European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Consequential Modifications and Repeals and Revocations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his very careful introduction to the background of the regulations. I should make clear that I have no criticism of the detail of the regulations themselves; I fully understand the reason for them and the explanation he has given has reassured me on all those points.

I have, however, two points on the provisions relating to Scotland. I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, here, because she will recall our discussions relating to what is now Section 8 of the Act, when I argued that consent of the Scottish Parliament should be required in the exercise of powers relating to Scotland in any way. As I recall it, she gave me an assurance that the Scottish Government would be consulted on any such amendments and, in the end, I was content with that. It is not in the legislation itself but, rather like the Sewel convention, it is part of the background to the exercise of the power to make regulations under the Act.

My first question is short and technical and relates to the provision in Part 1 of the schedule to which the Minister referred—the reference to the Scotland Act 1998 and the repeal of paragraph 28 of Schedule 8. The reason I refer to it is that it is laid down in Section 8(7) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 that regulations under Section 8 may not do various things, among which is to,

“amend or repeal the Scotland Act”.

What is happening here is an amendment to the Scotland Act. That provision is qualified by stating that it does not apply if,

“the regulations are made by virtue of paragraph 21(b) of Schedule 7 to this Act”.

I notice that in the preamble to the regulations, reference is made to that paragraph.

My point is very short. I seek confirmation from the Minister that what we see in Part 1 of the schedule is an exercise of the power under paragraph 21(b) of the schedule and not under Section 8, because if it is under Section 8 standing alone, it would seem to be contrary to the prohibition in subsection (7). I think that is a relatively straightforward point, and I do not imagine that it will cause the Minister any concern.

The second point relates to Part 3 of these regulations which, as the noble Lord has pointed out, amends the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. At first sight, it seems very odd that a UK Minister should be amending an Act of the Scottish Parliament; this very important Act was drafted with great care in Edinburgh. There is no doubt whatever that power to do this was given to Scottish Ministers under Schedule 2 of the withdrawal Act, because this is a devolved matter and there is no inhibition on their powers to deal with devolved legislation as they think fit. It seems that the Scottish Parliament is the natural place to make these amendments. One can understand that the position in Northern Ireland is different, because the Assembly is not sitting; it is obviously necessary to make provision by legislative means and this would seem the appropriate way to do it.

That is really a preamble to what we find set out in paragraph 10.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which says:

“We have consulted the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Irish Civil Service”.


It is the next sentence which troubles me. It says:

“In particular, we have consulted them on the amendments to the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 and the ILRA 2010; these amendments are made in Part 3 and 4 respectively of the instrument”.


That sentence is wrong, because the amendment in Part 3 is nothing to do with the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 or the IRLA 201; it is an amendment to the interpretation Act made by the Scottish Parliament. Therefore, that sentence does not make sense. The last sentence deals with something different: consultation relating to the technical and consequential repeals to the Scotland Act, which is what we saw in Part 1 of Schedule 2. My question really is this: what is the position in relation to the amendment of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 which we find in Part 3?

Following our long debates on the whole structure of the withdrawal Act, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will understand my concern that the Scottish Parliament should be properly consulted on matters of this kind. I have to say that paragraph 10.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum does not make it clear. The second sentence is plainly incorrect and there is a gap, because it does not mention that Part 3 is an amendment of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. I ask the Minister for clarification as to what exactly is going on here and whether the consultation, which is fundamental to the exercise of the powers in relation to Scotland, has been properly carried out.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, unlike the distinguished noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, I am not a lawyer and am unable to go into the detail that he has. I look forward to hearing the answers to his excellent questions. However, I have three simple questions that I would like to address to the Minister.

The first question is about impact. When this instrument was referred to us for debate, making it an affirmative instrument, the ESIC commented on the cumulative impact, saying that this meant that it should be debated here. As a consequence, we are all here today. There is no impact assessment and there is a statement from the Government saying that there is no need for one. Given the scale of the changes and the consequential effects, it seems that there could well be more than £5 million-worth of work for all the professional services and from companies in all four countries of the UK. I would be interested to hear more on that.

I also make the comment that, after EU exit, it will be much more difficult to find out what is going on in the EU, which is a problem when we are continuing to take European Union changes on board. We cannot even send representatives to the Committee of the Regions any longer, let alone the Council.

How will we keep business and citizens informed of what is going on in the EU? This is an issue which I hope the EU Select Committee, which I serve on, will look at as part of its report on the future bilateral institutional arrangements with the EU 27. This troubles me a bit because I am looking forward to post Brexit and how we will work alongside our friends in the EU 27, allow our citizens to continue to visit them, and our businesses to continue to operate.

My second question is a simple one. There has been no consultation except with the devolved Administrations. How do we know that the quite extensive changes that are being made in this Order are safe?

Finally, as my noble friend knows, I strongly support the Government’s approach to providing a new legal base for the post-Brexit world and for doing that in the orderly way he is pursuing. However, I would be interested in an update on the gaps that there may be on Brexit day, particularly in the not very likely event of no deal. It seems that this Order helps to deal with some of the gaps, but I would be interested to know how many more there may be that we should be worrying about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

I am not sure that I accept my noble friend’s statement that there was an omission. However, as this is quite a technical matter, perhaps it would be better if we went away and looked at it in detail, and I will write to her about it.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe asked me about the total figures for statutory instruments so far. The laying of SIs allows Parliament to fulfil its essential scrutiny role and to go through the various steps required. We remain confident that the necessary legislation to fulfil a functioning statute book will be passed by exit day. The current totals are as follows. More than 470 EU exit SIs have been laid to date. They account for over 75% of the SIs that we anticipate will be required by exit day, and over 260 of them have now gone through the various processes and have been made. Good progress has been made and we remain confident that the required SIs will be laid in time for exit day. I think that I have dealt with all the queries that were raised.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I am very grateful for the helpful reply that my noble friend gave on the subject of the Joint Committee and the institutional arrangements. It is good news that thought is being given to how to make these work well after exit day. Perhaps, at leisure, he could look at the questions that I asked about consultation and impact assessments. I do not think that he quite replied to them and it would be helpful to know where the Government stand.

[Lord Callanan]

I shall of course be very happy to do that. I know that my noble friend, quite rightly, takes a close interest in these matters, so I shall be very happy to look at that further and to write to her about it.