Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Hywel Williams Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

As we have heard, the Bill threatens environmental, health and industrial protections by casting an enormous shadow of uncertainty. During an economic crisis caused by the current period of Tory turmoil, the Government claim that they seek to promote growth, but the Bill would cause major disruption for businesses and, as the Chair of the Justice Committee said, put even more pressure on an overstretched legal system in settling uncertainties in the law.

There is also a huge cost to people and business, and I will concentrate on the tremendous pressure on the chemical industry, such as the one on Teesside, in complying with Government demands for UK regulations as perfectly workable EU ones are ditched. I am told that implementing the British REACH regulations, which has been demanded by the Government, will not now cost the industry £1 billion because, according to the Chemical Industries Association, the final bill is expected to be several times greater. Given that there is no clarification from Ministers about which laws and regulations they intend to retain, amend, or allow to expire, industries are left in a state of precariousness. Will EU regulations be retained, will they be amended, or will they just be ditched?

An incoming black hole left from the ditching of EU-derived legislation is increasing anxieties for businesses, including those in the chemicals industry. Many Members will know of the REACH—registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—regulations, which regulate the majority of chemical substances that are manufactured in, or imported to, the country. They are vital for improving the protection of human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals, and for facilitating trade in chemicals across borders. Businesses that make chemical products and solutions are integral to some 96% of all manufactured goods and key ingredients, including for food and life-saving medicines, as well as material for mobile phones and electric vehicle batteries. The industry is calling for an alignment with EU REACH regulations that does not duplicate the efforts and costs already incurred by British businesses. Indeed, it would be unthinkable to do anything that reverses steps towards a better environment.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

No, I will leave it, thanks.

Rather than scrapping any chemicals regulation, the industry wants to ensure that the system for managing chemicals is both risk and science-based to ensure a high level of protection for our environment and society. Furthermore, the Bill places at risk the UK’s fulfilment of legal obligations outlined by the trade and co-operation agreement. Should there be a breach of that agreement, the EU could seek to impose tariffs on UK goods, increasing the impact on consumers during a cost of living crisis. The Bill in no way delivers the frictionless trade and consistency that the industry desperately needs. Instead, it creates barriers to trade and is loading billions of pounds in extra costs on an industry that is already under pressure due to the energy crisis.

I also fear the Bill’s impact on investment. It saddens me to say this, but why on earth would a multinational company opt to invest in Britain where business life is so much more complicated and expensive when it could be on the continent of Europe where such impediments do not exist? That is not what people on Teesside who voted in large numbers to leave the EU wanted or expected. I seek assurance from the Minister that he will think again about ditching and minimise any deviation from the EU REACH regulations to protect our chemical and other industries.

The Bill also poses a significant threat to workers’ rights, as the TUC made clear. EU-derived law—we have heard this several times—currently delivers: holiday pay; agency worker rights; data protection rights; protection of terms and conditions for outsourced workers; protection of pregnant workers; rights to maternity and parental leave; and rights relating to working time. In many areas, it is unclear what will happen to the protections that workers currently rely on as a basic necessity.

The legal system could very much do without untold chaos. Where EU-derived legislation is restated by Parliament, previous judgments relating to those instruments will no longer be binding. Issues will have to go through the judicial system yet again. The result will be workers and employers spending more time in court to establish what the law now means.

It is worth reporting that, at the weekend, Sir Jonathan Jones KC, the former head of the Government Legal Department, said:

“I think it is absolutely ideological and symbolic rather than about real policy”.

That is shown particularly by the failure of Ministers to provide answers on which areas will be affected.

The Bill also undermines the sovereignty of Parliament, removing the necessary opportunity for scrutiny and giving unwarranted powers to Ministers to revoke, modify or replace laws through secondary legislation. When people voted to leave the EU and take back control, they did not expect to be handing that control to a small bunch of Tory Ministers to do what they liked. We cannot allow Ministers to commandeer the parliamentary process for untold control, enabling them to change vast swathes of our law. Businesses, environmental groups, legal experts and unions are united on the desire to avoid the complications that the Bill will create.

