Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lisvane (CB)]

I absolutely agree and, as the noble Viscount has made clear, a number of things could be interpreted as of sufficient gravity to trigger, we hope, the powers in the Bill, then the Act, and it would be for the Joint Committee to decide—as a number of committees of your Lordships’ House already decide—that the lack of consultation is a serious flaw in the bringing forward of proposals for, for example, delegated legislation. So I hope I have set the noble Viscount’s mind at rest, but I am happy to talk to him outside the Chamber if further reassurance is required.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I ask noble Lords who support Amendment 2 how it is that they now wish to involve Parliament and our democracy in getting rid of these laws when they were perfectly happy to see them imposed in a wholly anti-democratic process. I describe it as such because all the laws which the Government now wisely wish to cancel were proposed in secret in the European Commission. Their national interest was then negotiated in secret in the Committee of Permanent Representatives, after which they were signed off in the European Council and Parliament, which could not change them. Our Select Committees could indeed scrutinise a tiny sample of them, or even recommend them for debate in the Commons or Lords, but, once those debates, which could not change them, had taken place, they became our law. So why do the proposers and friends of Amendment 2 now wish to subject the process of their abolition to our democratic processes? And, talking of which, what do they say about the fact that the Bill has already been through the Commons?

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make a single point. In his opening remarks, the Minister referred to the affirmative procedure as though it is a perfectly satisfactory way of dealing with these very substantial ministerial powers to deal with retained European law. As a former member of the Delegated Powers Committee, I want to say that that is absolutely not the case. Under the affirmative procedure, Parliament has no power to amend any proposals coming from Ministers. It is therefore absolutely essential that this House approves Amendment 2 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and others. I very much hope that it does so.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am sure that the House will approve Amendment 2. I am not sure that the noble Baroness grasped the point I was trying to make, so, if I may, I will finish it.

I accept that the Government were in danger of biting off more than they could chew with their original proposals but those now seem eminently achievable, especially if our civil servants rise to the occasion in identifying the EU laws that we might want to retain—very few, I submit, so the effort should not exhaust them too much. But perhaps the Daily Telegraph was right in its headline on 10 May, which read:

“Whitehall ‘blob’ thwarts bonfire of Brexit laws”.


I support the whole Government wholeheartedly in their endeavours.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

May I clarify something? In his initial remarks, the noble Lord suggested that the problems he believes this Bill is designed to address stem from the fact that laws were imposed on this country. Whether or not one agrees with that statement, his proposal is that laws were imposed on this country without parliamentary scrutiny, and therefore without democratic accountability. If one accepts that that is the case, how is it then right to perpetuate that wrong by trying to get rid of those laws through a process that is itself without parliamentary scrutiny? The amendments are trying to impose parliamentary scrutiny; indeed, one of the reasons for our departure from the EU was to take back control to our Parliament, which is what these amendments seek to do.