Brexit Opportunities

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, there is a complex list of proposals, consultations, ideas for legislation, specific plans for legislation, and so on, so it is hard to generalise. However, I wish to be clear that we intend to pursue all this urgently. That is why it is my responsibility as a Cabinet Minister to make this happen, over and above the departmental responsibilities that other Secretaries of State have. We certainly intend to pursue the review of EU law extremely urgently so that we can deliver results and make a difference rapidly.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s Statement and, like him, I welcome the call from the Labour Front Bench for even more ambitious deregulation. It is healthy that there should be this competition between the two sides to improve and update our legislation, which we had no opportunity to do when we were in the European Union. I suggest that the way to move forward now, on top of the excellent TIGGR report, is to go back to the original briefs that Ministers were given when these directives were being negotiated. Invariably, they said, “Minister, we don’t really want this, but the best thing to do is to try to get it amended a bit here and a bit there”—and, if possible, a bit more than we actually got. If nothing else, there would be a guide to changes we can make just by going back to those briefs.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome that suggestion from my noble friend. It is an extremely good one and a reminder that in many cases, Governments of both parties opposed proposals that have now become law and to which we are supposed to reconcile ourselves. I will certainly take that up and see what we can find—within the limits of Civil Service record-keeping capacity, which may impose some limits on what we are able to do.