Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
Lord True
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Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Lord True ExcerptsThursday 2nd March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 View all Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-IV Fourth marshalled list for Committee - (2 Mar 2023)
Lord Callanan (Con)
I will take the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Beith.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, if it would help the Committee, I understand that this is an extremely controversial Bill for many Members of your Lordships’ House. A good deal of time is being taken over it, which is your Lordships’ pleasure. On the question of interruptions, this is Committee and Members are free to speak more than once, but we make good progress if we allow all noble Lords to develop and complete an argument.
While the Companion says:
“A member of the House who is speaking may be interrupted with a brief question for clarification”—
not a speech—it also says:
“Giving way accords with the traditions and customary courtesy of the House.”
I think that is absolutely correct. The Companion continues:
“It is, however, recognised that a member may justifiably refuse to give way”.
It gives various circumstances, including
“in the middle of an argument, or to repeated interruption”.
The Committee must allow the Minister latitude to complete his argument. If a noble Lord has a new concrete point to put forward to the Committee afterwards, that is reasonable. I also remind the Committee that the Companion says:
“Lengthy or frequent interventions should not be made, even with the consent of the member speaking.”
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, I do not make lengthy or frequent interventions, but I welcome the Leader of the House giving your Lordships some guidance on this subject, which is helpful from time to time.
I raised a point that the Minister has not covered on the position of Defra, which clearly does not take the view that its corpus of material must be changed urgently. The noble Lord, Lord Benyon, said:
“Defra’s default approach will be to retain EU law unless there is a good reason either to repeal it or to reform it.”—[Official Report, 28/2/23; col. 205.]
Will the Minister comment on that?