Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell]

I thank my hon. Friend and applaud the briefing that the CEN gave Members earlier today. Ultimately, this is about making sure that we are the best place in the world to live. On meetings, I assure him that we will engage widely—including with Opposition Members—and deliver on those promises. We will use the powers in the Bill to ensure that our environmental law is functioning and able to drive improved environmental outcomes, with the UK continuing to be a world leader in environmental protection.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Minister said earlier that the Bill was proportionate, but that is exactly what it is not, particularly given the sunset clause that means that DEFRA will have to go through revising and amending more than one piece of law a day between now and the end of next year. It is not proportionate; it is indiscriminate. It is also ideologically driven. Does he agree that DEFRA staff have better things to be doing, given that they are already late on the river basins management programme and the 25-year environment plan, and that the idea that the Department has the staff and resources to do that is irresponsible?

[Dean Russell]

I totally disagree, but I thank the hon. Lady for the intervention. Let me remind her that the Conservatives were the green party before the Green party. We are the party of the environment and will continue to be so. We were the party that made sure that businesses will not be able to put sewage in our waters, despite many Opposition Members making out that we voted for sewage. We did not—we made absolutely made sure that we are protecting our waterways. We are protecting our green fields and our land from top to bottom.

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[Jonathan Reynolds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The retained EU law dashboard, although useful, is not and never has been a comprehensive list of all the retained law that this Bill affects—[Interruption.] Government Members say that they never said it was. It does not clearly distinguish where retained EU law has been devolved, much to the frustration of the Welsh and Scottish Governments. However, it still lists more than 2,400 sources of law. If the Government want to put a blanket sunset clause on all of this, should they not be able to list exactly what is covered?

The practical case that the Government have put forward for the sunset clause is that they cannot find the time to use primary legislation to amend these laws. Why not? The Government have a majority of 70, at least for the time being. Where the law needs to be changed, what is preventing the Government from doing so? The fear is that what they really want to do is to reduce key regulations entirely, which brings me to my next point—that the Bill poses a threat to core British rights and protections.

There is no question but that the scale of the Bill is large. The policy areas affected cover not only employment law, but environmental protection, consumer protection, agriculture, fisheries, transport, data protection and much, much more. That is why a huge variety of organisations, from the TUC to the RSPB, have signalled their alarm. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will raise their own worries about those issues during the debate.

The situation in relation to employment law is particularly alarming. Most of the UK’s core labour law protections are contained in regulations originally made under section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972, rather than in primary legislation. They are not cumbersome red tape; they are things that British workers expect, including the Working Time Regulations 1998, the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 and the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000. On all of them, the Government are saying, “Trust us.” Why should we?

This is a Government who have not kept their promise of an employment Bill to ensure workers’ rights post Brexit and who do not keep their manifesto promises at all. This is a Government in which we do not know who will be in each job from one week to the next—and I wrote that bit before the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) resigned as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy a few hours ago. I am afraid that we cannot in good conscience hand the Government powers to arbitrarily decide matters that are of fundamental importance to the lives of working people in this country, not least because we have no idea whether any Ministers will still be in position in 24 hours, let alone 12 months.

Under the terms of the Government’s trade and co-operation agreement, the UK must maintain a level playing field with the single market. Such provisions are important to the UK: they protect against a global race to the bottom in standards and protections. We can only guess how the Government will use these powers, but the powers in the Bill are clearly deregulatory in tone.

This goes to the heart of the Conservative party’s simplistic and inaccurate understanding of regulation. When I ask a business what attracts it to invest in the UK, good regulators are always on the list. Businesses simply do not want the fantasy deregulatory agenda that lives only in the mind of so many Tory MPs. After the events of the past month, in which the financial markets themselves rejected the Conservative party’s allegedly pro-market agenda, I would have hoped for a little more wisdom and insight from the Government, but unfortunately I doubt that that will be forthcoming.

Finally, there is the issue of how Parliament will go about changing the law in future. The Government have already been severely criticised for how little power they have returned to Parliament since we left the European Union, and the Bill continues that approach. The use of negative statutory instruments, so that MPs have to actively object to prevent something from becoming law, is very poor practice indeed. When it comes to future proposals, the use of a sunset clause to cover such a large and complex body of law effectively puts a gun to Parliament’s head. Anyone who wishes to scrutinise or object to any future legislation replacing retained law will be taking a gamble, because unless that legislation is passed in time, the current law in its entirety will simply fall away. That is not conducive to good laws being made.

