believe it is a big reveal. It just underscores the sort of work that the Government are undertaking in parallel to inform better their decisions about whether to repeal or revoke EU law. The noble Baroness talks about undue burden. We are talking about the totality of burden on a particular sector. This may well reduce burdens by making more relevant legislation to control asbestos.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, surely the point is that these crucial protections on asbestos could in principle fall off the statute book. They could be lost at the end of this year, whether by accident or design. I want to be clear: this is critical. According to the HSE, asbestos is the single biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK. Asbestos-related diseases kill 4,500 people every year in England, Scotland and Wales. There are hundreds of buildings where asbestos is still present. As the TUC survey and no doubt many others have shown, this is a critical issue for working people. Frankly, whether or not there is a consultation going on in some other area is neither here nor there. We want to know what will happen to those EU-derived protections now. We want to hear it.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

There is no question of going back on the protections that the existing EU law provides. As you have heard me say, the Health and Safety Executive believes that we can develop this further, and this review is intending to provide more information. I would have thought that would have been of some comfort to noble Lords. I shall continue and try to make progress.

The Health and Safety Executive will undertake research and engage with stakeholders to consider an evidence-based introduction of mandatory accreditation for asbestos surveyors. Indeed, the Health and Safety Executive will use the introduction of this Bill as an opportunity to ensure that our regulatory framework in relation to asbestos continues to operate effectively. This will include considering the current categorisation of asbestos removal work.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am sorry, but the Minister just said that the Health and Safety Executive is going to use the introduction of this Bill to conduct a review. This Bill specifically prevents the Health and Safety Executive from what some of us would conclude is improving safety at work, because it talks about not increasing the regulatory burden. How that is defined or interpreted is critical. There is an attempt to define it in the Bill, but it is inadequate. We need some kind of schedule or some explanation from the Government, specifically about asbestos—because this is what we are talking about now—so that we understand what we are being asked to agree to.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I understand the point the noble Baroness is making. We are not talking about increasing the totality of the regulatory burden. We are talking about making it fitter for UK purposes, which is what the Health and Safety Executive is seeking to undertake.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I am very interested in what the Minister is saying. This asbestos review sounds like good news. However, given what she has said, there seems now to be an overwhelming case for a government amendment similar to Amendment 45, which takes financial services business out. If the asbestos issue is being explored with a view to improving the existing regulation, it cannot be done under this Bill because this Bill does not allow for improvements—well, it depends how you read Amendment 45 and how you read the Bill. For the asbestos review, which is good news in my view, surely it needs to be exempted from the provisions of this Bill by adding an amendment like Amendment 45.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We just do not believe that that is the case.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I just want to make what I think is an important point here. The Government are talking about the totality of regulations and saying that it does not stop the asbestos regulations becoming stronger. If the total has to be less, what are we going to lose in the protections so that we do not have a higher total? An addition has to mean a subtraction.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Before the Minister responds—I may be taking advantage here—the Health and Safety Executive is an agency that is able to impose sanctions. However, under this Bill, under whose auspices the Health and Safety Executive will be conducting its review, as the Minister describes it, it will not be able to impose or suggest anything that could be a financial cost, an administrative “inconvenience”, an obstacle to trade and innovation or a sanction. The Minister is chuntering from a sedentary position about totality but the Bill does not say anything about totality. That is their interpretation; it may well not be a court’s interpretation. We need some more information from the Government on this issue.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am afraid that the Government’s position is that we simply do not accept that interpretation of the totality. Of the 4,000 pieces of retained EU law, we will be repealing a number of things. We are talking about not increasing the totality of the regulatory burden because some of that will be falling away and may just simply not be appropriate, not just on asbestos but on many other fronts as well.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I think that we have just introduced a whole other confusion. Clause 15 talks about not increasing the regulatory burden. Is the Minister now proposing that it is the total across all 4,700, which is what she just said? She has an opportunity to correct that and explain what not increasing the regulatory burden really means.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think the best thing I can do is commit to giving the noble Lord a definition of “regulatory burden” in writing in due course.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

When the Minister writes, can she also give us an indication of how that definition has already been shared with government departments, which are busy reviewing their legislation? They are presumably using some sort of metric—do we weigh the buckets by the pound? Is it the impact on business or is it the public good that is delivered? The Treasury has argued for years about the methodology for judging the benefit—or otherwise—of legislation. I would be interested to know what sort of guidance has been given to government departments.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We will give as much further clarification as we can.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister yet again but I was pleased to hear that she has agreed to write to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to clarify this question, which was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington. Can the Minister include in that letter a couple of worked examples to fix this in our minds? When it is all very abstract—increase a bit here, subtract a bit there—what is the common currency? How do you combine the four or five different criteria for burden into a single unit? I am a scientist so I like to be able to measure things. If she could just give us a couple of worked examples in her letter, that would be great.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, while the Minister is considering her response to that, may I say that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has just made an extremely important point? It strikes me that, when you are defining regulatory burden, you need to decide whether the regulatory burden on, for example, one very small group of businesses ranks the same as something that affects every workplace in the country. The calculation becomes vital if the Government are now saying, as seems to be the case, that the regulatory burden has to be looked at in the totality of all these regulations.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I can commit to reflecting on what other information we can give in respect of the regulatory burden.

To make further progress—no, maybe not.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Sorry, I have one very short point. One of the examples that has often been given as irrelevant is the export of Sicilian lemons—they seem to come up quite often. Surely something that is irrelevant should not be counted as any kind of change; it should just be put aside?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point.

I turn now to Amendment 16, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. The General Product Safety Regulations 2005 specify a general safety requirement that products placed on the market or supplied by producers and distributors must be safe. As with the previous amendment, I can reassure noble Lords that the Government are committed to protecting consumers from unsafe products, and we will take the necessary steps ahead of the sunset date to ensure that we uphold this commitment.

Turning to Amendment 18, this sentiment also extends to this amendment, protecting consumers from unsafe cosmetic products. We will continue to ensure that cosmetics placed on the market now, and in the future, meet the requirements of the regulations which safeguard public health and enable a fully competitive market.

Amendment 19 would exempt the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, known as the CPRs, from the sunset. The UK has always had high standards of consumer protection and will continue to. This Bill will not change the Government’s commitment to uphold these high standards. The Department of Business and Trade will confirm the plans for consumer protection shortly and will be introducing the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill as soon as parliamentary time allows.

