Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Bellamy Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group. I will start with some general comments and observations on Clause 7 and thereby deal also with Amendment 99A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, which would remove Clause 7 altogether.

In short, Clause 7 gives higher UK courts greater flexibility to depart from retained EU case law than is currently the case. I emphasise first that we are talking about appeal decisions. First-instance courts continue to be bound and that is an important part of any answer to the points raised about legal certainty. Currently, the Supreme Court or the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, and other higher courts, must apply the same tests that they would apply if departing from their own previous case law.

Clause 7 lowers the bar somewhat. It provides that, in deciding whether to depart, the court must have regard to, among other things, the principle that decisions of a foreign court are not, generally speaking, binding in UK courts; any change of circumstances relevant; and the extent to which retained EU case law restricts the proper development of domestic law. I will come to the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and to the questions of change of circumstances and the word “proper”, in a moment.

That is a lower bar than is currently the case. It does not necessarily imply a cliff edge or any floodgates; it is looking ahead. We do not know what circumstances will arise as the next 20 or 30 years pass, how things will change and whether existing retained EU case law should be followed. The clause essentially says that it is for the higher UK courts to determine how that case law should develop and that it is not the case that previous EU case law can be changed only if the ECJ says yes. Without such a mechanism it is difficult to credibly say that one has withdrawn from the EU, so, in the Government’s view, some such mechanism is needed.

That is the first and general point. The second is that much, but not all, retained EU law is highly influenced by a context that is no longer relevant to the UK: for example, the need to promote among the 27—previously 28—member states the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and to protect the single market. All of that is reflected in the case law. There is also the common agricultural policy; the quite different institutional structures of the EU, notably the role of the Commission; the, if I may say so, laconic nature of much EU legislation; and the inevitable challenge of finding a common denominator among so many different legal traditions, languages and national backgrounds while, internally, working entirely in French.

One can pay the highest tribute to the way that the CJEU has navigated these difficulties over the years, and I readily do. But it does not follow that case law developed in those circumstances is necessarily suitable for the UK in the future, particularly in a fast-changing world with such things as the digital economy, artificial intelligence, climate change, genetic science, data protection and so forth. These present novel challenges all the time. In the Government’s view, the UK’s higher courts should be fully equipped to deal with them without being constrained by EU jurisprudence if they feel that they should depart therefrom.

Thirdly, if your Lordships will forgive me saying so, we have in this country a pearl beyond price: the common law. It has nurtured and protected us for centuries and has successfully taken root all over the world. By some measures, it is the world’s most widely used legal system. I was asked whether I would refer to the Warner Music case, which is referred to in the Explanatory Notes. The only reference I will make to that case is that made by the Master of the Rolls, the right honourable Sir Geoffrey Vos, who observed that the CJEU is “very far” from being a common law court. In other words, it is a quite different animal from the courts that we traditionally have in this country. We could spend much time philosophising but, in my humble experience, the continental legal tradition places emphasis on identifying abstract legal principles from which a solution may be deduced, while the common law starts from the other end, as it were, with the facts of a particular case and how those facts relate to other decided cases and the legislation in question. The art of distinguishing cases and building a legal system via a mosaic of interrelated cases has been perfected over the centuries by the judges of this country and other common law jurisdictions.

A very experienced solicitor working in a deprived part of north London said to me, when he heard that I had some previous association with the EU, “Don’t let them weaken the common law.” The common law is a people’s law. It comes up from the bottom; it does not come down from the top. In the Government’s view, it is very important that we never underestimate, underplay or weaken the great common law tradition that we have in this country.

That forms an essential part of the background to this clause, which is essentially to enable our judges to use the best of the common law traditions to take us forward. The Government are not saying that any one approach is better than another, only that the common law is in our DNA. Clause 7 will reinforce the common law tradition and allow it to flourish.

That being the essential rationale, I turn to the various amendments suggested to modify the new tests as set out in the Bill. I will first comment on the theme of legal certainty. The common law, as it has developed, has always been fully aware of the need to preserve legal certainty, but that has not inhibited the proper development of the law as the needs arise—I will come to that in a moment. It is always a question of balance. If one bakes in or gives priority to legal certainty one would never change anything. Legal certainty will of course remain an important circumstance, as it was in the Warner Music case—no doubt judges will have regard to it; it will be up to them—but we cannot say that legal certainty means that we have to slavishly follow old EU jurisprudence until the cows come home just because of legal certainty. We have to find a balance. That is one factor among others, but not necessarily a dominant factor.

