Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for having not spoken at Second Reading, but I am keen to support the principle behind this group of amendments, and I am pleased to have put my name to Amendment 141A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. At an earlier stage of this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, described it as a beta-gamma piece of legislation. I think he was being a bit kind. Omega strikes me as being more suitable. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said at an earlier stage as well, although I obviously say that from a different political view. He wanted to understand how a Conservative Government could produce this Bill. I cannot understand how any Government could produce this Bill, Conservative or otherwise.

However, the Bill is with us and at the very least it needs amending severely. All the amendments are in different ways saying very much the same thing: give Parliament its proper role in deciding what legislation should be repealed or replaced. I do not understand how a Government who only this week have, perhaps rightly, boasted of their democratic credentials in terms of an important announcement can produce a piece of legislation like this that just gives power to the Executive and, frankly, bypasses Parliament. If it was not so serious, you would think this was a toytown Bill and a toytown piece of legislation. It is really not worthy of any British Government, which is why I very much support the principle behind these amendments and hope even more that the Government will see the good sense in them.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I rise not least to celebrate the fact that I agree so strongly with my noble friend Lord Hamilton. We are as one, and it does not matter what we thought when it came to the referendum. Everybody knows that I am a passionate remainer, but I am one of those who draws a line under that because I want to get on, with Britain, which I believe we have to. I want to do that in the British way and, surprisingly enough, in the Conservative way. That means three very simple things, and these amendments enable us to do them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I just explained that point in my earlier answer. The noble Baroness can look at Hansard and come back to me if she is not satisfied with that explanation.

To go back to the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, let us accept for the purposes of making his point that, as he said, huge swathes of vital REUL will somehow accidentally disappear. The Government do not accept that; we think it is extremely unlikely. However, I understand the point he makes. I refer him to the answer that my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe gave to a similar question yesterday. We understand the point that noble Lords are making, we will reflect on that issue and, if necessary, come back to it. Without making any promises, we will reflect on whether that is possible. Obviously, being a member of the Government, I trust them, but I accept that other noble Lords may not have the same faith in what we are doing. It is essentially intended to be a constructive process.

Moving on, Amendment 44A seeks to omit the sunset from the Bill and allow the repeal, revocation or amendment of retained EU law to be carried out only via primary legislation. Currently we are unable to keep retained direct EU legislation up to date with new advances, precisely because of that problem—because some of it is regarded as primary legislation. For those who still wish us to reflect EU law, we cannot even update it in line with any EU changes or new advances because, if we decided to do so, we would need to do it through primary legislation, and parliamentary time does not allow for that. This is creating more legal and business uncertainty, as regulations become more and more out of date and burdensome. The Bill is therefore designed to rectify this issue. This amendment, however, would instead maintain the status quo, which we do not believe is either helpful or beneficial to anyone. Again, I understand that, if people wanted to undermine the fundamental purpose of the Bill, they would support that amendment.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that that is an argument against democracy? Evidently, because it is difficult, we are going to change the law without asking Parliament. My noble friend has made an argument against democracy; that is what we are arguing about.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am afraid that the noble Lord is talking nonsense, as he often does, on this regulation.