Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. To ensure that the devolved Governments are also able to fully seize the benefits of Brexit, we are providing them with the tools to reform the retained EU law that is within their own devolved competence. That will give the devolved Governments greater flexibility to decide how they should regulate those areas currently governed by retained EU law. The majority of the powers in the Bill are conferred on the devolved Governments, which will enable them to take more active decisions about their citizens and their businesses. The devolved Governments will also have the ability to decide which retained EU law they wish to preserve and assimilate, and which they wish to let sunset within their devolved competences.

Since we left the EU, more powers have already been passed on to devolved Administrations, in areas such as farming, fishing and the environment. Under the Bill, these powers can continue to be there. The question is: why would they not enjoy that power to make sure that decisions are taken that best fit their communities? We have carefully considered how this Bill will have an impact on each of the four great nations and we recognise that it is of paramount importance that we continue to work together as one on important issues, including the environment.

As has been mentioned, we accept that some retained EU law in scope of the sunset is required to continue to operate our international obligations, including the trade and co-operation agreement, the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. Therefore, I am happy to make a commitment here today that the Government will, as a priority, take the action required to ensure that the necessary legislation is in place to uphold the UK’s international obligations. In the near future, we will set out where retained EU law is required. Obviously, as well as sharing things on the dashboard, we are working closely with officials in Northern Ireland.

One amendment relates to carving out devolved nations. This Bill must and should apply to all nations of the UK. The territorial scope of the Bill is UK-wide and it is therefore constitutionally appropriate that the sunset applies across all four sovereign nations of the UK. One of the Bill’s primary objectives is to end retained EU law as a legal category across the UK. Providing a carve-out for legislation that is within a devolved competence would severely impact the coherence of the UK statute book and legal certainty for our public and businesses.

I also commend my Cabinet colleagues who are already making gallant efforts to establish ambitious reform plans that will help to drive growth. We are already in the process of removing outdated retained EU law in financial services, through the Financial Services and Markets Bill, and we have already repealed other outdated rules, enabling us to capitalise on tax freedoms. For example, the Government have ended the tampon tax by removing VAT on women’s sanitary products. We have also been able to embrace other opportunities, such as on vaccines, freeports, gene editing, free trade agreements, EU budget payments, immigration control, fishing and even foreign policy on Ukraine. Outside the EU’s unwritten rules on solidarity in foreign policy, we were the first to send arms to defend Ukraine, ignoring German bans on such equipment. That is unlikely to have happened when we were in the EU.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

rose—

[Ms Ghani]

I will finish this point and then I will take some interventions. We also now have AUKUS, where we have signed a nuclear submarine deal with Australia, in opposition to France; we have new agricultural support schemes; and—this is one of my favourites—no MEPs means more democracy here.

[Ms Ghani]

It will indeed help the cockle industry. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said that it will be maintaining and enhancing when it comes to the environment, including our waters. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; this is just an enabling Bill. It is a process to enable Departments to review EU law to see what we can do to ensure that regulation best suits us here in the UK and that we are nimble for the sectors we want to promote. Some of the sectors we want to work fast and hard in are incredibly progressive and modern, and we cannot have law that is made for a much larger group of nations overseeing us here in the UK.

[Patrick Grady]

Is that not precisely the point: any Department, at any time, that identifies areas of retained EU law that it thinks need to be reformed can bring forward primary legislation—that is the point of parliamentary sovereignty—so that it can be properly scrutinised in this place? The Minister does not need the powers in this Bill. This House already has those powers—I thought that that was supposed to be the point of parliamentary sovereignty.

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[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is interesting to hear some Members go on about how retained EU law has a special status in UK law. It is only special because the UK says it is; for everyone else, it is just “the law”. Yes, it has been inherited from our time in the EU, but that was the point of incorporating it in the first place, and now it governs and regulates thousands of aspects of our daily lives, and, as we have heard from a number of Members, protects a great many of our hard-won rights and freedoms.

It is a contradiction to say that this Bill, particularly or uniquely, somehow asserts or reasserts parliamentary sovereignty. Every Bill passed in this House asserts parliamentary sovereignty, even for those of us who believe in popular sovereignty. That is the point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) said at the start of the debate a long time ago, there is not a single law, regulation or rule in the corpus of retained EU law that the Government, through this House, could not repeal, replace or reform at any time of their choosing through primary legislation.

In her opening speech, the Minister herself reeled off all the great Brexit Bills and Acts that Parliament has already passed. That proves the point that we do not need the powers in this Bill, and we certainly do not need the sunset clauses and cliff edges that it establishes. The Bill reveals contempt for parliamentary sovereignty—a massive power grab from this House and the devolved institutions, and unprecedented power placed in the hands of Ministers and the Whitehall mandarins who have simply stepped in to replace the Brussels bureaucrats so hated by the ERG and their Brexiteer friends.

