Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Revocation and Sunset Disapplication) Regulations 2023

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, which has obviously had a lot of airtime in this House. I turn to some of the points raised. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made many contributions to the Act. The point about the devolved Administrations is well made, in particular in relation to the Scottish and Welsh consents that are required for this, both of which have now been received. The timing of this is that it has to be through these Houses by 31 October, with limited time to seek agreement with the devolved Governments, but these agreements have now been sought and given by the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government. This completes the suite of amendments in this parliamentary time, so this is going on the statute book. We will then go forward in the new Session of Parliament as the need arises, as and when reform is required and as and when revocation is required. As far as this process is concerned, the devolved Governments have been consulted properly.

In relation to some of the specifics, and there are a lot of specifics with 93 Bills being dealt with here, I take the very specific point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, on alcohol, as one point of many. With all these laws one can access the GOV.UK website where there is a line-by-line explainer for each one. This particular one is the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1979. It restricts the carrying on of certain other trades by a distiller or rectifier within three kilometres of a distillery or rectifying house. Prior to August 1992 that restriction was within two miles. This legislation is now inoperative as it amends provisions that were revoked in 1979.

It is an example of quite a lot of Acts that were on the statute book and have indeed been updated, not least the Companies Act, revoking previous Acts. This is literally a tidying-up exercise. It falls within the remit of REUL, and is one of the benefits of the wider process that we are going through.

I turn to the general principle on which the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, has requested further detail. It is clearly to do with the fact that this comes across all departments, and all departments are required to give their views. In fact, taking the 93 revocations, we already have 11 departments contributing to that. The Government have already reformed or revoked over 1,000 pieces of REUL. In addition to the list of 587 in the REUL Act, we have the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 and the Procurement Bill, which will repeal around 500. All told, this comes to more than 2,000 revocations and reforms already completed or under way, of the original estimate of 6,000—this work is well under way.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. He highlights an issue that was absolutely centre stage during the REUL Bill discussions: that this is a very complicated situation with a lot of pieces of legislation. It is very heavily dependent on individual departments spotting the right things and not forgetting things that should be retained or got rid of. The original dashboard is not much help in that, quite frankly; it should be the common hymn sheet that we are all singing from.

With that in mind, would it not be advisable in future, if further statutory instruments come forward, that there is more general consultation in advance of the statutory instrument being laid, because by that time it is too late? Apart from that, most people could not find the explainer; it was not terrifically visible—you had to work hard to get your hands on it. I just think it is too risky.

With this vast range of legislation—which has to be scrutinised and decisions made on whether it is “snog, marry, avoid”, as I typified it in the last debate—it would be better to have lots of eyes focusing on it in the form of a public consultation; it could be very brief, just to make sure that we do not drop any balls as this goes through. It is very nice for the Government to say that they have looked at all this and it is undoable, no longer required or obsolete, but, if we cannot have proper scrutiny, we have only their word for that.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her contribution. This is a complicated area—there is no question about it. The dashboard is continually updated and has just been updated again. There is, therefore, full transparency on this matter, but, as was referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, one can go through each one of these and their detail each time, and there is no question that it is a complicated process. However, we have embarked upon the process and it is under way, and I think the revision that we came to is sensible and pragmatic.

I point out that, at the end of the day, with these revisions, we are talking about the preservation of four out of 587. I would say that that is a pretty good result, looking back to see that the original assessment was correct. During the debate—and in particular regarding the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead—assurances were given that this process would be done in full consultation with the House. Within those protections, we now have a road map.

I turn to the final point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Leong, in relation to the overall process around the issue of leaving the EU. There were two points in particular. First, on the Northern Ireland Civil Service, we all regret the fact that there is no Executive in place at the moment, but, again, this is referring to only three situations. There is constant dialogue with the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and that is working well, so we can continue the process as is. However, we all hope that the Executive will come back into being as soon as possible.

Secondly, on the issue of divergence, there is no concept of divergence for its own sake. There is to be no diminution in our trading standards, our employment law standards or how we feel about the environment and so on within these rules, but we have the opportunity to modernise, revoke, get rid and tidy up, and that major process is going ahead. On the face of it, with the Brexit deal that we did, we have a free trade agreement with Europe and we continue to trade strongly with Europe. There is no diminution in our business ability effectively to trade with Europe, and I do not envisage that that will be the case. This is part of an ongoing process that will now run through in the normal course of business through each parliamentary Session, where government departments will, as a matter of the ordinary course of business, review these laws and regulations and, when required, they will come back to the House by means of the SI process.

With that, I believe I have addressed all the questions posed by noble Lords. I hope I can look forward to the House’s commendation of the regulations.