European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Pannick

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford]

It is that, rather than with anything I have said.

I noted that while on Monday there was an insistence from the government Benches that this decision by the European Council represented international law, at least by yesterday things had moved on somewhat when the noble Baroness the Leader of the House referred to EU and international law. I am, however, puzzled by her insistence that the European Council decision and the UK’s agreement to it constitutes a binding agreement in EU and international law. It seems to me that that decision is simply a binding legal act under EU law, to which the UK is now and at least until 12 April subject. It just seems to be difficult for the Government to straightforwardly acknowledge this, presumably for political reasons.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, will speak to the issue that he raised yesterday about the legality of the two alternative exit dates and I will leave that to him. From these Benches, we can accept the convenience of needing only one statutory instrument, and not potentially two, to cover both the scenarios envisaged in the European Council decision.

Finally, I want to ask about the position on the European Communities Act. I cannot remember whether I asked this yesterday or the day before. The Explanatory Memorandum to the present regulations says:

‘“Exit day’ is the day by reference to which provisions of the 2018 Act, including the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 … take effect or come into force”,


but that is not my understanding. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act says that the repeal of the European Communities Act takes effect on exit day. My understanding is that an SI is needed to bring that into force; indeed, the briefing from the Library says:

“This provision of the EUWA”—


namely, the repeal of the European Communities Act—

“has not yet been brought into force”.

So even beyond exit day, unless there is an SI to bring into force the repeal of the ECA, the ECA will continue. Can someone explain how that interacts with these regulations? Even if you change exit day, do you still need an SI to bring in the repeal of the European Communities Act? I look forward to the clarification which I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, who is looking impatient, will be able to give me.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and I thank him for addressing the legal question I raised yesterday. I am satisfied that these regulations are valid; the legal issue is whether exit day is specified in the statutory instrument when it refers to two possible dates. I agree that that is so: it is specified, and for this reason. It seems to me that the purpose of the power to amend the date of our exit, as expressly stated in Section 20(4)(a) of the 2018 Act, is to ensure that domestic law on exit day is consistent with our treaty obligations. This SI accurately implements in domestic law the current treaty obligations in the light of the extension of the Article 50 period. Unhappily, that still involves more than one possibility as to the future, and the SI accurately reflects the reality under EU law.

There is a risk that a court might take a different view on the validity of the SI; I would not expect it to do so. I am, however, surprised that Ministers did not adopt the simpler, risk-free option of specifying 12 April as exit day, since they have ample powers further to amend exit day if appropriate. That is especially so when there is a third possibility recognised under the EU decision to which the SI refers. The EU decision says that if the withdrawal agreement is not approved by the House of Commons by this Friday, the Article 50 period is extended until 12 April. It adds:

“In that event, the United Kingdom will indicate a way forward before 12 April 2019 for consideration by the European Council”.


If that occurs, and if agreement is then reached on the way forward, it may involve an exit day different from either 12 April or 22 May: that, of course, would require another SI.

I understand that the noble and learned Lord, the Advocate-General for Scotland, will be replying to this debate for the Government. I have a question for him which builds on the question put at the end of her speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. As a matter of domestic law, exit day is highly significant under the 2018 Act for various purposes, but one of the central functions of exit day is given accurately in paragraph 6.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“Section 1 of the 2018 Act repeals the European Communities Act 1972 on ‘exit day’, whilst the saving and incorporation of EU law into domestic law (known as “retained EU law”) … take effect on and after ‘exit day’”.


Various provisions of the 2018 Act were brought into force under Section 25 of that Act when it was passed. Those provisions include Section 20, which defines exit day and confers the power exercised in this statutory instrument to amend exit day. Also commenced and brought into force when the 2018 Act was passed were Sections 8 to 11 and other provisions which confer powers on Ministers to make regulations such as those we have been scrutinising in recent weeks. There have also been more recent commencement regulations, such as SI 808/2018, which provide for the bringing into force of other provisions of the 2018 Act.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Pannick

Committee: 11th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, it is indeed striking that directives are not included in Schedule 5, part 1, paragraph 1(2). The reason may be that directives are given a very odd status under Clause 4(2)(b), which we debated on a previous day. Under Clause 4(2)(b), retained EU law does not include rights which arise under an EU directive when they are,

“not of a kind recognised by the European Court or any court or tribunal”,

in this country,

“in a case decided before exit day”.