I turn to the specific amendments. Amendment 81 was moved by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. I am not completely sure that we have in this group all the amendments to which she originally referred in her speech, but we will sort that out through the usual channels, if we may. Amendment 81 would reduce the “must” have regard to “may” have regard. In the Government’s view, this would again tend to bake in the existing situation and enable the courts to ignore changes of circumstances, and to not allow or to continue in a state of undue deference to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

I say “undue”, by which I mean that some deference is clearly highly necessary. In particular, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said, parts of our law where the statute is essentially an EU creation may well be different situations from other parts of the law. I agree, although I am bound to say, on the legal certainty and accessibility of case law to the general public points, that I very much doubt whether any member of the public, having fought through the 25 often conflicting decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the question of communication to the public, which is the subject matter of the Warner Music case, would be much the wiser when it came to working out what the law was. However, that is another matter.

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[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

It also clearly extends to statute-based law. Is that not a case for bringing the courts into expressing a view as to what is essentially the function of Parliament?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the courts are always astute. They sort of intuitively know where they have to stop and where Parliament has to take over. That is a process that has been honed and refined for the past 100 years at least, but it does not prevent the courts moulding, refining and developing the common law. There comes a point where you cannot go further, but quite often in a court you can, especially when you have existing jurisprudence. It is quite early on in the development of a new technology. In the Warner case, we were talking about hyperlinks, graphic interfaces and all sorts of high-technology things with which I am sure your Lordships are extremely familiar, but it is a new area of law, and the courts, generally speaking, work with that until they find that they have gone as far as they can as a court and then Parliament takes over. With respect, I would not completely accept the observation of my noble friend Lord Hailsham that this is usurping Parliament.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I think I understand the Minister’s argument about “proper” in new paragraph (c) in Clause 7(3), but is the wording of this not prejudicial because it assumes that retained EU law restricts the proper development of domestic law? It does not say that the court should consider whether and to what extent retained EU law restricts the proper development of domestic law. It says that it should consider the extent to which it does, assuming that it does. Would it not be better to go for non-prejudicial language, as well as, I hope, including the balancing language in Amendments 83, 85 and 88?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

As far as I know, this is not intended to be prejudicial, but it presupposes a case where there is a tenable argument and it is put to the court that a retained EU law has that effect. Then the court will decide whether it does and what would be the proper development going forward. Taking that intervention on the hoof as it were, I am not sure at first sight that one is convinced that it would be better to change the wording. Let me reflect further.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am looking at the same clause as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. He asked about new subsection (5) (c). I shall ask the Minister about new subsection (5ZA)(a), in which the courts are being asked to consider

“the extent to which the retained domestic case law is determined or influenced by retained EU case law from which the court has departed or would depart.”

If we are not encouraging courts to depart, why would we be asking them to consider the extent? That seems to raise a question, given what the Minister has just said.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

If I may say so to the noble Baroness, I think this is just a drafting point. The extent may well be nil. There is no particular reason to suppose that the retained EU case law in a particular case is restricting the proper development of domestic law. That was the situation, as it turned out, in the Warner music case, although at least one learned justice in that case very pointedly left open the possibility of further developments in a fast-moving technology.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I was not referring to the proper development of domestic law on this occasion. At the top of page 6, we seem to be asking courts to consider the extent to which EU case law “determined or influenced” in and of itself rather than about the “proper development” which is in new subjection (5)(c). I wonder whether that is, to use the language used by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, prejudicial or leading the court.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I think I can take it not much further than the answer that I have just given—that the extent may well turn out to be nil.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

But why are we asking courts to ask themselves that question?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

The answer is that the courts will not raise these questions of their own motion. These points will be raised by a party to the proceedings. Then the party to the proceedings will argue that this retained domestic law is influenced by EU case law and is now having—or may have in five or 10 years’ time—a restrictive effect that is holding up the common law. Those are the kinds of circumstances that it envisages, I think.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I think the Minister was about to sit down, but he kindly invited me to respond so I will. I think that is the problem. He must surely understand that we anticipate this leading to an enormous amount of uncertainty—if that alone is something a party in the court is able to point judges towards and say that, because the case law came from the EU, in and of itself that is a reason to ask for a decision to be made in a different way.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

Respectfully, as I said a moment ago, I do not accept that this will lead to a great deal of uncertainty. It is binding on the courts of first instance. No one is going to take this to appeal unless there is a real point to be argued. If there is a real point to be argued, it is right that that our courts of appeal and higher courts should consider that point.

