European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I speak as chair of the Constitution Committee and I say at the outset that this Bill elevates to a new level our concern about the way the Government present legislation to Parliament. The Bill fails all the tests for achieving good-quality legislation. It is long and complex and gives significant new powers to the Executive. We have not had anywhere near enough time to scrutinise the Bill as we would wish, and in any other circumstances the Constitution Committee would issue a detailed, thorough and critical appraisal of it. However, the committee did meet yesterday, and we published our immediate response. We acknowledged that the fast-tracking of the Bill is now necessary, but only because of the Government’s own actions ahead of the cliff edge of 31 December.

On the substance of the Bill, we noted that a prominent argument for the UK leaving the EU was to take back control of our laws—for laws to be determined by the UK Parliament, rather than the EU’s lawmaking bodies. Asserting the sovereignty of the UK Parliament was considered of such importance that it was included in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020. It is regrettable that the Bill, which determines how the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be implemented into UK law, was published less than 24 hours before parliamentary scrutiny was due to begin. This does not allow Parliament much by way of control. This is the core of our concern. If, as the Government say, powers are coming back from the EU, where do those powers go? Are the Executive taking all these to themselves? What does this mean for the relationship between Parliament and the Government? Can this House fulfil its constitutional responsibilities?

In the Explanatory Notes, the Government say:

“The Bill is not suitable for post legislative scrutiny”.


We very much disagree, because the content of the trade and co-operation agreement cannot be amended by Parliament, but the mechanisms used by the Bill to rewrite UK domestic law to implement this have significant and potentially long-lasting implications, particularly for the role of Parliament and for the devolved arrangements. The Constitution Committee therefore recommends that the House consider how best to conduct post-legislative scrutiny as soon as possible. We believe that the quality of such scrutiny will be an early and substantial test of whether or not Parliament possesses a significant tranche of returned powers. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, this is what increased parliamentary sovereignty requires.