If the Government genuinely believed in parliamentary sovereignty and the devolution settlement, they would accept the amendments tabled. They would pay particular attention to amendment 36, as everyone has remarked and several of their Back Benchers have signed. Many constituents in Glasgow North—in which, incidentally, 78% voted to remain in the European Union; I make no apology for standing up for their views—have told me that they believe the amendment will offer at least some degree of protection from the bonfire of rights and freedoms that this Bill represents.

The Government could admit that the game is up and that there is no prospect of seriously reviewing the thousands of regulations that make up EU retained law by the end of this year. They could accept SNP amendment 33 to drop the sunset clause altogether. At the very least, they could accept amendments 28 to 31, which would protect the powers of Scotland’s Parliament and Government to legislate in areas that were already supposed to be devolved under the terms of the Scotland Act. They say there is no power grab, but they have grabbed powers that should have come from Brussels directly to the Scottish Parliament.

But the Government will do none of those things. They will press ahead with the fantasy that this Bill is necessary in the first place, and that its aims are achievable within the timescale set out. It is perhaps ironic that in “Star Trek” there was an evil race called the Borg who would come to assimilate entire planets and civilisations into their collective consciousness. That is how the Brexiteers viewed the European Union. Now, it is the Government who want EU retained law to be renamed “assimilated law” on the statute book. Nothing else will change and the effect of the laws will be the same, but references to the hated European Union will have been purged. What a huge achievement.

Unlike the Borg or the UK Government, it is the EU laws that have protected and enhanced our liberties, freedoms and basic health and safety in these islands over the past 40 years. This Bill, and the Government’s refusal to accept any amendments this evening, expose the Government’s true agenda. By scrapping retained EU law, they want to create a race to the bottom, a buyer-beware, survival-of-the-fittest economy that pays minimal regard to democratic oversight and even less to the welfare of the poorest and most vulnerable. That was the Brexiteers’ agenda all along: stuff the consequences playing out in society and the economy all around us.

Once again, with a rather heavy dose of irony, it will fall to the unelected House of Lords to stand up for democracy and against the worst excesses of this Tory Government. The Government will come back after the Lords have dealt with this Bill with their tail between their legs, admitting that what they proposed was never viable in the first place. For people in Scotland, there is another option—a route out of this Tory madness and back into the partnership, community and mutual respect of the European Union. That is the popular sovereignty that comes with independence.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on his reference to “Star Trek” on Report. At least he referred to the amendments as well.

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[Patrick Grady]

The Minister would not take an intervention, but I think the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) is going to be pretty disappointed. I suspect it will, ironically, fall to the unelected House to look at the amendments that the Government rejected this evening and decide that perhaps they have a place in the Bill after all. At that point, the climbdown will have to begin and the Bill team, who no doubt have worked extremely hard, will have to work even harder, because they will have to find a compromise and a way to explain why everything the Minister said at the Dispatch Box about how necessary and workable this Bill is was completely and utterly incorrect. In reality, the Bill is totally unworkable and totally unnecessary.

The right hon. Member for North East Somerset and his Brexiteer friends wanted to take back control to this House. They wanted parliamentary sovereignty. This Bill does not assert parliamentary sovereignty; it hands it over to the Executive to pass thousands of laws, or to get rid of thousands of laws, by Executive diktat. That is not parliamentary sovereignty. The people in Scotland can see exactly what is happening, and it will not be long before they reclaim their popular sovereignty.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The calls that we have already heard to take action to support people on prepayment meters are echoed by more than 40 Members of both Houses on the all-party parliamentary group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency. They, too, are calling for a ban on forced installation of prepayment meters by court warrant and an end to unfair standing charges and price differentials. It is not good enough just to hear nice words from the Government; they have to require action from the energy suppliers.

[The Minister for Science, Research and Innovation (George Freeman)]

We agree that the most vulnerable consumers in this country should be protected. Those duties already lie with Ofgem. I shall repeat what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier: it is completely unacceptable that vulnerable patients leave hospital and find that they have been automatically disconnected. We are convening a roundtable meeting and my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister for Energy and Climate are putting pressure on Ofgem to make sure that vulnerable consumers are looked after.

Prepayment Meters: Self-Disconnection

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

May I say what a moving experience it was to be in the Chamber this morning for the commemoration of the holocaust?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). She is my constituency neighbour, and indeed my constituency MP, and she has done extremely well to secure this debate and in all her work on this important issue. I do not think there is anything wrong in principle with the concept of prepayment meters. There will always be consumers who find the ability to pay up front, instead of in arrears, helpful and convenient for a variety of different reasons. For some there will be a sense of security about their ability to budget, and to make sure that money is not spent on other things. There is perhaps a certain convenience, especially for those familiar with the technology, around digital prepayment where meters can be topped up from apps or by phone.

However, as my hon. Friend made clear, there is something fundamentally flawed about the way prepayment meter schemes work in this country, and as we have heard, the consequences are profoundly challenging. It has never been clear to me—I do not think it is clear to anyone in the Chamber—why there should be such a significant differential cost between prepayment meters and paying by direct debit. Although efforts have been made in recent years to align prices, there are still significant discrepancies. Citizens Advice has calculated that households who are moved to a prepayment meter this year alone will collectively spend £49.6 million more than they would have as direct debit customers over the coming winter. The excuses given by energy companies—that admin and infrastructure costs are higher—simply do not wash, especially with the arrival of smart meter and remote technology.

