Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a very new member, for its report on this Bill and to Senedd Research for its informative legislative consent memoranda and other documents.

As the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee highlights, in 2018 the European Union (Withdrawal) Act promised that Parliament and the devolved legislatures would be able to decide which elements of some 3,000 or 4,000 pieces of retained EU law to keep, amend or repeal once the UK had left the EU. This retained EU law Bill cuts across that pledge and makes a mockery of the supposed argument for Brexit that the UK Parliament would be supreme and would be responsible for making our laws once we had left the EU.

The Bill, however, gives unfettered authority to Ministers through secondary legislation, bypassing both the UK Parliament and the Senedd in Wales. Such a blatant attack on the powers of the UK Parliament might be unusual but in Wales we have become rather used to this type of treatment, especially since 2019. Giving evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee in November, the Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford, reflecting on the relationship between the two Governments and the increasing problems around the Sewel convention, said:

“We had engaged relationships with Conservative Governments from 2010 to 2019. We did not agree on many things, of course, but we were always around the table together talking. The exception in this … rule is the period from 2019 to earlier this year.”


The retained EU law Bill is a child of the Brexit Government who came to power in 2019. Since then, emboldened by their majority in the other place and fuelled by a unionism sometimes described as “aggressive”, they have ridden roughshod over the Sewel convention, they have usurped the powers of the Senedd and, in the Bill, they will also blatantly usurp the powers of the UK Parliament.

The Delegated Powers Committee’s report concludes:

“We have recommended that, of the six most important provisions containing delegated powers in this Bill, five should be removed from the Bill altogether. The shortcomings of this hyper-skeletal Bill justify our approach.”


The Welsh Government go further: I believe they have now recommended that the Senedd withholds consent for the Bill. The Welsh Counsel General and the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture have published a joint letter in the Financial Times, calling for the Bill to be withdrawn. The devolved Administrations are preparing lists, reviewing thousands of pieces of retained EU law and seeking the Government’s help in ascertaining whether some laws are devolved or reserved, all in what appears to be a state of uncertainty, confusion and chaos.

The Bill allows an extension, to 2026, for the UK Ministers to complete their work, but Ministers in the devolved Administrations are restricted to the 2023 deadline. Welsh Ministers have requested an amendment to address this anomaly, but we still await a response. Will the Minister explain why there has been no response, address the anomaly and assure me that an amendment will be tabled by the Government? If he cannot do the latter, I will happily do so.