The fundamental flaw on which the Bill rests is that well-established laws currently offering crucial protections on workers’ rights, businesses and the environment can essentially disappear. The former Business Secretary would have all forms of rights and regulations axed, but his days are over. It is important that the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) takes the opportunity to review this madness before it causes unbounded chaos and focuses instead on tackling the real problems that our country faces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The chaos recently visited on our constituents is yet another episode in the Conservative party’s extended Brexit fugue state. Many Conservative Members saw the last Prime Minister’s accession to Downing Street as an intoxicating chance to shrink the state, to deregulate, and to cut taxes for the very rich. We now know how that ended, when their cravings collided with reality. This bad Bill is a morning-after hangover.

Equally delusional was the idea, peddled hard, that the UK could risk trashing trade with our nearest neighbours while also growing the economy. Brexit is the driving force behind a 5.2% fall in GDP, a 13.7% fall in investment and a drop of 16% in UK-EU trade from what was projected—to which the Bill adds uncertainty and its disincentive effects. One might have thought that that would provoke a change of policy, and from both large parties, given that some on this side of the House dream of making the Tories’ hard Brexit work. Were they ever to find themselves in office, however, they too could not evade the contradictions that are implicit between Brexit and wider economic and social aims.

Another Brexit claim that is crumbling on meeting reality is the claim that leaving the EU was about giving power back to the people. This Bill will transfer large legislative powers from Parliament to Ministers. Earlier, the Minister claimed that the Government’s aim was to co-operate with devolved Governments, but the Bill is yet another assault on our Senedd’s powers, and the powers of the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. It gives UK Ministers powers to revoke, replace or update secondary retained EU law in devolved areas, subject only to the negative procedure in the House, and in many instances the test for use of these powers will simply be whether a Minister considers it appropriate. Indeed, as was said earlier, the Wales Counsel General has already warned that the Bill would give UK Ministers

“unfettered authority to legislate in devolved areas”,

and inevitably lead to lower standards.

The UK Government have refused a Welsh request for the dashboard of retained EU laws to be updated to identify which legislation is reserved and which is devolved, and how Welsh legislation might be affected. That was a practical suggestion. I recall the pre-devolution days and the structural confusion when every LAC—local authority circular—from Westminster was a WOC, or Wales Office circular, but every WOC was not a LAC. The Government are insisting on further trouble, further chaos and further uncertainty with this Bill. Will the Minister tell us whether that refusal to update the dash- board will be revisited?

Further, that approach undermines the principle that the UK Government should not legislate in devolved areas without the Welsh Government’s consent. In this regard, I draw the House’s attention to an important Bill tabled in the other place by my colleague, Lord Wigley: the Government of Wales (Devolved Powers) Bill. That Bill would enshrine in law the principle that powers devolved to the Senedd should not be amended or withdrawn without a super-majority vote of Senedd Members. Unfortunately, such protections are desperately needed in the face of a Westminster Government who are openly hostile to devolution. In contrast to the Bill before us, protecting the devolution settlement it is not about posturing; it is about powers for a purpose.

This Bill risks creating a regulatory ceiling that would prevent the Welsh Government from strengthening our rights as citizens, as consumers and as workers. Indeed, it only allows for the status quo or a diminishing of those rights. We are at risk of losing hard-won health and safety rights and employment rights derived from, or reinforced by, EU law. Westminster could abandon or modify laws that are crucial to conserving and restoring the natural environment, protections relating to the safety and standards of baby foods, protections for pregnant workers and rights relating to working time, including rights to a maximum weekly working time and paid annual leave. There is much more, and all this is the Government’s Brexit spree. If they are so confident that the Bill is wanted by the people of Wales, why don’t they just call a general election?