The much higher standing charge is particularly pernicious and unfair. My very limited experience of prepayment metering is relatively benign. Our campaign headquarters during the independence referendum campaign had a pay-as-you-go electric meter. In some respects that was helpful, because we did not need to worry about a bank account, and in theory we only paid for what we needed. However, on more than one occasion when we opened up the shop we found that the power was off because daily standing charges had eaten away at the credit, even though nobody had been in or used any power for several days. For us, that was a minor frustration and inconvenience, but for some of the most vulnerable in society, that represents a premium charge in already difficult and often heartbreaking situations.

Marie Curie’s “Dying in Poverty” report talks about situations where patients come home from hospital or a hospice to find the lights out, the heating off, or their meter in debt. People with terminal conditions, rushed perhaps at short notice to A and E, are unlikely to be thinking immediately about topping up their gas or electric meters, and if an extended stay leads to credit running down, they could return to a cold or dark property without immediate options to fix it. Marie Curie’s research also shows that a terminal diagnosis can lead to a 75% increase in energy bills. I have spoken in this place before about my very close friends Mel and Tom. Mel has very late stage cancer, and she explained some of the difficulties they are facing to Marie Curie:

“I live in the Highlands of Scotland, which is a colder climate and as soon as my bones get cold, they hurt. It’s very painful. We have to keep the house warm, but with the energy prices going up, we can’t do that.”

For customers like Mel and Tom who are on prepayment meters, the costs are already higher than they are for other customers. They already face high costs compared with those who can pay by direct debit, and those costs are rising as a result of overall market increases in prices. Overall usage is going up because of the particularly cold snap, and then usage is increasing again because keeping the house warm is literally a medical requirement. I think that counts as a quintuple-whammy, and it is all down to factors outwith their control. The Government and the Minister should listen to Marie Curie’s calls for all terminally ill people, regardless of age, to be eligible for support from the winter fuel payment and the warm home discount scheme.

[Anne McLaughlin]

My hon. Friend directed me to the story of the couple he mentioned. One of the most moving things to read was that, on top of needing to keep everything warm, all Mel wants to do is provide memories for her little boy—positive, happy family memories. She said that she cannot even begin to do that because she is too busy trying to keep on top of the energy bills. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is one of the hardest things for any parent to bear?

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, absolutely, and I recommend that everyone in the House reads that report, and not just that testimony, but testimonies from other people across the country. The point Mel made is that they are not unique. That situation is repeated up and down the country, and all of us will have such cases in our inbox. My hon. Friend mentioned Scope’s research, which found that 50% of disabled people who are on prepayment meters say they are forced to ration energy usage so that they do not lose supply, 26% are going off supply in order to save money, and 14% went off supply because they were not physically able to top up their meters due to their impairment. That is disgraceful behaviour on the part of energy companies—cutting people off because they physically cannot access their prepayment meters. Citizens Advice has documented similar cases. The increasing practice among energy companies of using smart meter technology to force people on to prepayment meters is particularly concerning, especially when they are using it as a means of avoiding the requirement for a warrant to enter people’s homes.

I echo Citizens Advice’s call for a moratorium on all forced switches to prepayment meters until at least April 2023. That chimes with the calls in my hon. Friend’s motion, in her ten-minute rule Bill and in other ten-minute rule Bills and motions that have been brought before the House. The Government have been using sitting Fridays in this Session to put a lot of very worthy legislation through the House, so there is no reason why they could not find a way to prioritise my hon. Friend’s Bill and offer some security to those who face fuel poverty or disconnection this winter.

The Government must work with and, if necessary, proactively regulate the energy companies to ensure that prices are aligned. Nobody should pay a premium just because of the type of meter or payment method they use, and especially not those who can least afford it.

[Rachael Maskell]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government really need to talk to directors of public health? We are seeing a real spike in respiratory syncytial virus among children and babies, and in community-acquired pneumonia and flu. People in cold conditions are often the most susceptible to illness. To prevent a further crisis in the NHS, it is therefore really important that preventive measures be put in place so that people are not cold and living in damp housing.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The case studies that we have highlighted show that this is a health issue: it is about people’s health and wellbeing. It is not about some sort of privilege or nice thing to have.

If people’s body temperature is not allowed to remain stable and they are not kept warm, the costs will ultimately be passed on to the NHS. Like a lot of interventions and preventive measures, this is going to have to be paid for somehow, so it should be paid for in a way that keeps people well, comfortable and cared for in their own home. Otherwise, the costs will be passed on via the interventions that come through the NHS. The energy companies need to realise that and step up their response. They are getting money up front from prepaying customers, and presumably they earn interest on money going into their bank account before the energy has been consumed, so you would think it would be in their interest to make prices fair across the board.