We debated the complexities, the uncertainties and, as I see it, the unsatisfactory nature, of the clause. Is that the reason why directives are not included in Schedule 5, part 1? If not, what is the reason?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s valuable amendment. I wonder whether the Government are being as transparent as they ought to be. After all, there have sometimes been well-founded suspicions of gold-plating of directives and, in contrast, of not entirely full or accurate transposition of directives. I am sorry to repeat myself, but I gave the recent example of the European investigation order, which was not transposed in regulations last December with exactly the wording in the directive. The European Convention on Human Rights has been substituted for the charter, which is in my opinion a breach of the accurate transposition of the directive.

Not only during the transition but well into the future, businesses and all citizens will be obeying a lot of the acquis of EU law, if the Prime Minister’s emerging strategy of staying plugged into many EU policies and agencies one way or another comes to fruition. Therefore it is right for businesses and individuals to be able to see how EU law in directives, which unlike regulations, does not have direct effect, has been translated, transposed into UK law, so that they can track its accuracy. This is a long-running theme in the European Parliament, as my noble friend will know. Indeed, the Minister will know that there was an attempt to campaign in the European Parliament to have what was known in the jargon as “correlation tables”. It was possible to see exactly how EU law had been translated into national law in all EU states.

Funnily enough, the member states never wanted that to happen. They got away with a bit of smoke and mirrors of people not understanding where law had come from at the European level, or where it had not. Where something had been added at national level that was sitting in some dusty drawer in Whitehall and this convenient vehicle of an EU directive came along, they said, “Right, we’ll just slap into that things we’ve long thought about and no one will realise that it didn’t come from Brussels”. Well, people need to know whether it came from Brussels or not. The kind of transparency that my noble friend is seeking would be extremely useful.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Pannick

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am also pleased, as co-signatory, to support the amendment, the purpose of which is to retain in domestic law wording from the European Charter of Fundamental Rights concerning data protection. This is for the benefit of British citizens and to help ensure that vital data flows for business and law enforcement can continue if we Brexit.

The specific article in the EU charter, Article 8 on data protection, is stronger in this respect than the older non-EU European Convention on Human Rights, which deals with privacy only under the rubric of protection of family and personal life. The Government plan that the charter should cease to be part of UK domestic law after Brexit in Clause 5(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. This broader issue will be considered as part of the scrutiny of that Bill, and there is a cross-party amendment tabled in the House of Commons and led by Dominic Grieve MP to remove that clause such that the charter continues to apply domestically in the interpretation of retained EU law. Liberal Democrats strongly support that amendment, but it seems appropriate not to wait for or depend on the success of that broader effort and at least effectively to embed the thrust of the charter as it concerns data protection in this Bill, which largely concerns EU law.

This is extremely important because if we Brexit, the UK will seek from the European Commission an adequacy decision on UK data protection so that transfers between the UK and the EU can continue smoothly—an objective the Prime Minister has singled out for mention. If we leave, EU states may no longer be able to share data with us unless our legal regime on matters including state surveillance powers aligns with EU requirements. The adequacy assessment will be wide-ranging, taking in all aspects of law and practice in the UK. The embedding of the charter’s data protection right in this Bill would be an important safeguard for business continuity—especially for tech companies, which depend crucially on the free flow of data—as well as ensuring that essential cross-border police and intelligence co-operation is not disrupted.

I, my noble friends Lord McNally and Lord Paddick, and other noble Lords raised at Second Reading the need for measures to protect us from threats, not to undermine our civil liberties. We are used to the European Court of Human Rights ruling on privacy issues, several times finding the UK in breach of the convention, but more recently in the digital age it is the European Court of Justice—the EU court—that has come into play as EU law on protection of electronic communications and the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights has begun to bite. The Snowden revelations brought heightened sensitivity about the extent of the legitimacy of the activities of our intelligence services.