The obvious question is “Why not proceed on a policy-by-policy basis or, if appropriate, a sector-by-sector basis?” As we have already discovered, the Financial Services and Markets Bill does exactly that. Why not bring forward positive replacement proposals where the law needs to change or where something can be done better?

The fact is that this Government are out of ideas. They are more intent on their own survival than on putting in place the positive changes that we need. At a time when the British people are crying out for stable, competent government by a Government who recognise that economic growth comes from working people and businesses and from stability and certainty, not from the fantasy economics of the Conservative party, the Bill is not just wide of the mark, but wantonly destructive.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Member is giving a powerful speech. On environmental regulation, does he agree that this could be a very good test of the credibility of the Office for Environmental Protection? If the Government really are assured that there is no environmental risk, they should have no worries at all about referring the Bill to it. The OEP is already deeply worried about the workload in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and about the number of pieces of legislation that should be coming forward but are not.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The hon. Member makes a very good point. Unfortunately, we know that the Government do not like independent assessment of their choices. They believe that they can simultaneously deliver the promises made on net zero and bring back fracking. Some independent verification would be very welcome indeed.

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[Rebecca Pow]

I am obviously not party to all these things, but I believe the COP26 President is just not attending Cabinet but is keeping his position, and rightly so.

I was touching on our environmental record, and I know that the Minister for Climate certainly understands the need to uphold this record. We are a global leader on this, which is very appropriate with COP27 coming up. We cannot be seen to be backtracking on things on which we are actually considered to be a global leader. That is why we need to show that we can uphold our environmental protections, while also being able to grow the economy, as is necessary in what are very challenging times. In my view, there should not be any kind of conflict between having a fully functioning ecosystem and a growing economy, with secure food supplies and, indeed, increasing food production. It is quite possible to make it all work.

We have set a legally binding target to halt the decline of species abundance—basically nature—by 2030 and to start to bend that curve, but I would be the first person to say, and perhaps the right hon. Member for Leeds Central might agree, that while we have had environmental protections, they have not actually done a great job in protecting our nature. We have had a massive nature crash in this country, and that is what we have to sort out. We need to look at some of our system of protection and make it work better. We do not need to undermine what we are doing; we need it to function better for the UK.

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

I will press on because I think I will be under pressure—I will perhaps give way in a minute.

We have set a whole framework, and we need our protections to help that work to restore our nature. We must get those protections and the regulations enforcing them right. The Environment Act 2021 creates that framework, requiring Ministers to set long-term targets for environmental improvements, to set out policies to meet them, and to report annually on the delivery of those targets that relate to waste, air, nature, water and biodiversity. By the end of this week, on 31 October, the Government should be reporting back on the targets. Those have been widely consulted on, and I urge the new DEFRA team to publish them. They will be an important indication that we mean business on restoring nature, and business on our biodiversity net gain measures, which all developers know are coming down the tracks.

I mention that because it highlights the huge amount of work that DEFRA already has on its plate to tackle these things, and having to do a major review of hundreds of pieces of EU-derived legislation could put it under a great deal more strain. There are something like 572 laws relating to the DEFRA portfolio, whether that is sewage pollution, waste, water, air or pesticides. I know it is a good Department with some great officials, but fifteen months is a pretty short time to wade through that legislation. There is scope in the Bill to extend that sunset clause to 2026 if necessary, and I urge that door to be kept open, and for us to be realistic about this. If the right position has not been found by 2023—some of these things are pretty complicated—and if more engagement would be appropriate, I ask Ministers seriously to consider extending that sunset clause. No one is saying, “Don’t look at the regulations,” but we need that door to be open.

On the habitats directive, I urge Ministers to look at the nature recovery Green Paper that DEFRA undertook while I had the honour of being environment Minister. A whole team was considering proposals to streamline and consolidate site designations, to provide more certainty and predictability for developers—they had input into that—planners, and consultants. A whole range of people were asked to come up with some thoughts on getting a more strategic approach for tackling pressures on our protected sites. We have already done that for the infamous great crested newt, which is often cited as a reason for holding up planning applications. There is now a good plan for working strategically with our newts, with mitigations and compensations and so on, and it is working well. I urge the DEFRA team to look at the proposals in the Green Paper, as they are a basis for reform without weakening environmental protections. May we also have clarity on the Emerald network of areas of special conservation interest?