If the Government will not regulate the energy companies and the prices that people have to pay, they should devolve the powers so that Scotland’s Parliament can step up and step in. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East says, we are talking about energy-rich Scotland, where people living in fuel poverty look out their windows and see cheap, renewable, clean wind turbines on the horizon—energy-rich Scotland, where the average energy costs are higher than in the other parts of the UK and the use of prepayment meters is disproportionately higher. Energy-rich Scotland, as we all like to say on the SNP Benches, has the energy but does not yet have the power. As with so many issues, if the UK Government will not act, people in Scotland will ultimately decide to take power into their own hands through independence.

COP27

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

The President of the European Commission described the COP27 deal as

“a small step towards climate justice”.

The Scottish Government established a climate justice fund back in 2012. Now that the Secretary of State is sitting next to the Minister, can she confirm whether the UK Government understand and accept the consequences and concept of climate justice?

[Ms Ghani]

The UK Government absolutely understand, which is why we were leading the charge in Glasgow at COP26 and continued to do so at COP27. That is why the President of COP26 had the confidence to deal with the negotiations as they were. We knew that 1.5° was going to be tricky; it is an international negotiation. Considering the international players that were involved, we are in a good place, but we need to move forward. The hon. Member also mentioned the funding that was negotiated just yesterday morning, which is on top of the £11.6 billion. I am not sure it took an intervention by his party; it was a result of international negotiations that have been taking place at COP.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have the Bill in front of me. It states that it is presented to the House by “Mr Secretary Rees-Mogg”, but the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) is sitting on the Back Benches. Can you explain to the House how on earth we can possibly proceed with what was essentially a vanity project for that particular individual? Would it not be better for him to try his luck with a 10-minute rule Bill, or in the private Members’ Bill ballot?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman gets the prize for making the best point of order of the day, and possibly of the month or Session. His observation about what is printed in the Bill is correct, as is his observation that the right hon. Gentleman to whom he refers is sitting in his previous customary place on the Back Benches. At the point the Bill was printed, the Secretary of State was the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), but government is seamless. The name of the right hon. Gentleman, then Secretary of State, being on the Bill is of historical importance, but of no constitutional importance today. Other Ministers are now ready to speak at the Dispatch Box representing the Government, and all Government Ministers are Ministers—[Interruption.] I hear a sedentary interruption from somewhere of “for now”, but that is exactly my point: individuals are transient; government is permanent—[Interruption.] Permanent during the space of one Parliament. As we are in that same Parliament, the personal position of the right hon. Member for North East Somerset is, I am sorry to tell him, irrelevant for the moment. I call the Minister, who last week was a new Minister and is now a seasoned Minister, to move Second Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dean Russell]

I will not take many more interventions. I will continue for a short while.

Prior to 31 December 2023, the Government will determine which instruments should be preserved, which should be reformed and which should be revoked. I commend colleagues from across all Departments for their gallant efforts in establishing ambitious reform plans that will help to drive growth. We are already in the process of removing outdated retained EU law in financial services through the Financial Services and Markets Bill and have already repealed outdated rules, which has enabled us to capitalise on tax freedoms.

[Patrick Grady]

I thank the Minister for giving way. He is making the case for the constitutional importance of the Bill. As I asked him in Westminster Hall last week, will he not accept that the timetable proposed by the Government in the programme motion is wholly inadequate for the scrutiny of a Bill of such constitutional importance? If he will not commit the Bill to a Committee of the whole House, can he at least guarantee that we will have longer than a day on Report, so that it can receive the scrutiny it really deserves?

[Dean Russell]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments and for taking part in the debate last week. To be honest, we would have had more time today to debate if we had not played silly games earlier with votes and points of order, although I accept that they were important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has made an excellent point. The ability of the House to get through its business is exceptionally good, and it is able to do so in an orderly way, as my right hon. Friend showed in dealing with the no-deal Brexit legislation.

[Patrick Grady]

Given his commitment to scrutiny by the House, the right hon. Gentleman, who said that he was involved in drafting of the Bill, must have had sight of the draft programme motion as well. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which created retained EU law, was given eight days of scrutiny on the Floor of the House in Committee, and two days on Report. Does he really think that the time the Government are providing for scrutiny of this Bill is sufficient?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There is always a discussion to be had about whether a few days in a Committee of the whole House or upstairs in Committee provides better scrutiny. People sometimes reach different conclusions on that, but there will be a proper opportunity for a Committee stage upstairs, and I think that is perfectly reasonable.

I want to go back to the fundamental point about the supremacy issue. Let me reiterate that anyone who opposes the Bill is in fact re-fighting the Brexit battle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

Some 78% of voters in Glasgow North voted to remain in the European Union in 2016, but now in this Bill they find out what “Brexit means Brexit” really means: not just moving away from European directives and regulations, but an attempt to literally erase from history the fact that the UK statute book was ever influenced by them at all. It was this Government who invented the concept of retained EU law with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and now they want to abolish it.

I was going to say that the former Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), like some even more terrifying version of the Borg queen from “Star Trek”, would decide which regulations would become assimilated and which would be ejected into the cold vacuum of space, but he has ejected himself to the cold vacuum of the Conservative Back Benches.