I turn now to Amendment 20 and the General Food Regulations 2004. In reviewing retained EU law, the Government’s aim is to ensure that food law is fit for purpose and that the UK regulatory framework is appropriate and tailored to the needs of UK consumers and business. The General Food Regulations 2004 prohibit the placing of unsafe food on the market and giving misleading information to consumers, and places obligations on food businesses to ensure the traceability of foods. This Bill will not alter our commitment to maintaining our world-leading food safety and standards.

Regarding Amendment 22, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I can reassure the noble Baroness and other noble Lords that my noble friend Lord Benyon will be answering the debate that relates to environment matters on Tuesday, and will perhaps then be able to provide further insights into the interaction of the various Bills mentioned by the noble Baroness. Let me assure her that the United Kingdom upholds strict food safety, health and environmental standards. Our first priority regarding pesticides is to ensure that they will not harm people or pose unacceptable risks to the environment.

His Majesty’s Government has an excellent record on the environment, enshrined in law in our landmark Environment Act. Any decision on preserving, repealing or amending retained EU law will not come at the expense of these high standards, and we are working to publish an updated UK national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides.

The overall ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides remains in place. We continue to work with a wide range of organisations and partners to ensure the best possible outcome for people and our environment. Any decision on preserving, repealing or amending REUL will not come at the expense of these high standards, and additionally we are working to publish the updated UK national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides in the first half of this year.

Amendment 30, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, seeks to exempt REUL relating to food safety, plant and animal health, which is in the scope of a specified section of the TCA from the sunset. Let me remind the Committee that the UK is a world leader in environmental protection, animal welfare and food safety. His Majesty’s Government have an excellent record on the environment; the Food Safety Act is in primary legislation and is therefore exempt from the sunset legislation. Defra is in the process of analysing its retained EU law, and determining what should be preserved, repealed or amended. Let me assure noble Lords that any decision on REUL reform will not come at the expense of our high standards.

The Government are also committed to upholding our international environmental and food obligations, including those under the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU, and I hope that provides the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, with some reassurance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

In that case, could the Minister confirm that BSE monitoring will be retained as it is?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

That is a question for Defra; I cannot confirm or deny any particular regulations that will be looked at. As the noble Baroness will understand, these things are a matter for Defra.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Defra is the producer’s department; who is looking after the consumers? That was part of the problem: Defra will look after the producers and will be lobbied by the producers; where is the role for the consumers? Section 1 of the Food Standards Act 1999 says that the Food Standards Agency’s role is to put consumers’ interests above all else in relation to the consumption of food. So what is the role of the FSA? I declare an interest—because I do not trust Ministers—that I have had no discussions with the FSA about this Bill; everything I have used is public, open-source information. I want to know what the FSA’s role is, because Defra is for the producers; who is going to look after the consumers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Lord, as a prior chairman of the FSA, will know that the FSA is a part of Defra and represents food standards.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I beg your pardon. If the Minister is not aware, the FSA is a non-ministerial department, which answers to Parliament through the Department of Health, not through Defra. That is the whole point: to keep the producer away from the consumer’s interests.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My apologies to the whole Committee for making that obvious mistake. There has been a write-round to all departments on this Bill. The repeal of EU law is being considered by each department in the write-round, and our commitment to not reducing consumer protection remains in place.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

I feel sorry for the Minister, because I do not doubt her personal commitment to maintaining these high standards. The problem is that the Bill does not give us that assurance and nothing that the Government have published, other than those high, fine words, gives us that assurance. That is why my noble friend Lady Young asked for the three buckets to be published, because that would then enable us to see that the Minister’s words are being reflected in action. It would make her life easier, and that of all her colleagues on the Front Bench, if they simply made it clear what was expected to be retained. The only reason we are in this mess is because the Government have decided to do all this the wrong way round, instead of simply working through regulations as they came up which may or may not need changing.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Of course it would make all our lives easier, and they will be published in due course. I am not going to go further than that.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

This is new information. I have yet to hear from the Dispatch Box that this list will be published. I am delighted, but it would be very helpful if the noble Baroness could tell us when the list will be published.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

As the noble Lord will appreciate, it will be published when the work is complete. The work is ongoing within all departments—the noble Baroness looks shocked.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I come back to the question I asked in the previous group: at what point does the dashboard—this list—get frozen? What happens if it is frozen in the middle of December? This is just impossible. If there is going to be a list and work published, as things emerge and more regulations are added to the list—which I completely understand; I think we would rather see them added to it—we need to understand how it fits in with the impact assessments and with consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

In terms of the dashboard, the vast majority of the work is already done, but there will be bits that will be added or found, most of which will be from old legislation. Most of the relevant work has already been done, but it is still subject to review.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

It is good to hear that the dashboard is nearly finished; it has been interesting watching it emerge. Your Lordships will be glad to hear that I have read every single environmental provision in the original documentation that is on that list.

I wonder if the Minister could tell us about what happens when the buckets are published—not the list but the buckets we are sorting into. I do not know if your Lordships have ever watched that telly programme, “Snog Marry Avoid?”—that shows how intellectual I am on a Friday night—but I kind of typify the buckets like that. The “avoid” one is for the ones that we are going to get rid of because nobody really wants them; the “marry” one is for the ones that we all think are wonderful and we are going to just give a straight run through; and the “snog” one is for the ones that we have to spend a bit of time on to find out whether they are really up to it or not. The quicker we can get the buckets published, the better. Will the buckets come out early enough for this Parliament to play a proper role in coming to some conclusions and helping the Government decide whether they have everything in the right bucket? There might be a little desirable treasure tucked away at the bottom of one of the wrong buckets that we all cherish.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I am sorry to keep labouring this point, but the Minister keeps introducing new information. In referring to the dashboard, the Minister implied that the dashboard is the list. Nowhere in this legislation is the dashboard referred to. What is the legal status of the dashboard with respect to the sunset?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The dashboard has all the retained EU law which is subject to the provisions of the Bill; it is a working document.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