Finally, businesses need certainty and clarity, which is why we must ensure that they know there is a level playing field that will ensure high environmental standards. Our manifesto committed us to delivering the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth. The Minister mentioned that earlier, and it is something we should be proud of not just here but on the global stage. It is what we need to deliver for future generations. Let us give ourselves time for the assessment process. Do not rush the changes. We cannot grow our economy by weakening our environmental protections, but we can make a bespoke system that is better for us all.

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a positive delight to follow the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), and it was refreshing to hear that strong defence of his position—to say that we will make Brexit work is frankly ludicrous for all the reasons he set out.

In the midst of a climate emergency, a nature crisis and a cost of living scandal, this reckless Government are introducing a Bill that is not only a bureaucratic nightmare, sucking away limited time from civil servants who should be able to address the critical issues that the country faces, but is purely ideological and can set alight vital environmental, worker and consumer standards in a bonfire of regulations.

All of this is happening because the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), was so obsessed with purging our statute book of the European Union, but that is legislation that UK MEPs will have scrutinised, amended or supported. I know that because I was a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years. I can tell the Government that UK MEPs will have had a big part in shaping that legislation. After listening to two of the Government Members who spoke, I am not sure where they have been over the past 20 or 30 years, but it is almost as though they do not know that we had UK Members of the European Parliament. It is almost as though they did not know that environmental legislation, for example, was made through co-decisions, so we had a real say, or that the UK was a leader in some of this stuff and that we had a big role to play in the Council of Ministers, too.

All of that is now being thrown out. REACH, for example, controls or restricts the use of hazardous chemicals and ensures that manufacturers and importers not only understand, but manage the risks associated with their use. Although those regulations are directed at businesses, they are crucial for protecting human and environmental health while also setting rules on, for example, animal testing. What is more, REACH has already been amended through secondary legislation to make it operable in a domestic context. It has already received huge input from the UK through its MEPs and the Council of Ministers. The Bill fails to recognise the importance of that regulation. The Government are prepared to see it fall. That threatens public health, diverges from the EU system of approval and could lead to yet more, for example, animal testing in proving the safety of chemical products for export. This is bad law-making.

The former Secretary of State said in his ministerial statement on the Bill that it would

“fully realise the opportunities of Brexit”.

If he were here, I would ask him, in all seriousness, to tell me for whom those opportunities would be, because all I can see from where I am standing is the opportunity for Ministers to unilaterally strike out legislation that offends their sensibilities—potentially taking us back decades—without giving any indication of which laws will stay and which will go, underlining all the uncertainty for business, which others have mentioned. Simply being derived from the EU does not make laws bad, so this is irresponsible lawmaking of the highest order.

First, as other hon. Members have said, the sunset clause at the start of the Bill will automatically revoke legislation on 31 December next year if it is not already explicitly being retained, replaced or amended. That will create a totally unnecessary cliff edge and could lead to significant gaps in our legislative framework if laws fail. In other words, it is legislative vandalism. I assume that the Government do not actually intend a legal vacuum come January 2024, although who knows? However, that is what will happen as a result of this clearly unreasonable timeline, as many of the Government’s own Members have emphasised. It is simply not a sensible approach to mobilising Departments to act.

Furthermore, although the Bill sets out that there can be a later deadline of 2026 for some laws, neither the threshold nor the process for arriving at that point has been outlined. It is not clear, for example, whether it will be a decision for Secretaries of State to make for themselves. Worse still, the power appears not to be available to the devolved Administrations.

Secondly, clause 15 will allow Ministers to revoke or replace legislation with similar or alternative provisions that they consider “appropriate”. These are far-reaching provisions that have been described as conferring a “do whatever you like” power on Ministers. The Bill will fundamentally undermine parliamentary scrutiny because its role in revoking secondary legislation will essentially become discretionary. As hon. Members have eloquently said, if the Government choose to do nothing, the legislation will simply drop off the statute book.

Thirdly, there are wide-ranging impacts of the Bill that we simply do not yet understand because the Government have utterly failed to produce an impact assessment on the environment, on workers’ rights, on businesses or indeed on devolved competences.

