Legislating for UK Withdrawal from the EU

Owen Smith Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is exactly right.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Notwithstanding the inevitable protest from the Secretary of State that he is always appearing before this House, the hallmark of his Government so far on this issue has been to avoid scrutiny and evade accountability. We now learn today that the great repeal Bill is actually going to be 1,000 statutory instruments, many of them not scrutinised properly in this place. How on earth can that be commensurate with taking back control and increasing the sovereignty of this Parliament?

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman continues with his habit of reading half of what we say and ignoring the other half when it suits him. One of the things I have said from the beginning of this process is that we will bring into British law all European law, including case law, except where there are significant—[Interruption.] This is what the Bill will do. It will of course require statutory instruments to modify technical aspects—[Interruption.] Well, up to 1,000, but we are talking about 40 years of law. I would be very interested to hear what he proposes we do about a law that refers to a European regulatory authority. Would he leave it that way, or maybe have a major debate on the matter? That does not strike me as very sensible. Material policy changes will be carried through in primary legislation and there will be a number of such Bills in the coming Parliament.