REUL Bill: Trade Unions and Workers’ Rights

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I can see that we will have lots of interesting debate when this legislation arrives. The noble Baroness is wrong; we are not just considering all the regulations in the timescale she identified. If the regulations need to be updated, then each will of course come to this House for consideration, as all secondary legislation does.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister probably needs a touch of support on this matter. Is it not the position that, if we were to take these 3,000 to 4,000 regulations and really examine the aspects of each one, after 40 years of being members of the European Union, that would take us years and not one year? Also, do we even have the capacity as a Parliament to deal with the complexities of such an enormous range of law changes?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point. The concern now from the Opposition for all these regulations is touching, but of course they did not show such concern when they were introduced into UK law without any consideration in the first place.