European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th February 2018 Lords Chamber

Now the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has brought to our notice the wide powers tucked away in Schedule 8 and the repealing by secondary legislation of these—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but does not he see how absurd the argument is that he is putting when these European regulations are matters over which the House of Commons has no choice but to implement? The whole point of this Bill is that it is restoring it to the primacy of Parliament to decide on these regulations.

[Lord Bilimoria]

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth has great foresight, because I am about to cover that in my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bilimoria]

I remind the noble Lord that this House, in that Article 50 Bill, had two of the largest votes in the history of the House of Lords; 614 of us voted in one instance and 634 in the other instance. In both instances, we defeated the Government by almost 100 votes. The fact that the House of Commons did not accept that is a different matter—and the point that I am making is that the Government tried to bypass Parliament. There is the worry that statutory instruments bypass Parliament.

Do Henry VIII clauses give Governments the power of royal despots? Well, secondary legislation is used all the time to amend the text of primary legislation in non-despotic ways, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said—they do not have to be. In fact, the biggest Henry VIII section of them all can be found in the European Communities Act 1972—the very piece of legislation that we are repealing.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords—

[Lord Bilimoria]

I am coming to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—will he please have some patience? Specifically, Section 2(2) of that Act deals with the type of EU legislation and rulings that need to be transposed into UK law. Typically, these involve EU directives where the intended outcome of the law is made clear, but it is up to the individual member states how to implement them. After Brexit, if Brexit happens, the Government want to use a Henry VIII clause in reverse—to adapt EU laws to make them British. For example, disputes that are currently referred to EU regulators or courts will be amended to refer to their British equivalents. The logic of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is that, if you are going to have a swathe of amendments to undo primary legislation that has already been made using secondary legislation, you should make those replacements in the same way. It is not as simple as that; because of the “deficiencies arising from withdrawal”, the references to the EU regulators, the European Court of Justice and other entities will no longer have any sway if there is Brexit. It is not as simple as saying, “Because they are simple things, we just can’t do this”, and the Government saying, “We will just use these Henry VIII powers to tidy up things”. The problem is that it might alter not just technical details but also the substantive effect of the law. These amendments are trying to protect really important issues.

The Supreme Court has also said that it is well established that, unlike statutes, the lawfulness of statutory instruments can be challenged in court. Even if a statutory instrument gives Ministers broad powers, the courts have established that they will apply limitations. The broader the power, the more likely the courts are to intervene to ensure that the intention of the law in question is not being altered or undermined. Does the Minister accept that?

I conclude that the power to amend all EU-derived primary and secondary legislation by the Government without sufficient scrutiny, checks and control, bypassing Parliament, goes against the ultimate supremacy of Parliament itself.