Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, we recently celebrated the third anniversary of Brexit and it is indeed the gift that keeps on taking: taking control and scrutiny away from Parliament, effectively passing it to unelected officials in the Civil Service, and taking certainty, confidence and competitiveness away from businesses. The whole thrust of the debate today is what assurance is there that key protections that we have achieved will remain on the statute book and that there will be no gold-plating. I play tribute to my noble friend Lord Heseltine, who single-handedly eradicated gold-plating from the transposition of a very innocuous directive, such as the toy directive, into the home-spun rules of our home civil servants.

The dashboard is very difficult to navigate. It is a moving feast, but we know that there are some 1,780 Defra proposals. I pay tribute to the Defra officials who spent the best part of two years transposing farming, environment and other regulations into UK law at some considerable speed and therefore had to return with corrections. I do not blame them for that, but that shows us what the expectations will be with an even more limited timetable before us in the Bill.

As others have mentioned in the debate, the dashboard does not cover all retained EU laws agreed by the devolved Administrations, so it is no wonder that the Welsh and Scottish Administrations have withheld their consent from the Bill. Now, with a sweep of the pen, all that we have achieved over years of transposing and passing into UK law these protections is going to be rolled away purely as a result of a political decision to achieve this arbitrary timetable before the next election.

I would like to judge the Bill before us this evening by the extent to which at the end of this process we will still be able to export and import, which we were told would not be jeopardised as we would have frictionless trade through the trade and co-operation agreement. I have been contacted by businesses I worked with 30 years ago and longer as a Member of the European Parliament in the food and drink sector, chemicals and, in particular, the cars and vehicle sector. We have identified a change in policy direction moving away from a functioning statute book to a period of tremendous uncertainty. No one in the debate this evening disagrees that the statute book should be kept under constant review. I think that all who have spoken expressing caution about the Bill are concerned about the manner in which the statute book is to be maintained. Parliament will not be in the driving seat; it will nominally be Ministers, but I would say unelected officials. What evidence is there that there has even been a proper consultation of all the interested parties affected, many of whom have been represented in their concerns being voiced today? I urge my noble friend and the Government to be prudent, drop any arbitrary deadline and seek to give a measured response where we can pay tribute to those who have expressed their concerns.

To the extent that we can still export and import, I have been contacted by those in the car sector who are concerned that we have only recently agreed type approval regulations. For chemicals, we have only recently agreed the UK REACH regime, and for the food and farming sector, animal health safety and welfare have featured largely this evening.

In conclusion, while my noble friend and I are on different sides of the argument regarding Brexit, throughout our careers we have held business dear to our hearts. Will he say which part of the Bill promotes business and will help to facilitate exports and imports?