European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly, first, because it is already past my bedtime and, secondly, because noble Lords have already outlined some of the problems. It was a pleasure to hear the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, speak on this matter in relation to archaeology. I started a speech about 15 years ago, when he was in the audience, by saying that when I was a trainee archaeologist he was such an icon that I thought he was already dead. I am therefore absolutely thrilled to see that he is still not dead; it is always a pleasure to hear him.

I want to put my comments in simple terms so that Members of your Lordships’ House on the other Benches understand exactly what the problem is with the EU withdrawal Bill on this issue. Amendment 28 —and, by implication, Amendment 26—is designed to make sure that we do not miss out on important parts of EU law; namely, directives. EU directives place obligations on our Government to act in particular ways, such as bringing forward particular legislation. Examples include the working time directive, a social measure, and the habitats directive, an environmental measure. These directives cover a wide span of issues. The wording of the Bill leaves huge gaps that these important directives could fall through. The amendments would plug those gaps and make sure that they are all brought over into UK law. They would also allow or require Ministers to make sure that these directives are properly implemented so that we receive whatever benefits, rights and remedies were intended. As has been said several times, the big problem with the approach set out in Clause 4 is that it will exclude legal rights simply because they have not been litigated on. I do not see the sense in that. I am sure the Government will see that it needs a little bit of fixing and that we will see some positive compromises come forward.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

I rise to seek clarification on the precise objective of Clause 4(2)(b) in this whole pattern of legislation, and therefore on the effect of the attempt made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to get shot of it. As I understand it, Clause 4(1) faithfully reproduces Section 2(1) of the 1972 Act. On the face of it, these directly effective provisions are to continue to apply. Of course, it is not always easy to decide what is a directly effective provision that comes within the ambit of Section 2(1) of the 1972 Act, which is here given effect to. As I see it, though I may be quite wrong—I should like the Minister to confirm or reject this—subsection (2)(b) is there basically to say: “Look, if it’s one of those doubtful provisions as to whether it is indeed a directly effective provision under the EU legislation, whether it is completely unclear—there isn’t a case on it—and nobody has specifically suggested that it is, it is not to be argued henceforth that it is”. In other words, the certainty and clarity that this legislation overall is designed to achieve is supposed to be advanced by getting rid, in Clause 4(2)(b), of cases where the past jurisprudence simply leaves the thing high up in the air with no proper guidance.