Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]

Debate between John Hayes and Jim Allister

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister]

Absolutely. If the Government are not—as many of us suspect—following a deliberate approach of circumventing debate in this House on key realignment issues, and is seeking rather to channel it through statutory instruments, then call our bluff, change this Bill in that regard. But this idea of skeleton legislation, which sets up the powers that have been taken from Parliament and given to the Executive, is something which, historically, this party of Government have railed against.

Indeed, within a week of Second Reading in the other place, the Attorney General gave the Bingham lecture. He said:

“excessive reliance on delegated powers, Henry VIII clauses, or skeleton legislation, upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law values…but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty. In my view, the new Government offers an opportunity for a reset in the way that Government thinks about these issues. This means, in particular, a much sharper focus on whether taking delegated powers is justified in a given case, and more careful consideration of appropriate safeguards.”

That was the Attorney General. Where did that go to?

[Sir John Hayes]

I am interested in the Attorney General’s view, and we should take it seriously. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman recognise that primary legislation in this place metamorphosises in its passage through scrutiny? I have been involved in many Bills, as shadow Minister, Minister and Back Bencher, and that is precisely what happens. Ministers listen to argument, and as Bills return to the House, they reflect that argument both from here and in the Lords. Secondary legislation does not go through that process. That is why it is so important that the Bills we pass here do not contain the kind of permissive powers that facilitate so much secondary legislation.

[Jim Allister]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right. If one wanted to realign the United Kingdom with the EU, the easiest passage would be by statutory instruments. That is why that is the chosen mechanism here.

I have one final point. This Parliament traditionally and properly makes the law on criminal offences. We set the tariffs. Sometimes we say what the minimum penalty for a criminal offence is, but we always say what the maximum penalty is. We say what the content is of the criminal offence—what are the actus reus and the mens rea. But amazingly under clauses 3(9) and 3(11) and clauses 6(9) and 6(11) of the Bill we are going to make criminal offences by statutory instrument. Surely we have lost the run of ourselves if we think it is appropriate to make criminal offences in that essentially uncontrolled manner. It deprives this House, and therefore those we represent, of the very careful scrutiny that should always go into making something a crime. That is but another of the fundamental flaws of this undeserving Bill.

UK-US Bilateral Relationship

Debate between John Hayes and Jim Allister

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I want to use this debate to try to get an answer to a question that I asked in PMQs a few weeks ago, and to which I did not get an answer. How does the United Kingdom Government hope to obtain a trade deal for the United Kingdom so long as the customs laws, the trade laws and many of the economic laws of a part of this United Kingdom are made not in the United Kingdom by Parliament but by the EU? How, without the unity of a common customs base, a common trade base and common standards affecting the goods that can be imported and exported from our country, do we obtain a trade deal with a third country such as the United States?

If President Trump proceeds with his threatened tariffs on the EU, does that mean they will apply to Northern Ireland because we are subject to the EU’s wretched trade laws and tariffs and everything else that goes with it? When and how will the United Kingdom put ourselves in a position where we can obtain a trade deal applicable to all the United Kingdom so long as it persists with the partitioning protocol agreement that divides the United Kingdom and leaves part of it under the control of a foreign power? Or are this Government interested only in a trade deal that would benefit Great Britain? Have they abandoned any interest in a trade deal for the whole United Kingdom? I would like an answer to that question, and I would like the Minister to explain how it is even possible, legally, to obtain a trade deal for the whole United Kingdom so long as this Government do not control the trade laws of the whole United Kingdom.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I am very grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members for their brevity. I am determined to ensure that those who want to speak get the opportunity to do so. Thank you for your co-operation this afternoon. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.