Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Jonathan Edwards

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I listened to the new Prime Minister’s speech this morning, in which he promised to fix “mistakes”, acknowledged that work was needed to “restore trust” in the Government, and said that his Government would be marked by “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. One problem with the Bill, however, is that it will hugely remove the Executive’s accountability to Parliament. That is one of the mistakes that need to be fixed by the new Prime Minister, because it was prompted by ideology and desperation to point to some so-called Brexit benefits, when the overwhelming body of opinion—from business to the trade unions—says that it is a mess that will lead to legal uncertainty and more chaos. The author of the Bill has gone; I think the Bill should go with him.

Let us make no bones about it. The departing Prime Minister has left an almighty mess behind her because she pursued an economic policy that the vast majority of people, including the incoming Prime Minister, advised her against. The vast majority of people are advising against the Bill, including the majority of parties in this House, business, the trade unions, legal experts, all sorts of third-sector bodies and the devolved Governments. My plea to the Prime Minister, given the promises that he made this morning, is not to make the same mistake with the Bill that his predecessor made with the economy.

There are so many problems with the Bill that it is hard to know where to start. Other hon. Members have outlined some of them, but there are seven that I want to raise.

The first problem is that the Bill represents a huge transfer of power from Parliament to the Executive. That is hardly taking back control. Taking back control was supposed to be about the people of the United Kingdom and this Parliament, not the Executive. The Bill will give Ministers incredible powers to legislate on areas that affect our everyday lives without any meaningful democratic input.

The second problem is that the Bill means that if Ministers want retained EU law to fall away, they need take no action at all. The decision to take no action is not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, meaning that very important rights and protections could be lost, including the right to equal pay as between men and women—a pivotal change in our society—as well as food safety standards, which other hon. Members have mentioned, and workers’ rights such as a certain amount of paid holiday per year and a 48-hour maximum working week for road hauliers. Those are not the sort of rights that should just fall away, perhaps even by accident.

The third problem, which I raised in my intervention early in the debate, is that far from creating new high standards in our regulatory frameworks, the replacement legislation cannot increase standards; it can only leave them as they are or lower them. That is what clause 15(5) says. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head, but in my opinion that is what it says, and many other legal experts think so. It is not a minor detail; it is a major problem with the Bill.

The fourth problem is that reducing standards or allowing key pieces of legislation simply to lapse could risk the UK’s trading relationship with the EU at a time when we can ill afford it. I know that it was several Prime Ministers ago, but will the Government please remember the trade and co-operation agreement and their obligations under it?

The fifth problem is the fact that the proposed speed and scale of these changes—as we have heard, the Government’s retained EU law dashboard includes more than 2,400 pieces of legislation in 300 policy areas across 21 sectors of the UK—are completely unrealistic, and will inevitably result in mistakes.

The sixth point concerns the problems that the Bill poses for the devolution settlement. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) went into those in some detail so, given the constraints of time, I will not go into them in the same detail myself. The fact of the matter is, however, that in its current form the Bill will allow UK Government Ministers to act in policy areas that are devolved, and to do so without the consent of the Scottish Ministers or our Parliament, because secondary legislation does not need consent. Primary legislation needs consent, but that rule is more honoured in the breach than the observance.

[Jonathan Edwards]

As usual, my hon. and learned Friend is making a forensic speech. She will be interested to learn that more than 10,000 people marched for independence in Cardiff recently. I never thought that that would happen in my lifetime, but it is happening because of Bills like this. The people of Wales are seeing the British Government supplanting the devolution settlement, and are concluding that they have a choice between direct Westminster control and independence. That is what is happening in Wales, and I am sure it is what is happening in Scotland.

[Joanna Cherry]

Indeed, and I am pleased to say that I spent the weekend in Cardiff. It was my first visit, and I found it to be a beautiful city. I was attending the FiLiA feminist conference. I will certainly go back to Cardiff, and I should quite like to join one of those independence marches some time. Whether one is a Unionist or a nationalist, the fact remains that the mess that the Bill will create will only cause problems between Westminster and Holyrood.

That brings me to my seventh point, which concerns Northern Ireland and the impact of the Bill on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland. The Government have not yet conducted a full and comprehensive assessment of retained EU law, and they have also failed to analyse which areas of retained EU law interact with or have an impact on the commitments made in article 2(1) of the protocol or, as I pointed out earlier, on the level playing field provisions of the trade and co-operation agreement. The removal of key frameworks for interpreting retained EU laws and settlement agreement legislation—including EU general principles, in clause 5, and retained EU case law, in clause 7—may have an impact on the “keeping pace” commitment associated with article 2(2). That is another area in which the Government need to go back to the drawing board.

As Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I can say that we will be scrutinising the Bill very carefully for its rights implications, and will table amendments. However, I must add that I think it is pretty much beyond amendment, and that, as I have said, the Government need to go back to the drawing board. I say to them, “Please do not pursue another dangerous ideological experiment at the cost of our constituents’ rights, and at the cost of their livelihoods.” The Bill will have a big impact on business and a big impact on workers’ rights. This is absolutely not about people, or this Parliament, taking back control; it is about executive fiat, and the sidelining of democratic scrutiny by this Parliament.

In his speech when he took office this morning, the Prime Minister said that he would put the country’s needs above politics. Well, the country does not need this, and, in fact, there is more than one country in our Union. The Government need to respect the wishes of Scotland’s voters, the wishes of Welsh voters and the wishes of Northern Ireland voters, as well as the devolved settlement.

My message to the Government is that the Bill is a mess. Yes, it is embarrassing to ditch Bills, but let us face it, the Government have had a lot of embarrassment recently and they are getting used to it. They have already ditched one Bill, the Bill of Rights; I believe it may be bouncing back soon as a result of the Cabinet reshuffle, but it is certainly possible to ditch a Bill at this stage. This Bill needs to be ditched, and the way in which we deal with retained EU law needs to be revisited completely.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Jonathan Edwards

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on securing the debate and on her hard work on this serious issue. I pay tribute to her constituent, who is sitting behind me. Along with many other MPs, I was privileged to visit him during his hunger strike.

The facts are stark. A British citizen has been detained for five and a half years on unsubstantiated allegations of spying. Successive Conservative Foreign Secretaries have failed to secure her freedom. No less than three distinguished former Foreign Secretaries have said that the debt to Iran should be paid so that Nazanin can come home.

I will keep my comments brief. There have been some good articles about the case in the newspapers over the weekend, particularly The Times and The Observer. I am grateful to them for informing the questions that I will ask of the Minister.

First, why is the Prime Minister still refusing to settle the acknowledged £400 million debt to Iran incurred before the ’79 revolution? Why has he let that unjustified failure to pay up bedevil the talks? Why are the Government saying that bank transfer restrictions arising from international sanctions prevent payment? Is that not untrue? Surely the Government can find legal ways around rules that they helped to create. As we have already heard, the United States settled a similar debt in return for the release of four American hostages.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

The hon. and learned Lady is presenting a forensic case in her usual style. Does she agree with the International Observatory of Human Rights that one way around that issue might be to use humanitarian aid?