Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Howard of Rising Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, Monsieur Barnier recently warned Britain not to tear up EU laws—well, he would, wouldn’t he? This should come as no surprise. For all its trumpeted advantages, the EU is performing worse than Britain. Whatever way you look at it, Britain is doing better. As Britain escapes the cloying and destructive stranglehold of EU regulations and red tape, we will leave the EU trailing even further behind. It is no wonder that Monsieur Barnier is nervous.

Many claim that Britain has suffered economically from leaving the European Union. That is nonsense, driven by those who wish for us to rejoin the European Union. Last year, Britain’s GDP grew faster than those of Germany, France and Italy. Our economy has grown by 5.7% since 2016—the same as that of Germany, the financial powerhouse of the EU. Yet, in 2022, real wages fell further in Germany than they did in the UK. While food prices are up by 19.9% in Britain, they have risen by 21.1% in the eurozone and 24.1% across the whole of Europe.

However badly the British economy might be faring in these challenging times, the European Union is doing worse. That is in relation not only to economics; our Covid vaccine development, procurement and rollout is a good example of what can be achieved free from EU restrictions. It was such a success that the EU tried to keep it for itself and to block shipments to Britain. By March 2021, Britain had vaccinated 40% of its population, while the EU had vaccinated only 12% to 14%. Just think how much more the rest of our life sciences sector and other industries can achieve when they are fully freed from the EU’s shackles.

We must support the Bill; it will help to remove the remaining EU bureaucracy from our statute book that continues to impede our economy and society. Some noble Lords may complain, as indeed they have today, that too much discretion is being given to Ministers, but we should remember that the retained EU laws only exist because edict after edict was imposed on the UK without this country being able to alter so much as a comma. Noble Lords have far more scrutiny now, and under the Bill, than they ever did when the legislation was created.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Nonsense.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

It is not nonsense; it is true.

Above all, we should celebrate that our country is a sovereign nation and be grateful that we are not subject to the 25,163 new EU laws created since we left. I urge noble Lords to support the Bill, which recognises that our country is now governed from Westminster and not by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Howard of Rising Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s comments about the timetable. I have heard from people in the Department for Transport that, if they had to comply with these requirements and the sunset date, they would have to stop all other work in the department for the rest of the year. That would include the long-awaited transport Bill—which not many noble Lords are awaiting with glee.

There is another issue, which I think it is good to raise now: the question of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. My understanding is that we signed up to the European equivalent, CSM RA, which basically provides the opportunity for checking whether whatever project or design is proposed is safe. It is based on the ALARP principle, which we have had here for many years. Our Office of Rail and Road has been trying for a long time to interpret how to link the ALARP principle, which is ours, with the European one in a way that enables people who have to go through this process to feel satisfied that whatever they are doing is as safe as is reasonably practicable. This is just one of many examples in the railway sector. It would be nice to have a list, as my noble friend has said. There is much more to say on this, but on a system such as the railways, which is very safety conscious, it is important that we get this safety issue right.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

Would the Minister agree that, as the United Kingdom has one of the best employment records in the entire world, which was never dependent upon the EU, these amendments are utterly pointless and could probably do more harm than good?

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, further to that point, even this discussion on the first amendment that we are faced with requires the Minister to withdraw some of the assertions he has made, and which his noble friend has just made again. The very fact that we are debating maternity rights which were brought in because of the European Union means that his statement that British workers do not depend on the European Union for their employment rights is made absurd. It is correct that successive British Governments have decided that they will go along with the European rights, but it was because of the European Union that we have those rights. Therefore, we need a specific exclusion from the fact that, by 31 December this year, these regulations, and many other workers’ rights regulations and related regulations, will fall automatically, without any parliamentary decision.

I would like the Minister to withdraw his assertion about European rights. He forgets his history. Why does he think that Mrs Thatcher fell out with Jacques Delors? Why does he think that John Major refused to sign the Social Chapter? Until the Labour Government came in, British workers’ rights were less than those of workers in Europe. This is an absurd assertion, as has been made clear by the debate on this very first amendment.

I have one more general point. I tried to table an early amendment which would give Parliament an alternative way of dealing with this, where we would have a Joint Committee to look in a reasoned way at the priority, the status and the need for action to change European laws. There is an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, to do a similar thing, but we are not debating that today.

However, there must be a better way than leaving a whole tranche of European-derived law to an unknown process, ministerial decree—when they come in with their own version of the law—or simply leaving it until 31 December when the law will then disappear. This Parliament, this House, must assert a better way of dealing with this. That is clear from this amendment and from the complete absurdity of how we are dealing with the subject matter in this Bill.