European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

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

[Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (Con)]

My Lords, in welcoming Amendment 28 I note that it supplements Clause 4 in a way that can be considered constructive. Among other things, it would strengthen the position of archaeology and cultural heritage, which are often associated with environmental issues. A new policy statement has been promised, but that would surely be weaker than a statutory approach, which this amendment follows. It takes a more comprehensive approach in what I consider to be a constructive way.

As drafted, the Bill does not fully transpose the environmental principles set out in the European Communities Act 1972 into United Kingdom law. The amendment would therefore impose a duty to make regulations to remedy this deficiency. It is fair to say that we do not want our rich body of archaeological remains to be put at risk by deficiencies that might remain in the legislation following our withdrawal from the European Union. The amendment is supported by the Council for British Archaeology and the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists. It offers an important safeguard and I am very happy to support it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 28, although my colleagues the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, have made the case for it very eloquently. We have rehearsed many times before in this Chamber that 80% of UK environmental law derives from the EU, so we have a particular interest in ensuring that those same environmental protections are fully transposed and are not weakened by either omission or design in the transposition. Our concern is that the current wording of Clause 4 does not give us that guarantee. The tablers of Amendment 26 attempted to address that ambiguity in one way and we have attempted to address it in a different way, but I think we are aiming to achieve the same outcome.

Crucially, the amendment concerns the issue of whether the rights, powers, obligations et cetera derived from EU law are incorrectly or incompletely transposed, and the duty to remedy that deficiency. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, gave some examples of that. For example, under current directives there is an expectation of reporting obligations, which will cease on Brexit day and are not part of the provisions that will be transposed. Although the Government have promised to create a UK body to oversee future standards and reporting obligations, we have not seen the detail of that, so we are being asked to make a decision blind. We need a substitute for that current arrangement to be spelled out.

Equally, the principles and preambles that underpin EU environmental legislation have an important but amorphous status that needs to be underwritten with guarantees as we transfer. Such provisions set out, for example, the aims and purposes of directives. They include Article 1 of the environmental liability directive, which refers to the “polluter pays” principle, and Article 1 of the habitats directive, which sets out the aim to contribute to biodiversity conservation. These things are important; they are not about to be transposed automatically, and we need extra provision to make sure that they can be followed through, which we believe our amendment does.

Finally, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who described matters not having been being dealt with by the courts as a rather odd way of defining what should and should not be transposed. He made the case much better than I could, but he is spot on and I hope that the Minister is able to answer those points.

[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.