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

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We have 15 seconds, Marcus.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Q Quickly, I wondered whether there were any alternatives in legislation—through evolution of the Interpretation Act 1978, for example—that could be used in addition to or other than reworking clause 7(3) to achieve more certainty.

Barney Reynolds: Yes, I think we should look at reinstating the Interpretation Act 1978, which spells out the UK method of interpretation. That would mean all lawyers could understand what existing EU provisions will mean on the basis of the words on the page, with very limited delving beyond that, and would probably lead to greater certainty than trying to move slowly from one to the other, case by case.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I am afraid our time has run out, and we are under strict time limits. I thank all three of you for your expert evidence. It has been very helpful for the Committee.

Examination of Witnesses

Sir Jonathan Jones KC and Dr Ruth Fox gave evidence.

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[Stella Creasy]

Q Sir Jonathan, a similar question to you: what impact does that have on the ability of Departments to operate and, indeed, on Parliament’s ability to scrutinise, if it is not clear what legislation is effective? For example, the dashboard does not currently contain the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, but that is a piece of European retained law that will have an impact on environmental concerns. In your experience, what is the impact on civil servants being able to advise Ministers and to provide information to Parliament? I note that Ministers told me that the dashboard is an authoritative but not comprehensive list of laws to be affected. What impact might those absences and omissions have on the ability of civil servants to do their job for us?

Sir Jonathan Jones: I am not in the civil service, as you know; I am on the other side, advising clients about what the effect of the Bill will be on their businesses and so on. This was always going to be a very complicated exercise, including for the civil service. We are leaving one legal order and, in one sense, we are out of it—we are free—but the legal constitutional consequences of that were always going to be very complicated, because we had this huge body of law that over decades had been integrated into UK law. We were not keeping a running tally throughout that time of the laws that we might one day want to change, because they had come from a particular source. They were enmeshed it all sorts of different ways with UK law.

As soon as we left, we had to begin the process set out in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which was about identifying what retained EU law needed to be changed in order for it to work operationally and technically. That was the process that was done with the 2018 Act, and it involved, as I think you have heard, many hundreds of sets of regulations to cure deficiencies in the language of that legislation. That was complicated enough, and it is possible that things were missed. There are certainly examples of some changes having to be made multiple times because they were not got right the first time.

That was complicated enough but at least, if something was missed, the law did not fall away altogether; it could be corrected later. What was being done then was an essentially technical exercise to keep the pre-existing law and to make it work as far as possible, in a way that provided continuity and certainty for users. What we are talking about now is an exercise of a completely different order. This is about changing policy, potentially getting rid of some laws and, in some cases, deciding what replaces them.

This is an immensely more complicated exercise even than the one that has already been done, and the civil service will not have started with a pre-existing list, however authoritative they are trying to make it. There is therefore a risk that as Departments perform an audit, or as the National Archives help with that process, additional laws will be found. There must be a risk that some will be missed altogether. If that is so, again as you have heard, the consequence of the Bill is that the law will fall away altogether on the sunset date, and you will not have the option of making a correction. Ministers, if they wanted to, would have to come back to Parliament with a Bill to replace or change the law. That is the complexity of the exercise.

[Mr Fysh]

Q I am very much in favour of injecting urgency into the process of transition from one order to the other, as you have described, and I am well aware of the complexity involved in that, which is one of the reasons why I have been making the argument for taskforces that involve more than just civil servants and Ministers in the process. I encourage Ministers to get very good advice from outside—from practitioners, and so on.

I have two questions. First, how else could you inject such urgency to get this done quickly, other than through what has been proposed? Secondly, we have heard a lot about the permanence of the falling away—this is your contention—of the laws because of the sunset, but is it not the case that in various clauses, such as clause 2(1), and clauses 12 and 13, there are powers for a restatement or reproduction of different things up until 2026 should it become necessary? Is that not an adequate safeguard mechanism should there turn out to be something that the taskforce approach, which should be very competent, has missed?

Dr Fox: On the latter point, yes—there is provision to extend the sunset through, as you say, to 2026, but that applies to the piece of retained EU law that you know about and are saving and assimilating, and that you will then have the option to amend later. The concern is that if you have not identified and saved it, it could fall away and you could then have that problem. There is also the prospect that you end up with a patchwork quilt of sunset dates, because it could be before 2026.

There are issues about at what point in that process, prior to December 2023, the Government would identify what they intend to do, either with the individual pieces of retained EU law or sections of retained EU law, which will introduce uncertainty. What we have proposed is to do that in a slightly different way: that is, take away the cliff edge where everything falls away—unless you choose to save it—and use Parliament as an ally in that process.

