Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my environmental interests that are in the register.

In my 25 years in your Lordships’ House, I do not think I have ever heard a Bill so roundly condemned from all quarters. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, who, although he supported Brexit, is clear, as was his committee, that the Bill itself is unsupportable.

Lots of other noble Lords have said that the Bill takes powers from Parliament and hands them to the Executive, that it is a super-framework Bill or that it is super-skeletal, but I have a simple term for it: it is a pig in a poke. We are buying something that we do not know what it is going to be when we vote it through.

It is basically a deregulatory measure. The Clause 15 measures have been paraphrased as, “Ministers can do anything provided it doesn’t increase regulatory burden”, which is defined as

“a financial cost; … an administrative inconvenience; … an obstacle to trade or innovation; … an obstacle to efficiency, productivity or profitability”.

That is pretty clear and no-bones. It is about deregulation, despite the fact that regulation is often most simple and efficient way of achieving environmental outcomes.

I shall focus on the environmental issues in the Bill. Of the 3,700 pieces of EU retained law—as is currently the case; we have seen the dashboard wobble about quite a bit regarding the number of pieces of legislation that is estimated, so I do not think 3,700 is the last word—1,781 are in Defra’s court, four times more than any other department. This is the department that has already been ticked off twice in the last four months by its new environmental regulator, the Office for Environmental Protection, for not meeting the targets and deadlines that Defra itself set. So I do not really have a lot of confidence that Defra is going to be able to cope with reaching decisions about four times more pieces of EU retained legislation than any other department.

I am a very sad human being and I have read the list of 1,781 pieces of Defra legislation. I would agree with the Minister, were he to say this, that some are indeed minor, some have lost their relevance as a result of us leaving the EU, and some of them are a bit tech-y. I am sure the Minister will agree with me on that. For example, I enjoyed reading the one on

“additional guarantees regarding salmonella for consignments to Finland and Sweden of laying hens”.

That looked like a showstopper to me. However, some pieces of retained EU legislation in that list are substantial, long-standing and deeply woven into the fabric of environmental protection in this country at national and local level, and are accepted by many people as vital, operational and well constructed.

I know that the habitats regulations are a bogeyman for deregulators, but the one thing that we have to remember is that they are effective because we invented them. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, talked about safeguarding British self-interest—although I disassociate myself from Mrs Thatcher in that. We showed British self-interest in negotiating and leading the EU into adopting a highly effective protection system for biodiversity of species and the habitats on which they depend. We were a mover and a shaker in the EU; this was not stuff that was done to us.

I thank the Minister for meeting us last week over the Bill. When pressed, he will tell us that alternatives to the habitats regulations have already been devised in the Environment Bill and, now, in the levelling-up Bill, but that has not been made clear while we have debated these Bills. Not once during the passage of the Environment Bill was it stated that its priorities were—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Will the noble Baroness conclude her remarks?

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I will finish in two seconds. Not once during the passage of the Environment Bill was it stated that its provisions were intended to replace the habitats regulations. This is no sort of process, where alternatives are inserted piecemeal rather than laid out to show how they match up to what is being done away with.

The Bill is cosmetically and disastrously aimed at getting rid of EU legislation before the next election at any cost.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Baroness has exceeded the speaking limit by some margin. It is time for the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I recommend that your Lordships’ House not amend the Bill but not pass it.