Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Mick Whitley and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Report stage
Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Less than 48 hours after we stood in this House to defend the right to strike, my hon. Friends and I find ourselves once more having to stand up to protect our constituents’ most basic rights. The right to holiday pay, working time regulations, data protection rights, and countless vital environmental and consumer protections have all been carried over from European law. These were not given to us as an act of benevolence by Brussels; they were hard fought for by trade unionists and activists working across Europe, and now they are all at risk as a result of the proposals that the Government have put to the House today.

In 2016, my constituents voted narrowly to leave the EU. They had many reasons for voting as they did, and I have always argued that their will should be respected, but not a single one of them voted for the kind of chaos that Ministers are preparing to let loose today. This is a colossal undertaking, far larger than the Minister seems to realise. The Government have failed to provide an exhaustive list of all the retained law that they are preparing to sweep from the statute books, but experts are warning that nearly 4,000 pieces of legislation could be affected. In order to make this act of legislative vandalism possible, the Secretary of State is proposing to give himself unprecedented powers to repeal and rewrite laws and regulations governing almost every aspect of our lives, with almost no scrutiny and with no guarantees as to what will replace them.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Industry bodies are currently concerned about the divergence of regulation, which is a divergence over time, because the UK is not keeping up. Will the Bill not make the exporting situation and the economic situation in the UK a lot worse?

[Mick Whitley]

The hon. Member has made a good point. There is no doubt that this will cause an absolute divergence.

It is ironic that a party that has so often argued that power should reside in this House and not in Brussels, or even in the democratically elected Parliament of Scotland and the Welsh Senedd, is now attempting to cut MPs out of the legislative process entirely. The Bill represents a power grab on the part of the Executive of a kind almost unheard of in a parliamentary democracy. That is why I am so grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) for tabling amendment 36. It guarantees Members of this House their right to oversee what will undoubtedly be an extraordinarily complex and lengthy process, and it reaffirms a principle that is so fundamental to this country’s constitution: that laws should be made in this House in the full view of the public, and not cooked up by Ministers using obscure parliamentary procedure.

I have listened closely to the arguments advanced by Conservative Members, and I have yet to hear a single convincing case for why the Government should proceed with this Bill. For many of my constituents, every day is a struggle. They desperately need to see action to boost wages, tackle the scourge of fuel poverty, and support the NHS through the worst crisis in its long history. Instead, the Government are deciding to waste precious time and resources on this needless, reckless, and utterly ill-considered shake-up of the law. On this, as on so much else, this Government have their priorities all wrong.