Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

If the Minister does not and my noble friend does, I will be glad to give him my support.

My Lords, I begin by congratulating our two new Members, my noble friend Lady Bray and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady. I want just to say to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, that everyone in this country has reason to be grateful to her because, at a time when her party did not have its most responsible leadership, she was a model of temperance, pragmatism and good leadership, and we are all in her debt for that.

I am afraid I share the misgivings of those who do not like the Bill. That will not come as a great surprise to many people. Government by diktat and by deadline is never a good idea. It is particularly not a good idea when it marginalises Parliament in the process. What we face is a marginalisation of Parliament and an accretion of power to the Executive. Yes, individual Ministers may exercise that with discretion and good sense, but they should not have that power, which will be vested in them if the Bill goes through on this ridiculous deadline when there is no need for a deadline. We would have escaped the Irish protocol had there been a good acceptance that a deadline was not the best way to govern. We would have avoided many other disasters in recent years if we had adopted a similar process.

I say to my friends and colleagues who take a different view of the Bill, please, tomorrow, read the speeches of my noble friends Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord McLoughlin; one a self-proclaimed Brexiteer, who sees the constitutional difficulties in the Bill, and the other a former Government Chief Whip and a very good friend of mine who has done a wonderful job in his career in Parliament—I was proud that he came from my constituency. These are not ciphers; these are people who have strong, coherent views based on real facts.

Although my noble friend Lord Hamilton—I listened to him; he might just give me the benefit—tried to dismiss this Bill, it should not be dismissed. It is a constitutional monstrosity. That point was also made by my noble friends Lady Altmann and Lord Young of Cookham and many others around your Lordships’ House. We have a duty to parliamentary democracy. We do not have the final word, and nor should we; we are not the elected House. However, we have a constitutional duty.

Although people talked of great majorities in the other place, they were more or less on party lines—majorities of around 50 or a little more. They were not sweeping majorities, such as we have had with certain Bills before us, but majorities on party lines with people obeying the party Whip. As far as I am concerned—I have always adopted this stance throughout my 53 years in Parliament—a Whip is a guide. It is a request, not an instruction or order. I ask all my noble friends to remember that.