The rejections being imposed by the Government start with the core principles of European law: the equality principle and the protection of fundamental rights. That is what Brexit really means in the minds of the hard Brexiteers: getting rid of all the protections that have improved the safety and wellbeing of people and nature, and putting the drive for profit, externalising responsibilities and the race to the bottom back at the heart of trade and the economy.

Can the Minister name a single stakeholder, even among the former Secretary of State’s friends in the City of London, who genuinely think this Bill is a sensible, pragmatic approach to reforming retained EU law? As we have heard from Members across the House, there is a list as lang’s my arm of groups and organisations who think it is the precise opposite. They call it dangerous, a cliff edge, a power grab and more. Workers’ rights, environmental rights, consumer protections, health and safety standards, the Northern Ireland protocol, the devolution settlement and the building blocks of parliamentary scrutiny and democracy are all at risk from the provisions of the Bill. Yes, there are suggestions from some of the stakeholders for reform, amendments or changes, but the overwhelming consensus is that the Bill should be stopped and scrapped outright.

In Westminster Hall last Wednesday and in the debate today, Ministers have been unable to give a coherent or compelling reason as to why the provisions of the Bill are necessary at all. If Parliament genuinely is sovereign, and if we really have taken back control as a result of Brexit, surely the approach to retained EU law should be the same as to the rest of the statute book: propose policies, engage with our constituents, consult stakeholders and then legislate as necessary through the usual processes of political debate and deliberation in Parliament— but no.

The irony is that the Bill was proposed by a Secretary of State who carved out a role for himself as a defender of Back Benchers, the rights of the House and parliamentary sovereignty, and now from the Back Benches he cheerleads a power grab of unprecedented proportions, even in a world where unprecedented events seem to be taking place on a daily basis. The Brexiteers’ logic was that the EU had become all-consuming and stood in the way of this Parliament’s freedom to consider and legislate for the allegedly unique challenges facing the United Kingdom. Faceless Brussels bureaucrats and unaccountable commissioners were standing in the way of hallowed British parliamentary sovereignty, but now faceless Whitehall mandarins and out-of-touch Tory Ministers will essentially be given all the powers that were once held by the whole suite of EU institutions—its Executive, its legislature and its courts. All those processes will be wrapped up into this one piece of legislation.

That is to say nothing of the total disrespect being shown by the Government to the devolved legislatures on these islands. Tory Ministers sometimes like to ask Members from Scotland to name one devolved power that is being taken back by Westminster after Brexit, and now we know the answer: pretty much all of them. Anything previously regulated by retained EU law can be changed across the whole of the UK at the stroke of a ministerial pen, even if it is in a devolved area. The whole edifice of devolution is being undermined faster than you can say “Sewel convention.” That is particularly important because the Scottish Government have committed to remaining aligned with EU regulation wherever possible.

Alignment makes trade in goods and services easier and more beneficial to all. It will also make the process of Scotland rejoining the European Union as an independent country that much more straightforward, so perhaps it is not surprising that the UK Government want to ensure that as much of the UK diverges as much and as quickly as possible from the EU acquis.

If that was not bad enough, as I have said in interventions, we need to look at how the Bill is being scrutinised. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which created retained EU law, was scrutinised for two days on Second Reading, eight full days in Committee on the Floor of the House, a further two days on Report and then two rounds of ping-pong with their lordships’ House. But this Bill is getting whatever time we have been able to squeeze in before 7 pm today, with a bog-standard programme motion kicking it upstairs to a Committee full of hand-picked Government loyalists to rubber-stamp. A Bill of such constitutional significance should have been debated in a Committee of the whole House, and the Minister and his former boss, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset, know that. I hope that Ministers can commit to a supplementary programme motion for a Report stage that allows proper time for debate and for amendments to be discussed by the House as a whole.

As many hon. Members have said today, this Bill is not about efficiency; it is about ideology—the ideology of a Secretary of State who has now returned to the Back Benches. In reality, as hon. Members have also said, the Government will have to come crawling back to the House, either through the statutory instrument provisions or perhaps even with primary legislation, because what is proposed in the Bill will simply prove unworkable. It is not possible or necessary—let alone safe or secure—to sunset thousands of regulations at the end of next year.

As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and other hon. Members have said, there will have to be extensions, whether to the next arbitrary date of 2026, or perhaps a broader kind of continuation, much like what was established under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act in the first place. In the meantime, there will be uncertainty, confusion and a further erosion of any pretence of democratic scrutiny and accountability in the House. In among the Westminster chaos, people in Glasgow North and across Scotland can see what is happening, and they want no part of it. Their chance for a different kind of repeal Bill—the repeal of the Act of Union 1707—is coming very soon.