It is not in the Bill.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I cannot resist, I am afraid, intervening on this. I was in a Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee meeting this week when it was indicated that the dashboard was just a tool and, as far as I understood it, did not have a legal status. While I am on my feet, can I ask where and in which bucket the legislation passed by the devolved Administrations is—which are, I believe, at a very much earlier stage in identifying the numbers for the dashboard?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I know that this is of concern to a number of Members in the Committee, but officials from the UK Government are working very closely with those from the devolved Governments in order to identify the REULs that cross over devolved competences. I know that there is a general concern within the devolved Governments that they simply do not have the manpower to look at all these EU laws themselves, so we are helping them in that process. That is an ongoing job of work being done from official to official.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has rather changed the rules on this. If the dashboard is almost complete and there is an intention to put something next to every thing on the dashboard—perhaps not using my noble friend Lady Young’s terminology but a slightly more bureaucratic one—we need to have that list before we move to any further stage of the Bill, otherwise we do not know what we are talking about. The noble Baroness has explained in relation to asbestos, rightly and thankfully, that those regulations will not be sunsetted. What happens to the other 4,700 regulations? We do not know. We need that list before we take any definitive decisions on the Bill. I hope that government Ministers and the business managers will go away and recognise that, and that we will not move until we know a lot more about where we are going.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The dashboard is ongoing work. It does not put things into buckets, but just includes all the EU laws that are subject to review. That will be published but it will certainly not have the buckets that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is asking for.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

There is an outstanding point here. How is the dashboard connected to the Bill? There is no legal connection between the two, so how will the Government connect them? Currently, there is nothing that joins the dashboard to this law.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I do not accept the noble Lord’s point. The dashboard is just a list of retained EU law that will be subject to the provisions of the Bill but will not be part of the Bill.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I apologise to the Committee for continuing this point, but the Government have said repeatedly that they do not want to increase the regulatory burden. We have had the debate about what that means, but if we are not going to increase it and the dashboard is part of the tally of what that burden is, how does it get connected back in?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The dashboard does not have any legal status. It is simply a list of the job of work that all the departments will have to do, reviewing each bit of retained EU law to work out which bucket it will fall into. These are legitimate conversations to have in Committee, so we can go on debating this. I know that your Lordships feel sorry for me up here, but I have two Ministers behind me and the Leader of the House. If there is something that I cannot answer directly—

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

When we started discussion in Committee this afternoon, the issue was it will either be retained or amended or it will simply drop off, and the drop-off bit is in the Bill. That is the connection and that is why this is so important.

We have just heard that the Minister will write to us about asbestos, because there will be a review and it might increase the regulatory burden. She says that it will not increase it because it will be considered as part of a totality, so then we have all the regulations that will be part of it. I know that I have been here only for 10 years, but I have never experienced anything like this. We have a major piece of legislation, we are trying to probe things in Committee to find out what it means, and we are simply not getting answers.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I have a qualification about the dashboard. The retained EU law dashboard showcases which departments, policy areas and sectors of the economy are most saturated by retained EU law. It will be updated quarterly to document the Government’s progress in amending, repealing or replacing retained EU law that is not right for the UK. It is right that the public are able view where retained EU law sits on the statute book and therefore hold the Government to account. I think that answers—

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

How will it hold the Government to account?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

It will be a published document.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am trying to get this clear in my head. We are not saying buckets, and I am trying not to say “snog, marry, avoid”, but will the dashboard say the status of each measure—retain, revoke—next to it? If that is the case, it will be quite simple for the Minister to answer my question about whether BSE monitoring work has been done, bearing in mind that we are at the end of February.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The dashboard will be updated with status as each EU law is reviewed.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I have just one simple point to make. Unless we are clear whether the Bill says that the overall regulatory burden must not increase, or specific legislation—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I have already offered to write on that point.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

Yes, but a big follow-on from that is that that is where the impact assessment becomes critical. We have been told that we will have individual impact assessments, but that will not help us if we are trying to look at the whole picture. So we do need absolute clarity on that in order to action, in my view, a proper impact assessment for the whole shebang.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

There will be an impact assessment on all new regulations. I will be writing with further detail on impact assessments.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

We also seek clarification on something the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said at Second Reading: that there will be impact reviews, as the Minister has said, of new legislation, which is what we would expect under the normal statutory instrument procedure. But what is not clear is whether there is any impact review of stuff being put in the “avoid” bucket. If stuff is going to be left to go out the door on 31 December, is there going to be any proposition showing our loss or gain on those? If not, why not?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Not in terms of regulatory review, but those decisions will be taken within departments, and they will be sunsetted.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, it seems that we will know at about one minute to midnight on 31 December, because it will not have been retained or amended; it will simply be revoked.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

With respect, it will be updated.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister should stop sitting down in the hope that somebody else is going to stand up. She said she envisaged that the dashboard—I think this was a prompt from her noble friend Lord Callanan—would be published on a quarterly basis. We are running towards 31 December this year, so are we talking about publication of the dashboard on 31 March, 30 June, 30 September and then the moment on 31 December when we will know exactly what is in and what is out? Is that what is envisaged?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am afraid that I cannot commit to a specific timetable. Perhaps I could include that in my letter. We need to make progress, so I am going to continue.

Turning to Amendment 21, which is concerned with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, the Health and Safety Executive will seek opportunities to reduce business burdens and promote growth, while safeguarding the UK’s high health and safety standards. As I have said a number of times, we are committed to ensuring health and safety legislation continues to be fit for purpose and that our regulatory frameworks operate effectively following the sunset.

I hope I have been able to provide some reassurance to noble Lords. The Bill does indeed provide the tools to allow much-needed reform of retained EU law, but it does not change the Government’s commitment to uphold the highest standards across all the sectors raised in these amendments. There is no need to remove these specific regulations from the scope of Clause 1.

Finally, I reiterate that we are committed to high standards and equally committed to compliance with the trade and co-operation agreement. I kindly ask the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Well, my Lords, I am not going to prolong the agony, because it has been pretty agonising and extremely painful. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris: the Minister has been put in the trenches with an extremely rusty musket, if I may say so, and we have not had many satisfactory answers. But this is entirely down to the Government, who have set so many hares running. How many amendments do we have to put down to get assurances from the Minister, however fragile they may be? How many agencies do we have to mention? We have heard mention of so many today that have reviews going, are not being properly consulted or will not have time to deal with whatever is in the bucket. This is a kind of lucky dip—perhaps that is the next thing. If it is not in the bucket, or we have not identified it in the bucket, maybe on 31 December it will be as if it never existed.

