European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Committee: 11th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, I rise in the absence of my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who has also put his name to this amendment. I want to raise a point that he has already raised with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and a couple of my own.

First, my noble and learned friend asked how EU law will take effect, given that under Clause 1, the European Communities Act 1972 will be repealed. It may be that ensuring Clause 6 has effect only after the transition period gets around that, but there is a real question about the United Kingdom implementing EU law from the day we leave—30 March next year—through to the end of December 2020. During that period, we will be subject to the European Court of Justice but, in principle, will have no representation—that is the point the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made in passing: we will not have a judge. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House was asked whether the United Kingdom will still have a judge on the Monday. We assume it will not, but is that the case? Have the Government discussed it? In addition, will we have an Advocate-General? My understanding is that the current Advocate-General believes she is in an ad-hominem position.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who pressed this point. The answer we received was that this would be a matter for negotiation, the suggestion being that we would somehow negotiate the presence of a UK judge on the court. Rather like the point about nationality, having looked at the treaties, I think it is almost impossible to see how this could be arranged. I think we have to accept that we will not have any representation on the court because we will have no Members of the European Parliament.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord. In a sense, that puts us in an even more difficult position. Surely, one idea was that by taking back control we would be able to legislate and use our own courts. We will have 21 months in which we do what the European Union requests without having a say. What are the Government doing to ensure we have at least some sort of seat at the table?