Perhaps we have had sufficient exchanges on this topic and I ought to move on as best I can. Finding my place in the notes, I think I have not answered the concerns raised about what we mean by “changes of circumstances” and how we manage that. Again, this is a matter that the common-law courts are very well equipped to deal with and they can decide for themselves whether there has been any relevant change of circumstances or, in particular, whether the change of circumstance is relevant.

I would not have thought that a change of government or a change in the political wind is a relevant change of circumstance. What you need is some circumstance that makes it either difficult to operate, or less than ideal to be bound by, a particular judgment of the European Court of Justice that may have been made many years ago. It may now be completely out of date or may have failed to take account of various factors that the court feels should be taken account of. Very often in a common-law system, when you look at a case and at previous decisions, you see that the particular point had not in fact been decided and you are therefore free to decide it yourself. That is much more difficult to do in a European system, which purports to lay down perfectly general principles.

If I may trespass on your Lordships’ kindness for a moment, it is often quite interesting to look at the summary of a European Court judgment, which in English terms would be referred to as the “headnote” of the case. It extracts principles from the judgment. The equivalent headnote in an English case says: these are the facts, and this is what the decision was on these facts. That encapsulates a difference of approach, thought and philosophy as to how you develop the legal system.

As I said a moment ago, I am not saying that it is better or worse; it is just different. Historically, we in this country belong to a huge family across the world that uses this technique, whether in the United States, Canada, Australia, India—very prominently—or otherwise. The Government are simply saying that we should not forget that we have a great legal tradition and we do not have to, as it were, slavishly follow the latest emanation from those very hard-working, very able, but not necessarily relevant to us, judgments and judges in Luxembourg.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I have listened very carefully, and there is a fundamental flaw in my noble friend’s argument as it relates to Scotland. Scotland has a mixed legal system. I am a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates. I chose to go and practise EU law because every reference was either passed down to London or you could practise EU law in Brussels; there were very few opportunities to practise at the Scottish Bar. But my noble friend must accept that the Scottish system—which, I would hazard a guess, has many advantages over the English system—is based on Roman law. It is based on a system of codified law, and what distinguishes it fundamentally from what he has just described about the common-law system is that it is a mixed legal system. I wonder whether he would like to address this in his remarks, given the comments that I made in relation to the amendments that I spoke to—Amendments 81, 82, 84 and 94—and mindful of the fact that I am approaching this from a mixed civil and common-law system.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh for that intervention, and I stand corrected. She is completely right that Scotland is a mixed system, although I venture to suggest much influenced—if I may use that controversial word for a moment—by the common law. As I said a moment ago, Scottish judges have been, frankly, the best common lawyers anyone has ever known. They happen all to be called Reid but that is a coincidence.

Of course, I accept the comment, although I beg to differ as to whether any different conclusion follows. Essentially, the “may”, “must” and other amendments that the noble Baroness has proposed are independent of the exact legal approach one is talking about. It may well be that, in a Scottish situation, there would be a greater willingness not to disturb retained case law than in an English situation. I do not know; maybe these things will come up to the Supreme Court and someone will say “That is what we are going to do”. Maybe the Scottish tradition will prevail; that is perfectly likely. With respect, the Government do not feel that that changes the general thrust of Clause 7.

That was changes of circumstances. The next question is on this word “influence”—whether it has been influenced or determined by European law. I think “influenced” is included simply to give a sufficient degree of flexibility and to avoid deciding what might be quite a difficult point: whether European law was in fact determinative of a particular point or just part of the general context. Very often, it is part of the general context and the influence of the European element on the final outcome.