The level of uncertainty is extraordinary. With only 10 and a half months to go, the Government seem to be relying on this stately progress of identifying what these regulations are, never mind working out whether or not they should exist. Then, of course, we need clarification, because the Bill certainly is not clear, about the meaning of Clause 15. This is what the food industry, the toy industry and all the product manufacturers are worried about. They want enhancement —I mentioned online safety—of our regulation, which seems to be denied them.

The Minister mentioned a number of reviews going on, but it is like these reviews are happening with somebody with a gun to their head. It seems quite extraordinary that that is the way we are going. Speakers right across the Committee have made some superbly expert speeches today. We have talked about the dangers of divergence from Europe, issues of public trust, problems with business certainty and a lack of lead times in order to adjust to the new regulations.

At the end of this debate, one feels like throwing one’s hands in the hair and saying, “My goodness me. How did the Government get into this situation?” It is totally untenable and they really should scrap the Bill at the earliest opportunity and carry on with some of these reviews without this pressure, which seems to be relentless, where civil servants are scrambling around and devoting a lot of time fruitlessly trying to identify what on earth is retained EU law.

No doubt we will keep returning to this. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I feel very tempted to table another 4,650 amendments. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I chose to speak on these amendments because I want to talk about the reality of the Bill, which is best exemplified here, rather than later when we will talk about the environment, when I will talk as chair of the Climate Change Committee.

First, I want to understand how a Conservative Government could produce the Bill. As far as I believe, in the Conservative Party we believe in continuity and evolution rather than revolution. Evolution means that you take what you have and improve it; you do not throw it out hoping that you will have time to put something else in its place. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, made about case law is crucial here. If you do not retain all that you want, you do not retain the case law, so you do not know what it is that you are doing. That is a very un-Conservative thing to find oneself doing.

The second issue, as a Conservative, is that I do not understand the explanation about regulation. As things are defined in this letter many of us have just had, it suggests that all regulation, by its nature, is somehow wrong. We have a regulation which says that you drive on the left-hand side of the road. That is a sensible regulation. It would be a mistake to cast it into doubt. There are many regulations which are essential for civilised life. Indeed, you cannot imagine civilised life without regulation. Conservatives, I thought, believed in civilised life. Therefore, regulation is an essential part of that.

When you come to judge regulation, you do not judge it by its weight or the number of phrases or words; you judge it by how effective and appropriate it is, how much it fits the present, and how it grows out of the past. If you are a Conservative, that is what you do. I believe there are many who think differently, but as a Conservative that is how I think of regulation.

We are now told that the regulation burden must not be increased. I do not mind that—if we define “burden”. It does not seem to be a burden to have to drive on the left-hand side of the road. That seems to be a necessity.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Perhaps my noble friend could address the amendment he is talking to specifically.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I hope the Committee agrees that I am addressing the amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The Minister must be allowed to speak.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I will start by speaking to government Amendments 31, 41, 45, 52, 138 and 144. Amendments 31, 41 and 144 remove relevant subsections from the Bill as they are now included in the new clause. These are purely for drafting clarity and therefore do not change the policy intent or effect of this Bill in any way.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a complete mess. I have listened very carefully to everything that has been said, and I could not identify a speech with which I disagreed. There are two principal problems with the Government’s approach: first, a lack of respect for the devolved Administrations, and, secondly, a chronic case of overconfidence on the part of Ministers.

It is difficult to know exactly where to start; I have so many notes. Which of these particular criticisms is the most important? I will allow the Minister to decide when she responds. It is clear that the dashboard has not been getting updated properly in partnership with the devolved Administrations. The sunset cannot be extended by devolved Administrations on their own, even if they feel that they cannot deal with the burden of the work imposed on them in time. Can the Minister write to update us on the work being done with the devolved Administrations on the dashboard, because it seems that that really underlies some of the concerns we have? From Wales and Scotland, we are picking up a deep dissatisfaction with how this work has taken place.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, made the really important point that the Government have had time between the Bill being debated in the other place and arriving here today to finesse their approach, shall we say, but I do not think that much has changed. This is a particular concern, as noble Lords have said, given the commitment made earlier this week by the Prime Minister, when he revealed the Windsor Framework, which we were all very pleased to see. We are very glad that the agreement announced earlier in the week has taken place; we were very concerned about the approach that the Government had taken prior to that, so we welcome it very much. If the measures are not dealt with by the dashboard and they fall, we could end up in a situation where we have divergence, not through a matter of policy or intent by the Government, but as a consequence of inaction and, in effect, by mistake. There may be consequences of that, which perhaps could be more pronounced for Northern Ireland than for elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I was very taken by the way that the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, put this—as there being horrible loose ends. That is a very good way of describing it.

These are very practical concerns and a number of noble Lords, in particular my noble friend Lady Andrews, have highlighted them. Like her, I completely support common frameworks. I remember when we debated them at length as part of the Brexit process. We tabled amendments to strength them, to make sure we had good oversight of them, and that there was proper engagement by the Ministers in the devolved Administrations. I think we did okay on some of that. Obviously, this is still relatively young, and we had all hoped, I think, that that process would become smoother and a little more relaxed, and that there could be more shared decision-making. I am particularly concerned about this, given my ambition—which I think is shared by many Ministers on the Government side, too—to see more devolution in England. So we really want this approach to improve as the years go on; it is not a surprise that there are shaky moments in the early years.

The Bill, perhaps more than any other we have seen, shows a complete disrespect to the devolved Administrations, and this lack of trust and respect is becoming more and more pronounced. There have been some sharp examples in recent months, and we need to get away from them. With this process, there is an opportunity to change our approach and to demonstrate that we want to work differently—and there is a real benefit to be gained from that.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, drew our attention to the lack of political engagement, as he put it, with the devolved Administrations, which is deeply concerning. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, as is his habit, is shaking his head from a sedentary position. If what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said is not true—as the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has just suggested—perhaps the Minister could write to us to explain what form that political engagement is taking, what is being discussed and what progress has been made.

Trust matters, and I am afraid that it is in very short supply at the moment. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his speech, because he developed a point that we were trying to make in the debates on previous groups about the risk of things being missed from the dashboard. There were points in our previous discussion where I felt that the Minister was almost saying, “Look, you are worrying unnecessarily—our civil servants know what they are doing, and we will have a very thorough look at this”. The noble and learned Lord described it as legal archaeology; I am a trained archaeologist, and I know very well how easy it is to miss things or to look at a site with a particular priority in mind. You can find very different conclusions looking at something today than you would have done looking at it 20 years ago, because your understanding develops all the time. That is one of the reasons that children are very good at archaeology: they spot absolutely everything.

