Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, the Peel of our era.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I will not try the patience of the House any longer. My point is that, whether people are free traders or protectionists, surely they want to see VAT reformed. That was the great Brexit freedom opportunity, and we should be using our new freedoms to do it.

We need more ambition. I recognise that the Government intend to report every six months. I am pleased with amendment (b) to Lords amendment 16, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) with the support of the Government, and I particularly support amendment (a) to Lords amendment 16 in the name of the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, which will require the Government to specify at every reporting stage the laws that are going to be reformed or revoked. I support the case my hon. Friend made for having some kind of tsar or commander-in-chief to oversee the process of identifying the laws for reform or revocation. We need a good process here, but we have the right Bill with the right principles in it, and we can now fight out the proper vision for the future of our country.

[The Solicitor General]

What a great pleasure it is to follow the winding-up speech from the Back Benches by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger). I agree with him entirely. This has been a good-natured debate, both detailed and robust where it needed to be. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) that this debate is Parliament doing what it does best—as it often does, and often unseen. This has been a robust but grown-up debate, worthy of the subject matter.

I fear that I will not be able to go into detail for every Member who has spoken, but it is right and proper that I mention the speeches that have been made. I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) and for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). There is always a risk in such debates of a sort of lawyers’ love-in, but I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon for his kind remarks and for reminding us of the history of Solicitors General appearing at the Dispatch Box for other tricky bits of legislation—not to mention litigation.

I will come back to some of the detail, but in no particular order, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) for what he does in his Committee. He is right that, in many ways, his Committee and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) do similar things: detailed, painstaking and incredibly valuable work that is done unseen, upstairs in the Committee corridors. I am grateful to my Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough for his elucidation of that work.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), who served throughout the Bill Committee. He has been here from the beginning through to the end, and I am grateful for his dedication and persistence, and for his speech. I have mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, but I will come back to him in a few moments.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Devizes and for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), and my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who I will, of course, come back to in due course. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) for his remarks as a dedicated Brexiteer. I will, as I must, come back to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and try to engage with the points that he made.

Let me mention some of the interventions that were made. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—a former Secretary of State—made some pertinent and detailed interventions at the right moment. I thank him for his work as Secretary of State and for the continued work and thoughts that he feeds into His Majesty’s Government.

I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) for his interventions. When preparing for this debate, I re-read his Second Reading speech, which was rightly credited by both sides of the House as a simply magnificent speech in the circumstances. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, quite rightly paid tribute to him at the time, and I am sure that he would echo my comments.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) for serving on the Bill Committee. I mentioned that she and I have served on Bill Committees before, and I know that she undertakes her work diligently. Indeed, when she mentioned Bill Committees and Whips, I wondered whether she was putting in a bid to be a shadow—

[Stella Creasy]

indicated dissent.

[The Solicitor General]

She is shaking her head. Well, she is missing out, because she would enjoy it and do it well. She made an impassioned speech on why she believes that we should have remained in the EU. I want to pick her up on one point: she said that she wanted to know what laws were going to be revoked. Well, I invite her to join us in the Division Lobby, with the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, who tabled an amendment to insert:

“including specifying in a list such provisions of retained EU law as is intended to be revoked or reformed.”

The hon. Lady can join us in the Division Lobby this evening.

[Stella Creasy]

I am so sorry, but the Minister was not in the Chamber, so perhaps he misunderstood or something was lost in translation, as if often can be in this place. What I wanted to know was the direct effect cases, which is what amendment 6 would provide for. I agree with him—although I think that the list has little impact on any changes—but might he join me in voting for Lords amendment 6 to ensure that we know about everything affected by the legislation?

[The Solicitor General]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that I was in the Chamber for the entirety of her speech —from beginning to end. Indeed, even before she stood up and after she sat down, I was in the Chamber. The only speech that I missed was that of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who was representing the Liberal Democrats. I heard the first few words and the end, and I apologise to her for that. Other than that, I was in the Chamber for the entire debate.

My point remains that the hon. Member for Walthamstow said that she wanted to know what the Government’s intentions were for revocation. If she does, I invite her to support my hon. Friend the Member for Stone in the Aye Lobby later this evening. That would be quite a coupling, and I very much look forward to that moment.

Let me turn from my introductory remarks to some more of the substance. It is crucial that we continue to progress this Bill over the final hurdles to Royal Assent. The Bill is a key part of the Government’s ambition to reform our economy and to support growth. We must capitalise on the competitive advantages that the UK has, now that we are no longer restrained by membership of the EU. We must ask ourselves which regulations have worked, which further regulations can be scrapped, and which could be reformed.

May I turn to the criticisms levelled at the schedule? I enjoyed listening to the shadow Secretary of State’s speech—I always enjoy listening to him speak. I almost thought that he welcomed the schedule. Perhaps he will join the hon. Member for Walthamstow in the Government Division Lobby, but perhaps not because it was an almost welcome that he gave it. I take what I can from his speech and that was certainly a positive, if nothing else. I am grateful to him for his contribution to the debate. I assure colleagues that this is only part of our reform programme.