On that point—I am not sure we picked it up entirely; I may be speaking out of turn—I shall, if I may, at least attempt a reply to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on the question of principles of interpretation. I think it is relevant to the influence point. It arises in the context of legislation. Many here will know better than me, but the essential difference, as I understand it, is that traditional common law, including the Scottish approach, is a highly textual interpretation: what the meaning of the words is. The European Court’s general approach is a teleological interpretation of the general idea of where the statute is going. Very often, because of the laconic and sometimes completely deficient nature of European legislation, that court is much more prepared to fill in the gaps in the legislation than an English court would be. It is along those general lines; I am sure we can elaborate further as necessary later in these proceedings. So that is the influence point.

I think I have dealt with adding in the factors of settled understanding, legal certainty and so forth. The Government do not support that approach because it would simply bake in the status quo; that is the Government’s essential position. Legal certainty is inevitably something the courts will consider. They considered it in the Warner Music case because they were dealing with an international treaty and there was a desire not to disturb the law—albeit that the law was a right old muddle, as far as one can see, if I may put it colloquially just for a moment. In that case, it was not actually very seriously argued that we should depart from EU law; it was a perfunctory argument that took place in a few minutes at the end of the day, so it was a bit of a non-event.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I apologise if I am interrupting the Minister before he has finished; I think he is replying to Amendments 85 and 88, although he did not specifically refer to them. He dismisses the need for the factors introduced in those amendments because he says the courts can have regard to them anyway. Why have the Government prescribed several elements themselves if the courts can have regard to them? Our whole argument is that the courts can have regard to factors they want to have regard to. The impetus behind Amendments 85 and 88 was that the Government were being partial and pushing in a certain direction for the three elements they will allow the courts to consider—the argument for adding the extra elements, the consequences of disturbing the settled understanding of the law and the importance of legal certainty, clarity and predictability—and to try to re-establish the balance that the authors of the amendments felt was lacking.

If I may say so, I find the Minister’s reply so far extremely puzzling. He has, correctly, given a paean of praise to our courts and the common law, saying that they have perfected the art of creating this mosaic—

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[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

If I may be permitted to finish, I have now had three interventions from the Government Front Bench, which of course have lengthened this intervention. I ask the Minister please to explain how his paean of praise to our courts and their ability to develop the common law without inhibition accords with the constraints and straitjackets the Bill is putting on the courts he is praising.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s position is that this is not a straitjacket. The courts are required to look at three things: the fact that the retained EU case law is made by a different court, whether there has been a relevant change of circumstances, and how the proper development of the common law should continue in future.

As to why we have not included other considerations—notably, legal certainty—the Government’s position, which noble Lords may or may not agree with but this is the explanation, is that once you write down the importance of legal certainty, that is potentially a recipe for passively doing nothing and continuing to be a rule taker for 20 years to come. That is not the consequence of withdrawing from the EU. The courts can continue to look at it, but that is the reason why the Government have drafted Clause 7 as it is.

I hope I have dealt with most of the issues raised about Clause 7 one way or another. There is the reference procedure, and noble Lords, and noble and learned Lords, have made the point that higher courts always have the discretion whether to take a case, and they should be able to decline it. I completely understand that point. The Government had thought that the ability of those superior courts—the higher courts or the Supreme Court—to decide whether what they were being asked to do was relevant and whether the point raised was of general public importance was sufficient protection and would enable them to decline to hear the case if that were so. I must say that the circumstances in which a lower court actually gets as far as making a reference and identifying a point of public importance that a superior court feels it should not hear seem to me, if I may say so, somewhat remote, but we can have another look at the drafting if there is a need for further reassurance. I cannot commit to changing it, but I can commit to looking at it and discussing it with the relevant persons.

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister please reply to the point I made? The situation may be such, as we know from bitter experience, that you can identify an important point of law in a case but, unless it is dispositive of the whole of it, it will lead to further expense and time. That may apply equally to this point of law as to any other. There is no special feature regarding points of law relating to retained law, as opposed to points of law in any case.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

That might raise the question of whether indeed it was relevant. You could say, “That’s not relevant here because it’s not dispositive”, or “It’s only one point among several”. However, I say to the noble and learned Lord that the Government will have another look at this. There is no point in having provisions that are not satisfactory in this regard.