Scottish Devolution Settlement: Retained EU Law

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray, and to welcome the Minister to his post. He will be missed from the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, which he has chaired so ably for the past few months or more. It is a pity he is not enjoying the solidarity of his colleagues from the Scottish Conservatives, who might have wanted to show an interest in this issue, stand up to defend the Government and extol the virtues of Brexit, which so few people in Scotland supported—but, apparently, there is no sign of them.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) on securing the debate. It is particularly important, given the chaos engulfing the Conservative Government and Westminster more generally right now, that we take this opportunity to shine a spotlight on an issue that might risk going under the radar. Perhaps that is what the Government—and particularly the Secretary of State—are hoping for: to dress it up as a relatively technocratic, legalistic reform of the statute book and hope that nobody pays too much attention.

However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute has said, many stakeholders—not just those who might be dismissed as part of the anti-growth coalition, which now appears to include the President of the United States and the Chancellor—and a whole range of financial services are particularly concerned about the impact of so much regulation simply dropping off the statute book without any clear mechanism for its being replaced. As we have heard, it is not a technocratic, legalistic reform of the statute book. The Government’s proposals to reform retained EU law represent an Executive power grab on a colossal scale: a power grab from Parliament, from the devolved legislatures—particularly Scotland—and a complete mockery of the claims that Brexit was ever about the House of Commons taking back control of anything.

The concept of EU retained law was created by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Members might recall that the vast majority of MPs from Scotland took quite a bit of exception to that Bill when it was progressing through the House. I looked back at Hansard and, although the Minister will not remember because he was not here at the time, the House was detained on multiple points of order on 12 June 2018, when the Government railroaded through amendments to the Bill that undermined the powers of the Scottish Parliament. The next day, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) led the majority of Scotland’s MPs out of the Chamber during Prime Minister’s Questions in protest at the power grab that had been enacted.

The precariousness of the Government’s position during the 2017-19 Parliament meant that they were forced to make certain concessions in passing the Act, including the establishment of the European Statutory Instruments Committee, which made a nod in the direction of enhanced parliamentary scrutiny. In reality, the EUWA itself represented a significant power grab, with the UK Government taking on powers over legislation that would otherwise have been subject to scrutiny across the EU institutions by our representatives in the European Parliament, and by this Parliament and the devolved legislatures. That is why the Act also enacted a significant undermining of the devolution settlement by reserving powers for Westminster that should otherwise have been devolved to Scotland and the other devolved institutions as the UK left the European Union.

Of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute said, Scotland never voted to leave the European Union in the first place. The blatant disregard shown by the UK Government of the differential in results across these islands, their unwillingness to compromise on issues such as membership of the single market, instead rushing headlong into the hardest of Brexits that nobody could have had evidence to vote for and did not represent what had been proposed by several of the Leave campaigns; all of that demonstrated a contempt for devolution and any notion of a respect agenda.

Now, having invented the concept of retained EU law, the UK Government want to abolish it. They want to introduce a concept of assimilated law, which to the “Star Trek” fans among us will probably have a particularly sinister overtone—the legislative distinctiveness will be added to our own, as the Borg queen may or may not say. They think that by introducing this concept they can erase the legacy of the UK’s time in the EU. Of course, it is not by some strange doublethink that they want to erase the legacy of EU membership: they literally want to sunset every provision accumulated over the past 50 years if it is not reviewed or retained by the end of next year. Never mind that we do not know who the Prime Minister will be at the end of next week, or that the House has sat for little more than four weeks since July; the Government seem to expect us to believe that they can effectively and efficiently revise and update this entire corpus of law in less than 12 months.

They do not pretend that there will be much of a role for this House. As my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute said, they want to create massive powers to railroad through statutory instruments and other secondary legislation, or let retained EU regulations drop off of the statute book completely. Never mind if they provide fundamental protection for workers’ rights, food standards or the natural environment across all of these islands; the arbitrary deadline from the Secretary of State cannot be met, so off they will go, without any consideration of the consequences for businesses or organisations that are trying to operate or trade in a legislative vacuum. The Secretary of State was previously the Minister for Government efficiency, but this is not efficiency: this is ideology.

That brings us to the specific impact on Scotland and the other devolved administrations. The Northern Ireland Assembly is barely functioning, so it has practically no path of resistance or opposition to this. Sensible voices are already calling for the expansion of the capacity and powers of Senedd Cymru, but the Tories seem determined to stand in the way. That leaves Scotland; because Scotland already has the greatest degree of devolution on these islands, it faces the biggest power grab of all from the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute said, the UK Government asserted primacy over a whole suite of policy areas that were previously understood to be devolved. All of the concerns about the capacity and time available for scrutiny in this place apply equally to Scotland’s Parliament. The Scottish Government already have their work cut out trying to mitigate the most devastating impacts of Tory economic and social policies in Scotland, and now they need to find time and space to deal with everything coming down or coming up the road in this Bill.

The Scottish Government have committed to remaining aligned with European Union regulation wherever possible. Alignment makes trade in goods and services easier and more beneficial for all. It will also make the process of Scotland rejoining the European Union as an independent country much more straightforward. Perhaps it is not surprising that the UK Government want to ensure that as much of the UK as possible diverges as much as possible from the EU acquis as quickly as possible.

