European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Committee: 11th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

There will be no United Kingdom judge: when we are not members of the European Union, we will not be entitled to have a judge at the European Court of Justice. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is absolutely right, I am afraid.

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

My Lords, the ECJ works at a snail’s pace. There will be a massive amount of undigested legislation one way or the other at the end of the transition period—how does this affect the issue?

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. One of the primary purposes of the Bill is to promote legal certainty: I cannot understand how it can be anything other than destructive to legal certainty for Parliament to enact a Bill that includes Clause 6, which removes the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union from exit day—defined as 29 March 2019—when the Government’s own intention, and that of the European Union, is that there should be a transitional period during which the Court of Justice will retain jurisdiction, and during which we will agree to that jurisdiction.