I will address some of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. He said that this was the perfect opportunity for reform, and it still is, not least thanks to him, his hard work and drive, and the dashboard that he has championed throughout. Thanks to that, it is not only Members in this House but people throughout the country and, if they are interested, across the world who will be able to look at regular updates on our retained EU law.

There has been some criticism and some mention of inertia and delay. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes mentioned Whitehall. The Attorney General has arrived at absolutely the right moment, because I would like to pay tribute to the Government Legal Department, to Government lawyers who have been poring over retained EU law. When my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset introduced the Bill, the explanatory notes estimated that there were some 2,400 pieces of retained EU law. But that was not so. Thanks to the diligence of civil servants, the Bill team and Government lawyers, more than double that number have been identified. The 600—the Light Brigade—are not the limit of the Government’s ambitions.

More reforms are planned. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam that this approach has the potential to lead to greater reform than might otherwise have been the case. Others have asked if this is a change in direction. No, it is not. It is a different way of doing the same thing, potentially with better and faster results. I believe that my right hon. and learned Friend was right, and I am grateful to him for his engagement in this debate.

[Sammy Wilson]

For those of us who supported Brexit, it is important that we are able to tailor our own laws to suit the circumstances of our own country. Can the Solicitor General tell me, however, how this situation is better for people in Northern Ireland? Given that we have been left in the position of being an annex to the EU, many of these changes do not apply.

[The Solicitor General]

I am very grateful indeed to the right hon. Gentleman for his engagement throughout the debate, not only today but previously. He and I have engaged on certain related, like-minded campaigns, and I pay tribute to him for the work he does in his constituency. I reassure him that the Bill’s provisions apply equally to all parts of the United Kingdom and that Northern Ireland Ministers will benefit from the same powers as Ministers of the Crown, not least thanks to amendments tabled in the other place.

As for the criticisms of the mechanisms of the statutory instruments that are being used, I wish those concerns about lack of scrutiny had been raised during our membership of the EU. Where were they? Where were the cries? Where were the complaints? They were simply absent.

[Sir William Cash]

Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?

[The Solicitor General]

I will, but it will be the last intervention that I take.

[Sir William Cash]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that under section 2, they all came in almost entirely? There was some primary legislation, but it was almost entirely done through statutory instrument, and against the background of the undemocratic process that took place at the Council of Ministers.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor General]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, for that point. I believe he has been a member of the Committee since 1985 and has chaired it for almost as long, but not quite. I served on his Committee, and he has seen thousands of regulations pass through, unseen apart from his work and that of his Committee. Once again, I pay tribute to him for that work.

In terms of environmental protections, I remind the House of the repeated commitments made by Ministers at all stages of the Bill’s passage. I pay tribute again to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) for his very clear interventions, amplifying so well the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset and made so powerfully by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford early on in her speech, with which I agree in its entirety. I will just touch on that point, and amplify it briefly: since leaving the European Union, this Government have passed the landmark Environment Act 2021. We have produced our 2023 environment implementation plan, our storm overflows discharge reduction plan, and our plan for water. There are other plans, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will not try your patience by reading out each and every one of them. [Hon. Members: “Go on!”] Well, only because I am being encouraged to, I will mention the Agriculture Act 2020 and—because the Attorney General is here—the Fisheries Act 2020. That will gladden her heart.

There it is: any accusation that Government Members are any less concerned about environmental protections than Opposition Members is totally false. Under the Environment Act, we are committed to deliver a legally binding target to halt nature’s decline by 2030. In reviewing its retained EU law, DEFRA’s aim is to ensure that environmental law is fit for purpose, able to drive improved environmental outcomes while ensuring regulators can deliver efficiently. That will ensure that the UK regulatory framework is appropriate and tailored for our needs in our country—in the United Kingdom. The Government have clear environmental and climate goals, which have been repeatedly set out. I could say the same in relation to workers’ rights, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Watford made the case so powerfully in his earlier intervention.

I will mention two more points before I close, the first of which relates to page 16 of the Bill. The port services regulations have been mentioned: that legislation has never been appropriate in the context of the United Kingdom’s decentralised and competitive ports sector. Removing the port services regulations from our statute book will reduce the bureaucracy in our ports sector, doing away with unnecessary reporting burdens.

[Sir William Cash]

Hear, hear!

[The Solicitor General]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend is “Hear, hear”-ing so loudly from the Back Benches.

I will now turn to interpretive effects and Lords amendment 6, and some of the concerns that have been raised. I take this opportunity to again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, who has ceaselessly campaigned to end what he calls the shadow statute book. The fact is that the amendment replaces the section of the Bill developed by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset—who introduced the Bill—whereby section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act will be repealed after 31 December this year. The matters saved by section 4 consist largely of retained rights, obligations and remedies developed in the case law, no less, of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the vast majority of those overlap with rights that we already have. Those overlaps can cause confusion and legal uncertainty, and I invite right hon. and hon. Members to join us in the Government Lobbies this evening.

I once again thank all Members for their contributions to the debate. This schedule is by no means the limit to our ambition for reforms of EU law: we have the power and we will continue to amend EU laws. It is imperative that we ensure this Bill reaches Royal Assent promptly; and as to the Government amendments, I commend them to the House.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 6.