Surely the whole point of Brexit freedom, if that is what the Government think this is, should be to identify naturally and organically where reform of retained law was needed, through the usual processes of engagement with our constituents, consultation with stakeholders and the small matter of political debate and deliberation in Parliament. Instead, what we see exposed is the ideological determination of this Government to erase the UK’s membership of the EU from history, irrespective of the outcomes.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute that the Second Reading of the Bill might take place as early as next week. Will the Minister tell us whether it is the Government’s intention to commit that Bill to a Public Bill Committee for scrutiny, or whether, like the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, it will be committed to the whole House for scrutiny? That Act received eight days of scrutiny in a Committee of the whole House and two days on Report, because the Government recognised its constitutional significance.

If this Bill is as significant as the Government try to claim, it should be subject to the scrutiny of the whole House through all its stages. In reality, I do not think that is what the Government are interested in. The explanatory notes are always a riveting read, and I pay tribute to the civil servants who pull them together for the benefit of those of us trying to get our head round the legislation. The explanatory notes say it all. Paragraph 28 says:

“There is no definitive list of general principles recognised in the Court of Justice of the European Union case law, but examples include the protection of fundamental rights, and the equality principle.”

Paragraph 30 says:

“This Bill abolishes these general principles in UK law by the end of 2023, so that they no longer influence the interpretation of legislation on the UK statute book.”

That is the abolition of fundamental rights and the abolition of the equality principle. Brexit really does mean Brexit after all.

Among the Westminster chaos, the people of Scotland can see what is happening and want no part of it. Their chance for a different kind of repeal Bill—repeal of the Act of Union 1707—is coming very soon indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dean Russell]

Thank you.

The Bill will abolish the constitutional and outdated special status that retained EU law currently has on our statute book by 31 December 2023. It will empower the UK and devolved Governments to amend, repeal and replace their retained EU law more quickly. It will also include a sunset date by which all remaining retained EU law will either be repealed or, if a decision is made to keep it, stripped of interpretive provisions associated with retained EU law, and assimilated. I noted the comment of the hon. Member for Glasgow North, being a fellow “Star Trek” fan; although I disagree with his analogy, I understood the concept of the Borg, which probably has not been mentioned in Parliament very often. The key point is that any retained EU law that we keep will be assimilated into domestic law.

The Bill will enable the Government and, where appropriate, the devolved Governments to take back control of the UK statute book. The powers in the Bill will enable swift reform of the laws—more than 2,500 in total—derived from the UK’s membership of the EU. Many of those laws are outdated; some are even inoperable or not fit for the UK’s economic circumstances. That is why reform is needed.

Without the Bill, there is a risk that retained EU law becomes an immutable category of law on the statute book. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 preserved EU laws as if they had effect in domestic law immediately before the end of the transition period following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. It is manifestly sensible that we all have the power to repeal or reform those laws and that we do so without delay.

[Patrick Grady]

Surely the point is that if this Parliament has regained sovereignty, in the way that the Brexiteers claimed it has, it has that power and can do it on a case-by-case, piece-by-piece basis, as people come forward with allegedly sensible improvements to the retained EU law. Having the end of next year as a sunset clause is just completely arbitrary; it is not necessary. The whole point of the Brexit case, as I understood it, was that this Parliament could take its time and assert its sovereignty, and change these hangover regulations as and when it saw fit, and not with an arbitrary sunset clause.

[Dean Russell]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments, but no—we need to make sure that there is certainty on this issue. Having that date is absolutely essential to make sure that we are working towards it and ensuring that there is commonality in the way we work across these regulations and laws. Ultimately, however, this is what the British people—people across the United Kingdom—voted for. I appreciate that saying that may open up a whole load of new interventions, so I will hesitate to go down that rabbit hole.

This Bill will provide both the UK Government and the devolved Governments with the powers to amend, repeal and replace these laws more quickly and more easily than before. It will enable the devolved Governments to establish a more nimble, innovative and UK-specific regulatory approach, in order to go further and faster to seize the opportunities of Brexit.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute mentioned devolved Governments quite a few times and I understand the reasons for that. I just want to make it absolutely clear, and I will reiterate this because it is so important, that the decisions for those in devolved Governments to make—the choice to preserve, amend or repeal retained EU law in their areas—are theirs to make. I will come on to this again a bit later in my comments.

The measures in the Bill are UK-wide. This will ensure that citizens and businesses across all four nations of the UK are able to realise the benefits of Brexit. Nothing in our proposed legislation affects the devolution settlements. The proposed legislation will not restrict the competence of either the devolved legislatures or the devolved Governments. In fact, the powers in the Bill will give the devolved Governments greater flexibility to decide how they should regulate those areas that are currently governed by retained EU law in the future.

Energy Prices Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to new clause 1, tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends from the city of Glasgow. In doing so, I also express my support for all the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), in particular manuscript new clause 18. I know that he will wish to press amendment 16 on the off-gas grid, which impacts constituents in the Gartloch area of my constituency.

For those of us who have the privilege of being Glaswegian, or at the very least adopted Glaswegians, arguably nothing symbolises home much more than the sandstone tenements which line our high streets and housing estates. Of course, they are not unique to Glasgow; tenements can be found in Liverpool as well as in Scotland’s lesser city of Edinburgh. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) even took me to see some tenements on Barrow Island last year. Let it never be said that she does not know how to organise a good date night, Mr Evans.