The point that the noble and learned Lord was making is that things will be missed. Even the Government acknowledge that; they do not claim that the dashboard is comprehensive, or that it ever will be. That was clear from the letter that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, sent us before the last Committee debate. I would not be surprised if she would want to withdraw that letter but, as she has not done so yet, it is the basis for our discussions. It is very clear from that that the dashboard will not be a comprehensive assessment of all retained EU law.

The request from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for an explanation of the search methods is very good idea. We were told—with some pride—that one of the search methods was a key word search for “Europe” at the National Archives.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

It is one search method.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The Ministers are saying that it is one search method, but that was the example given to us when we probed this at the roundtable meeting. That was the choice made by Ministers’ officials as an example intended to reassure us—but we are not reassured. The suggestion from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for a fuller explanation is very good and helpful; it might provide the reassurance that Ministers were attempting to demonstrate earlier in the week.

While discussing the issue of devolution, I shall ask the Minister a question on something I do not quite follow—and Committee stage is about asking questions about things we do not quite follow. Perhaps she might write to me about it, but I draw her attention to paragraph 11(3) of Schedule 4, under Part 3, which describes the process that the Government want Welsh Ministers to undertake when they are tackling regulations. Can she explain this process? It says that Welsh Ministers will have to make a statement of their opinion on a particular measure; they will have to provide

“a draft of the instrument, and … a memorandum setting out the statement and the reasons for the Welsh Ministers’ opinion.”

That seems slightly different to the process we are undertaking here. In principle, there is nothing necessarily wrong with there being a difference, but I would like to understand what that is about and how the Government came to that. Was that something that came out of dialogue with the Welsh Government, or has it grown up through the department? Why is that happening?

There is no way that this will not come back on Report. I would be happy to support any of the amendments tabled in this group. We on these Benches would be very happy to work with noble Lords from across the House on arriving at an amendment that we think would achieve our aims most effectively. I look forward to doing that, but the preference would be that the Government had some further thought on this and brought back their own amendment, which would treat the devolved Administrations with far more respect and deal with the issues of overconfidence and the fact that measures are, likely if not certain, to be missed.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a very full and comprehensive debate—I did not expect anything less, given the subject matter. Amendments 29, 33, 34, 35, 36, 49, 55 and 147 seek to amend the sunset clause and the territorial scope of the Bill for the devolved Governments. I can but reiterate that the UK Government remain fully committed to the Sewel convention, committed to devolution and committed to working collaboratively and constructively with the devolved Governments. We have been proactively engaging with the devolved Governments, at both ministerial and official level, on the progress of the Bill and the wider retained EU law reform programme. The former Business Secretary engaged with the devolved Governments following the introduction of the Bill and, indeed, I have personally engaged with the Welsh Government to assure them of our respect and willingness to co-operate over legislative matters in general going forward.

In response to the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson, Lady Hayman and Lady Chapman, I reassure the Committee that we are committed to working with the devolved Governments as we update the dashboard. We have established regular intergovernmental meetings intended to support devolved Government counterparts with the identification of which REUL is devolved or reserved as part of the REUL reform programme. The majority of the powers in the Bill are conferred concurrently on the devolved Governments, including the power to preserve retained EU law. This will enable them to make active decisions about the REUL within the devolved competence and decide which REUL they wish to preserve and assimilate, and which retained EU law they wish to allow to sunset. We remain committed to continuing discussions with the devolved Governments throughout the Bill’s passage over the use of concurrent powers within the Bill to ensure that they work for all parts of the UK. It is our expectation that the department will follow standard procedures regarding consultation and engagement with the devolved Governments during policy development.

I turn to Amendments 34, 35 and 36. These would exempt legislation relating to common frameworks from the sunset, restricting the sunset and preventing it delivering its objective to incentivise genuine reform across the United Kingdom. Among the proposed conditions is a proposal for a process to be agreed between the UK and devolved Governments for retained EU law within the scope of the common frameworks. We believe that common frameworks are integral to managing regulatory divergence in the areas they cover and provide a flexible governance tool for both the UK and devolved Governments. REUL is in scope of the common frameworks. This includes not just REUL operating within devolved competence but that same REUL operating in England. In some cases, this REUL will be UK-wide.

We believe it is simply not necessary to carve out REUL in scope of common frameworks. These are designed to manage divergence, including that which may result from the sunset. Both the UK and devolved Governments agree that, where common frameworks are operating, they are the right mechanism for discussing REUL reform in the areas they cover. To reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who raised concerns about regulatory divergence, the Government will continue to work closely with the devolved Governments to manage intra-UK divergence, including through existing collaborative mechanisms, such as the common frameworks programme, which has been developed with the devolved Governments to enable joint working in devolved areas. The Government are committed to following common framework processes where they apply, to allow for a collaborative discussion of REUL reform.

Similar to previous amendments, Amendment 55 seeks to change the sunset date for legislation relating to the common frameworks to the end of 2026. That is likely to include devolved REUL, and also REUL in other UK jurisdictions corresponding to a devolved area. However, this amendment, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, would amend the extension power in Clause 2, rather than just the sunset in Clause 1. While it is of course not appropriate to change the sunset date through Clause 2 alone, I reiterate that we simply do not believe there is a need to do so for retained EU law in scope of common frameworks. Moreover, pushing back the sunset for this legislation would remove the impetus for devolved Governments and relevant departments to review this legislation. Clause 2 already contains an extension mechanism capable of pushing the sunset back to 2026 for specified instruments or descriptions of legislation. We will work closely with the devolved authorities to ensure that selected legislation, including that within scope of common frameworks, is subject to an extended sunset where appropriate.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, what the Minister said about common frameworks is very encouraging and I absolutely understand what she has been saying in her description of the system. But is the procedure in Clause 2 capable of, let us say, exempting a particular common framework from the sunset in Clause 1? Does it fall within the formula set out in Clause 2, so that we could take, for example, the common framework on animal health, labelling or the ozone layer, and specify a common framework to be excluded? It would be encouraging if that were the case.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We can, indeed, exclude a specific category of law from the REUL exclusions if it relates to a specific area such as animal health, or a particular category of common framework.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

If that is the case, the logic is that all the common frameworks could be exempt. Is that not the case? If we can exempt one SI on animal welfare, there are 50 SIs on animal welfare; what would stop us exempting the whole of that tranche of SIs?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

While we will have the power to exempt, the whole point about the sunset date is to retain the rigour of going through the REUL legislation that we have—but we do still retain the ability, in Clause 2, to exempt certain categories from sunset.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness think that common frameworks will be a specific category?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thought we were still discussing exemptions. Will the noble Baroness repeat her question?

