Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I did not suggest that it was happening as a result of the Bill; it is happening anyway, and that will inform our decisions on further regulations.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The regulations are on the dashboard.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Minister, this is all news to us. Where will the detail be found on this? Why is a Minister suddenly popping up and saying these things now? The Bill specifically prevents the kind of work she is talking about, because it relates to retained EU law, and retained EU law will be dealt with this way.

We cannot have anything in the Bill which could be interpreted as an additional burden. A burden, as defined by the Bill, includes,

“a sanction (criminal or otherwise) which affects the carrying on of any lawful activity”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The dashboard does not have any legal status. It is simply a list of the job of work that all the departments will have to do, reviewing each bit of retained EU law to work out which bucket it will fall into. These are legitimate conversations to have in Committee, so we can go on debating this. I know that your Lordships feel sorry for me up here, but I have two Ministers behind me and the Leader of the House. If there is something that I cannot answer directly—

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

When we started discussion in Committee this afternoon, the issue was it will either be retained or amended or it will simply drop off, and the drop-off bit is in the Bill. That is the connection and that is why this is so important.

We have just heard that the Minister will write to us about asbestos, because there will be a review and it might increase the regulatory burden. She says that it will not increase it because it will be considered as part of a totality, so then we have all the regulations that will be part of it. I know that I have been here only for 10 years, but I have never experienced anything like this. We have a major piece of legislation, we are trying to probe things in Committee to find out what it means, and we are simply not getting answers.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I have a qualification about the dashboard. The retained EU law dashboard showcases which departments, policy areas and sectors of the economy are most saturated by retained EU law. It will be updated quarterly to document the Government’s progress in amending, repealing or replacing retained EU law that is not right for the UK. It is right that the public are able view where retained EU law sits on the statute book and therefore hold the Government to account. I think that answers—

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

How will it hold the Government to account?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

It will be a published document.