I completely understand the concern about internal inertia, particularly in the final two years of a Parliament and in these current socioeconomic conditions, where there are lots of capacity pressures. However, it seems to me that you could use Parliament as an ally by, instead of having cliff edge dates where legislation and law falls away, having dates in the process, possibly linked to your taskforces, where there are statutory reporting requirements to Parliament by Government Ministers and Departments and where Select Committees could be engaged in that process by scrutinising those reports.

You could set out what you want the Government to report on—what are their plans, what is their implementation timetable, what progress are they making, as with the EU withdrawal Act process for the statutory instrument programme; you could engage the National Audit Office in monitoring implementation of that; and you could have reporting. One of the things that wakes up permanent secretaries and others in the civil service is the possibility of having to appear before a departmental Select Committee and report on a lack of progress, or the fact that their plans are failing. Your model of taskforces to ensure consultation, coupled with statutory reporting requirements, through to a deadline of 2026 or 2028—whatever you choose—would be a better approach, because you could still achieve what you want to achieve but reduce the risk of missing something.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I have got a few more questions to get in before five minutes past. It was the first or second question, Marcus, which perhaps Sir Jonathan could answer, if you can remember it?

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[Mr Fysh]

It was whether there are in fact powers to bring back things that have been sunsetted, such as in clause 13.

Sir Jonathan Jones: The short answer is that the powers to extend and save do not work if an instrument has been missed altogether by the time you get to the sunset date.

[Mr Fysh]

Clause 13 is about the reproduction of sunsetted retained EU rights, powers and liabilities. Is that not—

Sir Jonathan Jones: I do not think it works if an instrument has been missed altogether.

[The Chair]

Thank you. David Jones, followed by Alex Sobel.

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[Stella Creasy]

Q In terms of my specific question, it seems we would be going down to 12 days. Could an employer challenge the right of an employee to take a bank holiday if the Government do not rewrite this piece of legislation?

Shantha David: I think it is worse than that, actually; we will not have the 20 days at all. We will have the eight days of bank holiday only if they are taken out of the current regulations, presumably, and put somewhere else. If the regulations go altogether, regulation 13A, which talks about the bank holidays, will go with them.

[Mr Fysh]

Q I am quite sure that the Government and their Ministers will be keen to ensure that the rights that people have enjoyed thus far are preserved. I cannot personally imagine a scenario in which they would not be careful about those things. I point out again that under clause 13(8), should anything inadvertently go that was not meant to go or have effects that were really bad, there is a power that could be used by a future Government to reproduce anything that was retained EU law in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. I just wanted to share my strong belief that that is not where the Government would go. I cannot speak for them, because I am not a member of the Government, but I would be amazed if there was anything different.

Shantha David: It would be helpful, though, if that were in writing. I am grateful for your words, but as a lawyer it would be helpful to have a full list of what is included. If that piece of legislation, say, is sunsetted and introduced at a later date, there will be workers who do not have access to those laws. That is a breach of access to justice as well.

[Mr Fysh]

That would be a strong incentive for the Government to get it right.

Shantha David: Indeed, but the timing is an issue. There is only just over a year to identify the pieces of legislation, and, as we mentioned, they are a tapestry of rights; we do not know where one right begins and another ends. I recommend the Employment Lawyers Association paper, which sets this out clearly.

[Mr Jones]

Q I imagine that you both have regular meetings with Ministers and senior Government officials. Is that correct?

Shantha David: I am a lawyer, so I do not necessarily.

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[The Chair]

Marcus Fysh has the final question.

[Mr Fysh]

Q Would you be willing to be part of a taskforce organised by Ministers to try to ensure that, in the replacement of the EU-derived law, the rights that are put in place by Ministers as a part of English common law or UK law are drafted in a way that will give you the comfort that you want? That would mean that they would not have to be litigated up and down through different courts because they would be clear enough and good enough for what we all want for our constituents and for your members?

Shantha David: We would be more than happy to help.

Tim Sharp: Absolutely; trade unions would want to engage in such a process. I am not sure that it would stave off the scenarios we see, as the exact meaning of different rights would still end up being litigated. Even in that scenario—great, we would love to have those conversations, as it is really crucial that workers’ voices are heard, but the Bill will still cause immense confusion and costs to business and workers.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much indeed for your evidence. We now move on to our next set of witnesses. We will slightly change the language and tone of proceedings, as we will be discussing the environment, which is an ever important issue.

Examination of Witnesses

Ruth Chambers, Dr Richard Benwell, David Bowles and Phoebe Clay gave evidence.