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

I am asking whether there is the power to exempt a whole category, because we have not heard that before. Would not common frameworks, because they are discrete and have an integrity of their own, serving specific purposes, constitute a specific category?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think the answer is, not in their entirety, but a specific category that falls within common frameworks could indeed be excluded.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Will the noble Baroness point us to where in the Bill we can find the definition of a category?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I will have to send that sort of detail out in writing, along with the other letters we are going to be writing in response to other questions.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I apologise for intervening. I think what I heard is that Clause 2 gives the Government the power to do this; I did not hear from the noble Baroness that the Government have any inclination to actually use that power. Will she explain what criteria the Government would use to actually apply the power that she has just revealed to the Committee?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We will bear that in mind, but I cannot give specific criteria: we want to retain the ability to exclude specific pieces of legislation, as I have said, within a specific category.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think I have taken enough interventions and I would like to make progress, please.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I just make the point that, by definition, to be included in a common framework, the legislation concerned has been extensively examined by all the Governments concerned in the last couple of years. Therefore, it will not be subject to the sorts of anomalies that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, referred to in our last debate.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I have tried not to intervene so far, but I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness has just said: does this mean that, if an application is made to a Minister to extend the sunset for a category or description of legislation, in accordance with Clause 2, and the Minister refuses, it will be “open sesame” for judicial review by those who regard such a decision as disproportionate and could render the whole of this legislation into something that will be litigated in the courts for years to come?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I acknowledge the noble Lord’s intervention but I cannot possibly respond at this stage. We must make progress.

Amendment 29 proposes exempting REUL within the competence of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from the sunset. This would remove the devolved Governments’ incentive to review legislation on their statute books and hinders the sunset’s intention to bring about genuine reform. A sunset is the quickest and most effective way to accelerate the review of REUL on the UK statute book by a specific date in the near future. This will incentivise genuine REUL reform in a way that will work best for all parts of the UK. The territorial scope of the Bill will be UK-wide, and it is constitutionally appropriate that the sunset applies across all parts of the UK. However, the sunset does not affect the devolution settlements, nor is it intended to restrict the competence of either the devolved legislatures or the devolved Governments. Rather, this will enable the devolved Governments to make active—

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

The noble Baroness may well be coming to this, and she should tell me if she is. If the sunset brings rigour, as she has said, to the devolved Administrations—and to us, of course—does that mean that the Government accept our arguments about the lack of resources for the devolved Administrations and the lack of capacity of civil servants, because there are so few of them going through all this retained EU law throughout the devolved Administrations?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We do not accept that. We know that there are capacity restraints within the devolved Governments, but the UK Government are also helping them go through the whole body of retained law. That work will progress and is an ongoing project as we go through this year. I may come on to more detail for the noble Baroness.

In relation to the noble Baroness’s specific comments on Northern Ireland, the Windsor Framework has no impact on the Bill. She can also rest assured that we have already committed to making sure that the necessary legislation is in place to uphold the UK’s international obligations—

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think we need to make progress.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The Minister is answering a different question.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I know, but we do need to make progress. This is the 10th intervention, and I am on paragraph 17. I think there is a limit to the number of interventions I need to take—but I will take the noble Baroness’s, because she is on the Front Bench.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am sorry, but my understanding is that there is not a limit on the number of interventions the Minister can take. Progress would probably be better if we had a better Bill in front of us. She answered a question by saying that the Windsor agreement has no impact on the Bill, but my question was whether the Bill could have an impact on the Windsor agreement, which is a very different thing.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

It has no impact on the Windsor agreement. I am assured by my colleagues and my briefing here that it has no impact.

Amendment 49, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, seeks to ensure that the UK Government have a complete understanding of their catalogue of REUL by allowing a Minister of the Crown to request that the devolved Governments identify REUL in areas of devolved competence within the scope of the sunset. While I concur with the sentiment of this amendment, again, the Government do not believe it is necessary but recognise the importance of having a shared and single understanding of reserved and devolved REUL across the UK Government and the devolved Governments.

We have established regular intergovernmental meetings intended to support devolved government counterparts with the identification of which REUL is devolved or reserved, as part of the REUL reform programme. Departments are also actively engaging directly with their devolved government counterparts as part of their business-as-usual engagement on the devolved status of REUL and their plans for REUL reform. On the point about pre-1999 legislation, where the legislation is devolved, the decision should be for devolved government Ministers, just like any other piece of devolved REUL. We will set out in writing the methodology for identifying REUL on the dashboard, as already committed by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe in the session on Tuesday.

Amendment 33, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, would exempt from the sunset legislation relating to human rights, equality or environmental protection to the extent that the legislation has effect in Northern Ireland, including legislation within scope of Article 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol. We fully intend to maintain the UK’s leading role in the promotion and protection of human rights, equality, the rule of law and environmental protections. We are proud of our long and diverse history of freedoms and are committed to ensuring that the necessary legislation is in place to uphold the UK’s international obligations, including the withdrawal agreement, the Northern Ireland protocol, and the trade and co-operation agreement after the sunset date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fox (LD)]

It was my noble friend Lady Randerson.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am sorry. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that there was no Machiavellian intent; rather, that date provides a ceiling for the presence of retained EU law on the UK’s statute book and gives adequate time to complete reform of the most ambitious nature in all areas. The 10th anniversary of the referendum vote served this purpose and offers a full-circle moment by which the UK can proudly proclaim that it has regained its sovereignty and has a fully independent domestic statute book—

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I am unfamiliar with modern parlance. Could the Minister please define a “full-circle moment”?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think it is just a way of describing the 10-year anniversary of the referendum vote. It is just vernacular—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

The process is finally complete.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The process is finally complete, as my noble friend suggests.

