Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Anderson of Ipswich Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, having spent too much of my working life in the innards of EU law, I am as conscious as anyone of its inadequacies, particularly for a country that is no longer able to shape the content and development of that law, as I think we once did rather successfully through our participation in its Commission—where I had the honour to work for Lord Cockfield—its Council of Ministers, its Parliament and its courts. So, it is right that we should engage forward gear, address the issue of supremacy and review the EU laws retained in our system, weighing in each case the advantages of continued alignment against the opportunities for striking out on our own.

Need this take what the Minister described as “decades of parliamentary time”? Not if we follow the model that literally stared us in the face for the first three hours of this debate: the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which students of the annunciator will know was being debated in Grand Committee. Hundreds of items of retained EU law, identified after a painstaking review, are listed in that Bill for revocation—a list which is, of course, amendable by Parliament. Powers are provided for new rules to be made, after consultation and engagement with parliamentary committees. That is a process which could and should be adapted to other fields in which the view is taken that it is time to move on. Yet this Bill takes another course: it asks us to sign away both the authority of Parliament and what remains of this country’s reputation for considered and responsible lawmaking.

What is to be done? Like the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I offer a few ideas to start us off. First, on revocation, if the sunset clause cannot be moved, the Commons should at least have a veto over decisions to revoke, as provided by the cross-party Creasy-Davis amendment in the other place. This would place a guard-rail on the edge of the cliff.

Secondly, replacement: the astonishing Clause 15 should be removed, as recommended by our Delegated Powers Committee. If it must remain, as our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has said, we must contemplate what it described in carefully chosen words as

“a procedure by which the Houses can modify an instrument.”

Clause 16, its powers not time-limited like the others, also needs attention.

Thirdly, there should be a guarantee that powers in the Bill will not be used in a way that contravenes the Northern Ireland protocol or the level playing field provisions in the trade and co-operation agreement.

We should also address a point not much touched on today: the legal certainty issues in Clauses 4 to 7 noted by the Bar Council—commendably on its part, since we barristers thrive on uncertainty and, unamended, the Bill will provide rich pickings indeed.

Last May, in the debate on the gracious Speech, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, asked,

“what is the point of us being here if, when we identify a serious constitutional problem, we never do anything about it except talk?”—[Official Report, 12/5/22; col. 130.]

He was right. The Bill is an attack on the constitutional role of Parliament, a view expressed eloquently across this House from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom. The analogy of powers under the European Communities Act 1972 is a false one, as the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, explained with authority, and even if it were otherwise, two wrongs would not make a right. The powers of this House are modest, and properly so, but if the views so firmly expressed today are not heeded by government, we will be justified in using every one of them.