Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (Second sitting)

Luke Evans Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Ghani]

Thank you.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

Q My question is to Dr Benwell. Does your organisation have a position on the supremacy of EU law over UK law?

Dr Benwell: No.

[Dr Evans]

Q Yet you are the only organisation here to say that it wants to repeal the Bill, or does not want it to come in, although the principle is to re-enact the supremacy from EU law to UK law. How does that work out in what you have just said? You act as if you do not want the Bill to go through, and yet you do not have a position on the crucial part of the Bill when enacted.

Dr Benwell: I am not sure that is the crucial part of the Bill from an environmental perspective; the crucial part of the Bill from our perspective is that it potentially or inadvertently allows for the loss of large portions of the statute book and for changes to environmental law without scrutiny. It also locks in an old-fashioned view of regulatory costs, seeing cost to business as the only way to judge the costs of regulation.

[Dr Evans]

Q We have heard about this several times, with the debate about the timing of sunset clauses and so on. I am just intrigued as to why your organisation, which you represent, said that the Bill needs to go, whereas every other organisation—whether it liked it or not—tried to work out solutions within it. On that basis, you are unusual as the outlier, and it is always good to question the outlier, to understand their thinking. Perhaps you will explain that thinking for how you got to that position, because the practical problems you assumed and set out we have heard and agreed with, but you are still saying that the Bill should not go ahead at all. That seems to rub against everything else we have talked about and put forward in it. Would you mind answering?

Dr Benwell: I do not think that we are the only organisation to have said that. I think that the Bar Council included the suggestion that the Bill should be withdrawn in its evidence. Wildlife and Countryside Link does not speak as a single body; it speaks on behalf of many of our members. The RSPB, for example, has been very clear in saying that the Bill should be withdrawn, as have lots of our members.

The Government might find features of the Bill they could bring forward separately. I think that the question of supremacy is one where we would see some risks in the interpretation of the law, but that is a political choice and, in itself, it is not the bit that we are most worried about. The bits that we are worried about, however, are so deeply ingrained in the fabric of the Bill that we suggest starting again.

On the sunset clauses, if you look at the House of Commons Library interpretation of what a sunset clause should do, it is there to stop emergency powers existing in perpetuity, giving Parliament a chance to review them. The Bill is taking, en bloc, huge amounts of environmental law and saying that they should potentially end within a year; it is a very strange amplification of sunset powers. On delegated legislation, the provisions in clause 15 that suggest Ministers should be able to bring forward alternative provisions without even tethering that to the original purposes of the regulations on offer are extremely broad delegated legislation powers. Another aspect that is deeply ingrained in the Bill is the idea that no alternative provision should be brought forward if it imposes new costs on business or hampers innovation and that sort of thing. That is an old-fashioned mentality that sees the costs to business of implementing regulation as the only view of the point of that regulation. Actually, if you take a deregulatory approach, it does not reduce costs; it simply transfers them from the businesses responsible for delivering them to the public. Those are all part of the weft and warp of the Bill, and that is why we think that the whole thing should go, rather than starting to amend it.

[The Chair]

That is clear, thank you. I will bring Ruth in on this, and then we will go to Stella Creasy. Ruth, you wanted to come in.

Ruth Chambers: Thank you, Chair. I have two points of clarification to make. First, I confirm that Greener UK as a coalition also wishes the Bill to be paused and withdrawn. That is not inconsistent with our position that we also believe that the body of retained EU law could be improved and that a process could be devised to do so. I feel that there was a little conflation of those two points but, to be absolutely clear, they are not the same thing.

Secondly, Minister, may I come back to your point about environmental targets, the 2030 species recovery target and the relationship with REUL? The relationship is a rather straightforward one: the opportunity costs that will inevitably come with the Department having to review, assimilate and reform such a large body of law. In fact, the Government have already missed their first legal milestone on environmental targets, on 31 October. That is just one example of how this can have a serious impact—because of the sheer deliverability challenges.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Luke Evans Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He was part of a Government who brought forward the Beecroft report, so I will take absolutely no lectures about frightening vulnerable people.

What I see before me is a piece of legislation that deletes those rights. That is beyond doubt. The question is whether they are going to be replaced. The right hon. Gentleman could argue that that is what Ministers have committed to. I am sure that is what the Minister will try to say—that we should not worry and that these rights will be replaced—but at this point in time when we are being asked to pass this legislation, there are no guarantees. There is nothing on the statute book. There have been no specific pledges on these rights.