On impact assessments, properly assessing the impact of government policy is an important principle of good governance, and the Government will continue to be committed to the appraisal of any regulatory changes relating to retained EU law. The nature of this appraisal will depend on the type of changes the departments make and the expected significance of the impacts. Where measures are being revoked, departments will be expected to undertake proportionate analytical appraisal, and we are exploring the appropriate steps we can take to appraise the resulting impacts.

I am fully conscious that a number of other specific points were raised, but I undertake that we will write back, particularly on methodology and definitions. However, for the reasons I have outlined, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and offered their support to the devolved Administrations and recognised their very legitimate concerns regarding their devolved settlements.

Many of us might not like the Bill, but in this Committee we have seen this House at its very best. We have heard a number of speeches today that could be described as masterclasses, and it has been a pleasure and an honour to listen to them.

I will not comment on the noble Baroness’s reply other than to say that I appreciated her statement that the Government are committed to the Sewel convention. However, over the last few years, actions have spoken louder than words, so she will forgive me if I do not hold my breath.

I also welcome the commitment from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, to work across the House on amendments on Report; we on these Benches commit to that process.

We have been debating this for two hours and five minutes, and if everybody else is like me, lunchtime is calling. Therefore I will just say that the noble Baroness’s response will have given food for thought to those of us in this Chamber today, and we will doubtless want to renew our deliberations on Report. In light of that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to prolong the Committee, so I will not repeat many of the contributions that have been made today. But I do want to pick up the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, because when he raised this in a previous clause on a previous Committee day, I also asked a supplementary question. The reply I got from the Minister—I was seeking an assurance—was that

“there is a power for them to just restate that law, to continue it, if they wish to do so. We would want any extension to be discussed between the Administrations”—[Official Report, 2/3/23; col. 473.]

Well, the simple question is this: why, on an issue of law that is the sole competency of the devolved Administrations, do they not have the same power as the Secretary of State? I think it is a fundamental question. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said:

“I do not agree with the noble Lord’s characterisation. If they wish, it is perfectly possible for them, before the sunset date, to renew that legislation. The extension mechanism is of course something that we will discuss with them as appropriate”—[Official Report, 2/3/23; col. 473.]


If the noble Baroness, in responding to this, cannot give a clear answer to what I believe is a clear question, I hope she will write to us, because I cannot see any reason why we would undermine the authority of the devolved parliaments in this way.

I will also, because it has come up in terms of the implications of divergence, repeat the question that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raised in another debate. He said that there were “profound implications” for paragraph 52 of the framework, which states that

“the Office of the Internal Market (OIM) will specifically monitor any impacts for Northern Ireland arising from relevant future regulatory changes”.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked

“what the purpose of that is, and what weight the Government are going to give to the results of such monitoring?”—[Official Report, 7/3/23; col. 689.]

Of course, when you read the framework, you also see that that is mirrored in terms of a response by the EU. So I hope the Minister will be able to answer these questions: what are the implications? Has this been thought through? What assurances were given to the EU by the Prime Minister? Those are important questions for us to consider.

I appreciate my noble friend Lady Ritchie’s amendments. In looking at them, I thought that I would not only take on board the comments made in letters from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland but would read the commissions’ annual reports, which the Government would obviously have. Of course, the overarching recommendation of the commissions’ most recent 2022 annual report is that

“in the development of any laws or policies the UK Government and NI Executive consider the extent to which any change engages Protocol Article 2 and ensure that there is no diminution to the rights and safeguards which fall within its scope”.

I hope the Minister will address that specific recommendation in relation to this Bill.

On the divergence of rights on the island of Ireland, the commissions recommended that

“the UK Government and the NI Executive ensure North-South equivalence, by keeping pace with changes to equality and human rights law, arising as a result of EU laws introduced on or after 1 January 2021, that enhance protections. This should include rights introduced as a result of EU laws that do not amend or replace the Protocol Annex 1 Directives.”

What consideration have the Government given to that particular recommendation, bearing in mind that Article 2 is a firm foundation of the relationship on all sides on the island of Ireland?

I conclude by saying that, on retained EU law, the commissions recommended that

“no change to retained EU law be made which would weaken Protocol Article 2, its enforceability or oversight mechanisms”.

Again, can the Minister tell us what assessment the Government made of that recommendation when drawing up the Bill? The commissions also recommended that,

“when making any change to retained EU law, the relevant UK or NI Minister confirms that an assessment for compliance with the commitment in Protocol Article 2 has been undertaken and that there is no diminution of the rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity as set out in the relevant part of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement as a result of the UK leaving the EU”.

Has that assessment taken place? What are the implications for the powers outlined in both the clauses under consideration in this group? If the Minister is unable to answer today and give a full account of these particular recommendations, I would be grateful if she could write and put a copy of her letter in the Library for everyone to see.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate. Amendments 117 to 119, 127, 135 and 143 seek to amend the way in which the powers operate in areas of devolved competence. I should say at the outset in response to the query about Sue Gray leaving her post, it is really not my place to comment on Civil Service appointments, but the work that her team does will not stop just because she has moved on. There was a competent team around her, and I am sure more announcements will be made in due course.

Amendment 117 exempts legislation relating to common frameworks from the powers under Clause 15(2) and (3) to replace revoked REUL unless relevant instruments or provisions have been subject to the full process between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. This would prevent the powers being able to operate on these instruments to create replacement provision unless a process agreed between the UK Government and the devolved Governments is followed. Common frameworks are integral to managing regulatory divergence in the areas they cover and provide a flexible governance tool for the UK Government and the devolved Governments. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, that the UK Government value the committee’s work and regard it as essential to ensure that the common frameworks are as good as they can be, including by helping to ensure the functioning of the UK internal market.

Retained EU law is in scope of the common frame- works. This includes not just REUL operating within devolved competence but that same REUL operating in England. In some cases, this REUL will be UK-wide. This is a point I have made in earlier debates on this subject.

The Government believe that it is simply not necessary to carve out REUL in scope of common frameworks from the powers to revoke or replace. Common frame- works are purposely designed to manage any potential divergence which may result from the Government’s use of the powers in the Bill. When using the powers in the Bill, we will use common frameworks to engage with the devolved Governments on decision-making across the UK. The UK Government and the devolved Governments agree that where common frameworks are operating they are the right mechanism for discussing REUL reform in the areas they cover.