Fourthly, as I have said, the Bill will come at a huge cost to the Treasury and create a massive burden for Departments at a time when they are already under enormous strain to provide basic services and are being warned by the Chancellor that they will have to make so-called efficiency savings when we know that there is nothing left to cut.

In that context, it is hard to imagine how the Secretary of State can possibly think that launching this deeply complex and totally unnecessary programme makes any sense at all. As other hon. Members have said, the Government’s retained EU law dashboard contains more than 2,400 pieces of law across 300 distinct policy areas and 21 sectors of the economy. This is an enormous piece of work that will take a herculean effort to deliver. The Government seem to be relying on a “trust us” mantra, but giving huge powers to Ministers on a “trust us” basis is a bad way to legislate.

The Bill will entrench the Government’s move towards deregulation. Although Ministers can replace laws with alternative provisions, the Bill states explicitly that they cannot increase what it calls “the regulatory burden”. I simply point out that one person’s regulatory burden is someone else’s protection of human and environmental rights. “Burden” is defined as including

“a financial cost…an administrative inconvenience…an obstacle to trade or innovation…an obstacle to efficiency”

and so on. An administrative inconvenience? I mean, come on! The protection of people, our environment, animal rights and human health has to be more important than something that the Government themselves define simply as an administrative inconvenience.

I was reflecting, as one does, on the 2019 Conservative manifesto, which included a clear commitment to “maintain high standards”. Hon. Members have repeatedly reassured us in this place that the Government will not weaken those standards post Brexit. Our concerns have been dismissed, brushed aside and ridiculed, yet the famous clause 15 absolutely makes the thrust of the Bill clear. Eroding regulations, or at least not increasing them, is built into it because they are not allowed to be strengthened, for all the reasons I have set out.

These are laws that have a very real impact on the lives of our constituents, ensuring that they are safe at work, that they are not subject to discrimination, and that they are able to spend time with their children—time that we know is fleeting and precious. The former Secretary of State has often made known his disdain for workers’ rights, but I think he has failed to understand the meaning of rights in the sense that they are universal and for everyone to enjoy, whatever their job is. It is not, as he has said, about some rights for some people but not for others.

The Bill constitutes the most significant threat to environmental law in recent history. As I have said time and again in this place, nature is at crisis point. The latest “Living Planet Report”, published just a few weeks ago, reveals that wildlife populations have plummeted by almost 70% globally in the past 50 years, a decline so severe that the World Wildlife Foundation warns that it

“puts every species at risk, including us.”

In the UK, we have lost almost half of our biodiversity since the industrial revolution—more than any other G7 country. That horrifying decline is blamed on our kick-starting intensive agriculture and industrialisation, or what Professor Andy Purvis describes as

“the mechanised destruction of nature in order to convert it into goods for profit.”

Hundreds of species are at risk of disappearing from our shores altogether. It is essential that we change that picture as a matter of urgency and restore our natural world, on which all life depends, but the Bill is going in the opposite direction.

I want to say a few final words about animal welfare, because it has not been mentioned much today. I am deeply concerned about the status of our major animal welfare laws, 80% of which are EU-derived and which the UK played a leading role in negotiating. These laws include bans on rearing hens in battery cages, the use of hormones in cattle and the import of products made from dog and cat fur, as well as covering the hunting and trapping of wildlife. Those are all deeply emotive issues about which we know our constituents feel hugely strongly.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I am glad that the hon. Lady is raising the issue of animal welfare, which is extremely important. I hope that the Minister, when he sums up the debate, will assure us that the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will return to the House, and that some of the other Brexit commitments that were given—for instance, that we would ban the export of live animals for slaughter and fattening—will indeed be realised.

[Caroline Lucas]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope very much that the Minister will give us that guarantee.

The Environment Secretary reportedly told the Conservative party conference that his Department would become an “economic growth” Department. That, I think, is a ludicrous statement, because it fails to understand that the economy is reliant on and embedded within nature, not external to it. Indeed, as the Treasury-commissioned Dasgupta review makes clear,

“Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature.”

In the light of that, I urge the Government not only to drop this dangerous Bill, which prioritises deregulation and reducing administration for businesses above our environment, but to drop their entire attack on nature. What we need right now is positive action. The leaders’ pledge for nature needs to be honoured, and the COP26 presidency needs to go forward into COP27 with positive measures, not the kind of aggressive policy that is summed up in this Bill.