The EU data retention directive—the EU law on mandatory mass data retention—was pushed through Brussels in 2005 when the UK had the presidency of the EU by the then UK Home Secretary in an expert piece of lobbying after the London bombings of that year. In a landmark 2014 judgment, the court struck it down as incompatible with the right to respect for private life and data protection under Articles 7 and 8 of the charter. Then, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, the judgment on DRIPA last December—technically, the Tele2/Watson case, although initially also involving the then Back-Bench David Davis MP—continued in the same vein, declaring that mass data retention was “disproportionate” to citizens’ rights to privacy. Its implications for the Investigatory Powers Act and the question of whether bulk collection of communications data could be permitted to infringe privacy on the grounds of pursuit of serious crime or threats to national security may be ascertained by the reference to the European court made by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in September. Certainly, the wide range of powers in the Investigatory Powers Act might look vulnerable to being found in conflict with EU law. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Max Hill, suggested that it was unclear whether the ruling in the Watson case on safeguards for data retention regimes could be interpreted as applicable to national security.

It is true that while in the EU the national security exemption from EU competence applies but, as was brought out at Second Reading, if we were outside the EU the arrangements for our intelligence agencies would go into the whole mix that is assessed for compliance with EU standards. The court’s decision in July, rejecting the legality of the EU agreement with Canada on the transfer of passenger name record details, provides a salutary lesson in how the court approaches third-country transfers. It struck down the agreement because several of its provisions were incompatible with EU fundamental rights. It is therefore crucial that we embed the wording of Article 8 of the charter.

The Labour Opposition have tabled an amended version of Amendment 4, namely Amendment 4A. This is an interesting variation and I look forward to learning a bit more as we progress about exactly how the new wording would work. As I understand it, the safeguards in subsection (1) of the proposed new clause and the first part of subsection (2), which are replicated from Amendment 4, would and should still govern the,

“provisions, exceptions and derogations of this Act”,

otherwise, the point of writing in safeguards is undermined.

I wonder about the reference to,

“purposes as set out in the GDPR”,

since the GDPR is concerned only with the processes for data manipulated in accordance with purposes set down in other instruments. I am slightly unclear about that.

I believe that there has been concern about a conflict with press freedom. Of course we are suffering here from the fact that we have only a partial bite from the charter, which contains a firm provision on freedom of expression and information as well as on the right to security. When we succeed in retaining the whole charter in domestic law via the EU withdrawal Bill, the whole balancing exercise will become more apparent than with this snapshot. In the meantime, we have to proceed with entrenching this partial aspect of the charter as concerns data protection.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, the problem with Amendment 4 is that it would not incorporate the charter provision relating to personal data. The reason for that is that it addresses the prima facie right to the protection of personal data, but not the limitations and exceptions recognised by the European charter itself. Article 8, like all the other rights in the European charter, is subject to the limitations stated in Article 52. That says that there can be limitations on protected rights if they are provided for by law, are necessary and meet,

“objectives of general interest recognised by the Union or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others”.

It is because there has to be a balance between this prima facie right and exceptions and limitations that the Bill contains a very large number of exemptions which cover a whole range of circumstances in which the rights of the data subject have to give way to other considerations, such as national security, the detection of crime, taxation, judicial appointments or confidential references for employment. There are many such exemptions.

The Bill contains exemptions because there are other interests in this area, and other rights, which conflict with the right to protection of personal data, and a fair balance is required. The Committee will want to debate the scope of those exceptions and limitations and be satisfied that the balance has been struck correctly. But Amendment 4 suggests that there is some absolute right to the protection of personal data. That is simply wrong. That is why, I imagine, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has tabled manuscript Amendment 4A, which attempts to address the defect in Amendment 4.

I would have wished for more time to consider Amendment 4A, which I understand was tabled only this morning, particularly if the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, intends to divide the Committee today. I am concerned that Amendment 4A poses two difficulties of its own. First, the value of including Amendment 4A is not clear to me. The Bill already sets out in considerable detail the domestic implementation of the charter obligation; that is, Article 8 read with Article 52. I fear that including Amendment 4A in the Bill would be likely to cause legal confusion and uncertainty in an area where precision and clarity are essential—and, indeed, are provided by the substance of the detailed provisions in the Bill.

Secondly, I fear that the purpose of Amendment 4A is to confer some special, elevated legal status on Article 8 rights concerning personal data for the future, as subsection (4) suggests. I think that would be very unwise because, as I have said, Article 8 rights often conflict with other rights—whether it is freedom of expression, which we heard about, or the right to property—or other interests. The detailed provisions of the Bill illustrate the difficult choices that have to be made in this area.

Amendment 4A seeks to give a special legal status to one charter right in isolation and that is simply inappropriate. For those reasons, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, will not divide the Committee on Amendment 4A. If he does, I will vote against it.