We have a Government with a track record of seeking to try to delete and dilute rights. They were prevented from doing so by being members of the European Union at the time. Brexit has happened. Now the entire responsibility and onus on protecting those rights relies on Government Ministers and Members of Parliament holding the Government to account. That is exactly what we are doing today. Vulnerable people deserve to know the truth of what the outcome of this legislation will be.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a very good point about ensuring we have protections in place. Is she not missing the point and being slightly mischievous, because this is setting out a framework of how to deal with the problem, not the specifics? Those can still come later. She is right to argue that anyone in the House could make those changes, but the whole principle here is laying out the framework to enact these rights.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman comes so close, yet does not quite score his goal. He has said that it is about setting out a framework so these things could happen. There is no guarantee about what comes next. That is the challenge for his constituents. That is why the amendment puts in place what could come next by removing these particular rights from that process. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it sets out a process. The point is what is the impact of that process. If he cannot read this legislation, he needs to read all the submissions we have had from people setting out their concerns.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (Sixth sitting)

Luke Evans Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Justin Madders]

I think the irony is noted: the Minister says that everyone has their opportunity to speak and then does not give way to interventions.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

On a point of order, Sir George. I think it is fair to say that the Minister has given way numerous times. It is a little churlish to suggest that she has not, and I would like Hansard to observe that.

[The Chair]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, it is not up to me to decide whether a Minister, or anyone else, should give way during a speech. So, strictly speaking, it is not a point of order, but the hon. Gentleman has made his point.

--- Later in debate ---

If we are talking about bringing back control to Parliament, Parliament does not have full control over consideration of statutory instruments. That is, first of all, the reserve of the Government. Such scrutiny as takes place is inevitably restricted to a very small number of Members of Parliament, representing a relatively small number of the political parties represented in this place. As I say, an entire nation of the United Kingdom will never get to be represented on a DL Committee, even if the legislation almost exclusively relates to that nation of the UK. It is not an acceptable way for major legislation to be introduced and considered, and it is certainly not an acceptable way for major legislation to be approved.

[Dr Evans]

If Scotland were to be independent and part of the EU, the European Council uses majority voting so members have to like or lump whatever they are given at the end of the vote. At the end of the day, someone has to make a decision and Government have to decide. How would that fit if Scotland were independent?

[Peter Grant]

I cannot speak about what decisions the Scottish Parliament will take after we are independent, but I look forward to seeing that day before any of us are very much older. I am confident that it is a modern, democratic Parliament with much improved scrutiny procedures. For example, in the Scottish Parliament it would have been impossible for us to have two changes of Prime Minister without the explicit approval of the Parliament. Nobody can become a Minister of the Scottish Government without being approved by the Scottish Parliament. There is much greater parliamentary accountability for the Executive than there is ever going to be here.

My confident expectation is that when an independent Scotland goes back into the European Union, the Scottish Parliament will have a much greater role in scrutinising the actions of our Ministers, acting on our behalf, at the European Council than this Parliament has ever had. As I have said to the Committee before, the problem with lack of accountability and scrutiny of European legislation is not because the European Union’s processes are flawed, but because parliamentary accountability in this place is fundamentally flawed.

If I intended to be part of this establishment for much longer, I would be attempting to improve its processes in order to bring it into line with proper democratic Parliaments, such as the one in Scotland. Given that neither I nor any of my colleagues from Scotland are likely to be here for very much longer, I will have to leave it to those who remain to sort out the mess of a Parliament that they have created.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Luke Evans Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Grant]

Following the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute, the existence of schedule 2 specifically tells us everything we need to know about the nature of what is sometimes claimed to be democracy in this place. There is an explicit assumption in the schedule that Ministers in this place have the right to directly hold to account the democratically elected national Parliaments of the United Kingdom. That is not devolution; that is colonialism. It is not democracy; it is elected dictatorship. I appreciate that what is stated in schedule 2 is simply a restatement of the assumption that has run through this place for the past 300-plus years, yet it is a false assumption. It is an assumption that ultimate sovereignty by gift of God resides with an unelected individual who then passes down that sovereignty to a semi-elected Prime Minister.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

If the SNP decides to join the EU, is that not exactly what would be being joined?