To respond to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about extending the sunset applicable to REUL within the scope of common frameworks, it will be possible to extend REUL within the scope of common frameworks as the Clause 2 power enables extending the sunset for specified instruments or descriptions of legislation. In response to her queries around exemptions for food, there is simply no need to have specific exemptions or carve-out areas in the Bill. As I outlined earlier, the common frameworks are purposely designed to manage any potential divergence which may result from the Government’s use of the powers in the Bill.

Amendments 119 and 127, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, would restrict the use of the powers to revoke or replace and the power to update by requiring that any new regulations must not bring about substantial policy change for regulations relating to human rights, equality or environmental protection with effect in Northern Ireland. First, I emphasise that the Government recognise the unique challenges that Northern Ireland departments are facing in delivering plans for the reform of retained EU law in the continued absence of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. Our officials are working closely with the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the UK Government are committed to ensuring that the necessary legislation is in place to uphold the UK’s international obligations.

Responding to the noble Baroness’s point about Article 2, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Callanan in the debate on assimilation last Thursday, I can assure the noble Baroness that the Bill provides powers to restate rights and obligations required for Article 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol as needed. The Government will ensure that all necessary legislation is in place by the sunset date to uphold commitments made under Article 2. Departments will take into account the assessment of whether a restatement would meet the Article 2 non- diminution right when reviewing their retained EU law.

I turn to the delegated powers in the Bill. The Bill sets out the circumstances under which the powers can be used appropriately. The powers to revoke or replace are important, cross-cutting enablers of REUL reform in the Bill and will allow the Government to overhaul EU laws and secondary legislation, while the power to update is intended to facilitate technical updates to keep pace with scientific and technological developments over time. The REUL dashboard has identified more than 3,700 pieces of retained EU law, many of which are unduly burdensome and not fit for purpose. It is therefore necessary to have broad, forward-leaning powers capable of acting on wide-ranging REUL across different policy areas. Furthermore, we fully intend to maintain the UK’s leading role in the promotion and protection of human rights and equality, and environmental protections. We are proud of our long and diverse history of freedoms and are committed to ensuring that the UK’s international human rights obligations continue to be met.

The provisions within the Bill, including the powers, are not intended to undermine these hard-won human rights or equality legislation, nor our world-leading environmental protections, which this Government have also committed to uphold. The UK is a world leader in environmental protection, and we want to ensure that environmental law is fit for purpose and able to drive improved environmental outcomes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I have listened carefully to the Minister’s response. When I spoke earlier, I said that the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, was very helpful, but I have not had a specific answer, taking my example of fragments of plastic in bottles of water, as to whether the Government would respond to that requirement for change in food and food safety legislation. Would the Government regard it as a technical advance, which the Minister referred to, or as unduly onerous regulation, which she also referred to? What would happen if, for example, the Welsh Government decided they wanted to go to a higher standard of plastic in water bottles but the UK Government decided they did not want them to go to that higher standard? If the Minister cannot answer that now, could she give us a commitment to write with that worked example and give us an indication of what is unduly onerous EU-based legislation and regulation and what is technical advance?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am happy to write if I do not give a satisfactory answer now. It is up to the relevant department to look at the proposed amendment and consider whether it meets the criteria for the use of the update power. The Government will always maintain the power to increase standards. Any more than that I will take back, and I will write in fuller detail.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Can the Minister inform the House what the criteria are?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

If the noble Lord is talking about the Clause 15 power, that gives discretion to Ministers. It is the criteria for the use of the update power, which is at the discretion of Ministers.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I hope Hansard picks that up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think the noble Baroness was talking about adding to the burden of legislation, which is Clause 15.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

On a different point, I thank the Minister for the assurances that she has provided us with in relation to Article 2 of the protocol, but could she also indicate whether she is prepared, if required, to meet both commissions? I understand that one commission is responsible to the Northern Ireland Executive and the other directly to the UK Government. Would that be possible? Maybe in the fullness of time, if the Minister wants to reflect on that request, she could provide us with an answer in writing.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Certainly, more relevant Ministers will be meeting all the time, as well as officials, to discuss these issues, and they are probably the best and most appropriate channels of communication.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate covering a number of topics. I welcome the Minister’s assurances, which I accept in good faith, about wanting to work constructively with the devolved Administrations. However, I am sure she will recognise that there are still a lot of questions hanging in the air.

To take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, if the Government know that there are 3,700 pieces of legislation then they ought to be able to tell us what they are. The impression one gets is that the Government claim they know exactly what they are doing but are not prepared to tell anyone else what it is. We need to get a little further down the road on that.

The Minister said that some of the laws were no longer fit for purpose, and we need to know which those are; others need to be updated, and we need to know which those are; and others are UK-wide. Well, the devolved Administrations still need to know which they are, because, clearly, they have an impact throughout the United Kingdom.

This debate has been useful, but there are still issues that we need to press the Government on. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 17th May 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

62: Clause 24, page 24, line 27, at beginning insert “Subject to subsection (1A),”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s other amendment to Clause 24 ensure that any amendment, repeal or revocation made by the Bill has the same extent within the United Kingdom as the provision to which it relates.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, government Amendments 62 and 63 to Clause 24 provide a clarification, setting out that any amendments, repeals or revocations in the Bill have the same territorial extent as the provisions they are acting on. The Bill is intended to apply UK-wide. The purpose of Clause 24 is to set out the territorial extent of the Bill, which covers England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The purpose of government Amendments 62 and 63 is to set out in unambiguous terms that, while the Bill extends to the whole of the UK, any amendments, revocations and repeals by the Bill extend so far as the provision they are acting on. The amendments are minor and technical in nature and will not alter the policy of the Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment 62 agreed.

Moved by

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

63: Clause 24, page 24, line 27, at end insert—
“(1A) Any amendment, repeal or revocation made by this Act has the same extent within the United Kingdom as the provision to which it relates.”Member’s explanatory statement
See the statement about the Minister’s other amendment to Clause 24.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

“Shut up”?—well done. I am just saying: let us get on with the Bill seriously rather than keeping on blaming each other. That was my point in the first place. Drop the smug tone.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Perhaps I can remind the House that we have been incredibly patient but noble Lords should stick to debating the amendments rather than general points. Perhaps we can get on and make some progress.