That takes me to the law officer reference and intervention powers. On the essential points made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh about the position of the Lord Advocate, I hope she will bear with me. My understanding of the exact position of the Lord Advocate is probably not as good as hers and that of other noble Lords in the Committee. Essentially, the law officer reference power provides another mechanism for resolving these various points, and it gives the UK law officers and the relevant officers of the devolved Governments a statutory right to be considered and so forth. It does not extend the Lord Advocate’s powers to anything outside the devolved competence of the Scottish Government, any more than it does for the Counsel General for Wales or the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland. The Government’s view on this point is that the other law officers in the devolved Governments should be involved in matters that affect the devolved Governments and not matters that are retained UK law. That is the Government’s position.

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[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

The Minister does not have to be sorry. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, was only coughing.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I am sorry. I am rather nervous when noble Lords come at me from all directions, especially the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I am so sorry. I did not mean to interrupt.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

That is quite all right.

This is the logic of the approach. It is a cross-UK approach and not a Scotland-specific approach. It does not seem appropriate that the previous functions of the Lord Advocate, so far as they have been retained, should change.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Could the Minister speak louder?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I am sorry. I was saying that this is a structure that gives the UK law officers power in relation to UK competence and the devolved Governments power in relation to their competence. That is the structure of it all.

Amendment 101, on the question of incompatibility orders, is described as a probing amendment. Again, this has precedence in other parts of the statute book. The Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 has a similar power. If there is a point of incompatibility, the courts are given a power to manage that; it would probably mean deferring making an order for six months until the Government could fix it, as did the Court of Appeal in the Open Rights Group v The Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: we have found a problem, and we are going to give you time to come up with solution, whether it is legislative or otherwise. In that particular case, the power was said by the Court of Appeal to derive from EU powers, but this is giving the court power under domestic legislation. I hope it is a sensible process for making the compatibility mechanisms work properly if incompatibility is found, which is likely to be a fairly rare event. I hope I have covered most points, if not all.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for the skill with which he is trying to explain to a layman like me abstruse points of law. Could he give us a worked example, please? I was struck by what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said about the potential cost to the country of a loss of clarity. Take his example of the copyright law of the United Kingdom, which, he said, was virtually exclusively based on EU law. What changes of circumstances do the Government envisage that the courts should be considering when they consider cases that are tried under the present British copyright law? The only change of circumstances I can think of is if the Government were to pass new legislation on copyright. I do not think that is the plan, but if they do not, what are the courts supposed to do? What change of circumstances would they have to consider?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, fortunately, I think I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for only one example, and so I will just give one because it is getting quite late. The example is changes in technology, which are moving very quickly. The Warner case, which has now been mentioned several times, was a case in which a radio station in the US put some music in a hyperlink on its website. Consumers in the UK could click on the link on that website, and the question was whether the UK copyright holders could get a royalty on that even though the UK user was accessing it in the United States—it does not matter if it is the United States, Taiwan or anywhere else. In that kind of area, the technology is moving very quickly. The existing EU decisions are not entirely consistent, and it can be easily envisaged that in some future situation, where some technology that we do not yet understand or know of has come into being, a UK court might take a different view and distinguish previous EU jurisprudence. That sort of situation is more than likely to happen at some stage.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a lengthy and thorough debate, and I fear it has not gone quite as smoothly as my noble and learned friend the Minister would have wished. I am pleased he has conceded that Scots rule approaches this from a different angle. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has not been able to be present today, and I do not think my noble and learned friend has entirely answered the concerns of either the Royal Society of Scotland or the noble and learned Lord. In particular, my noble and learned friend has not addressed the question of why there is no corresponding restraint on the powers of any other UK law officer—for example, the England or Wales law officer—but only on the Scotland law officer. I would like to understand, perhaps at a meeting before Report, why that is the case. It is quite serious.

My noble and learned friend spoke at length about why retained EU law is historic now, but we are in a situation where court cases may arise. For example, the chemical industry here is going to be covered by the fledgling UK REACH programme, but the industry would also hope to export to the EU and so will have to meet the terms of the EU REACH programme. Does my noble and learned friend not accept that there will be cases that relate to this?

I fear that Clause 7 is an exam question seeking to show that, on appeal, there will be no reliance on retained EU law going forward. I think that was the wrong question to put, as has been adequately set out to such an extent that a distinguished former President of the Family Division, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said it is offensive to treat judges in this way, as did my noble friend Lord Hailsham, in slightly less graphic language.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, for speaking to the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I believe that work is not complete on this chapter but, with the promise of a meeting before Report, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.