European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Gary Streeter and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on some nice blue-sky thinking about what could come in the future, but I do not see how that is mutually exclusive to the new clauses that we are debating. They relate to values that the UK has signed up to through, among other things, the Rio principles and the Aarhus convention that are currently underpinned in EU law to ensure that they are binding in British law. Leaving the EU would mean that there is no underpinning for our courts to rely on them. The new clauses would allow the courts to use them and rely on them in other judgments. If the right hon. Gentleman’s blue-sky thinking comes forward, it could happen then as well.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Gary Streeter)]

Order. I know that we are in Committee, but interventions must be brief.