There is a serious point to all that and one that is particularly pertinent to Scotland in the context of both housing and energy policy. Nearly a fifth of all our housing stock is pre-1919—that is, 467,000 homes—and 68% of those have disrepair to critical elements. Furthermore, 36% have critical and urgent repair needs. The nature of these buildings is that they are incredibly expensive to heat. Without question they are genuinely beautiful, with their high ceilings and large bay windows, but they are constructed from sandstone with little to no cavity wall insulation.

It is welcome that the Government have introduced the Energy Prices Bill. Indeed, I always had faith that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy would come round to our view that strong and regular state intervention was the way forward, but I am concerned that the Bill is only part of the solution to the energy crisis for tenement dwellers, as well as housing associations.

Back in 2019, a report was commissioned by the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations, which campaigns on behalf of community controlled housing groups. It warned of the “ticking time-bomb” of such properties. It has been estimated that the cost of restoring more than 46,000 tenement flats in Glasgow that were built pre-1919 and are deemed to be dangerous could hit £2.9 billion. I know that my local housing association, and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), certainly do not have that in their reserves.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

I thank my hon. Friend for tabling the new clause. He is absolutely right about the concerns of housing associations. The cost of energy going up may mean that many of their tenants in the tenements do not want to put on the heating this winter. That is bad not only for the residents, who are our primary concern, but for the housing stock, particularly older tenemental properties. It will simply increase the future costs if those buildings become more mouldy and damp and suffer all the other effects that inclement weather can have on such structures. It is all the more important that such amendments are taken forward so that housing associations in particular can invest in energy efficiency measures to support their struggling tenants.

[David Linden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to put that on the record, and ng homes in his constituency, for example, will be glad that he has.

For my constituents living in Tollcross Road, Westmuir Street or Shettleston Road, living in those historic and iconic buildings comes at a cost, especially in the winter when energy consumption is higher. We all surely agree that installing solar panels and electric car charging points in homes is a good way to combat the climate and nature emergency and to make energy consumption cheaper and more sustainable. For those in tenement properties, however, that is near-impossible, which is why my new clause 1 seeks some form of additional support for these unique properties. We all agree that retrofitting properties can be helpful for energy efficiency, but in reality we will have to incentivise owners and housing associations to do that for tenements.

Shale Gas Extraction

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. I think hydrogen is ultimately the silver bullet. We create it from renewable sources, because we have the wind power when people are not drawing on the electricity system; we use it as an effective battery and it can then, with some adjustments, be piped through to people’s houses to heat them during the winter. There are real opportunities with hydrogen—[Interruption.] We get some heckling from those on the socialist Front Bench, but I point out that everyone accepts that gas is a transition fuel. To get to where the hon. Gentleman wisely wishes us to go, we need more natural gas as the transition fuel, but he is right. I do not know that I can promise a visit in the short term, but in principle I would love to come, and my Ministers are like greyhounds in the slips waiting to get up to his constituency.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

People in Glasgow North do not want to see fracking anywhere on these islands, so ending what was in effect a UK-wide moratorium on fracking does not exactly speak to strengthening the Union. My constituents would like to know whether the Business Secretary actually believes that we face an anthropogenic climate emergency and, if so, how on earth a rush to fracking-sourced fossil fuels helps to meet the climate and emission reduction targets we have committed to.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) pointed out, using our own resources emits less carbon than importing gas. Therefore, if the hon. Gentleman actually believes what he has just said, he should be supporting this policy.

Energy Prices: Support for Business

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The degree of certainty that is being offered is greater than in a normal year. We are saying that what will happen will be announced after the three-month review has taken place, in plenty of time for 1 April. Normally, local authorities are dependent on the vicissitudes of the market.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

Bars, butchers and other small businesses I have spoken to in Glasgow North are already operating on the tightest of margins. If they go out of business, that has a knock-on effect across the local economy, so the poverty rate spirals up rather than wealth trickling down. What assurances can the Secretary of State give these businesses, rather than simply pushing the cliff edge further down the road?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think we have given a very substantial assurance this morning.

Energy Update

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The Government have provided enormous levels of support for exactly those kinds of businesses. The hospitality sector was a strong recipient of Government support during the pandemic. The hon. Gentleman is right to point to the £37 billion of support to consumers so far this year. He will not have to wait long to hear what the Government will be doing, but I ask him to judge the Government on their excellent track record in this space—in supporting businesses, particularly in the last few years. As I say, he will not have to wait too long to see further measures.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

Housing associations that I have spoken to in Glasgow North are, first and foremost, concerned about the wellbeing of their tenants who cannot afford to heat their homes this winter, but leaving the heating off is also bad for the housing stock: damp and mouldy houses will be bad for future generations and will cost more to repair in the long run. Does the Minister understand that as well as a price freeze now, we need a long-term preventive approach to energy security, efficiency and insulation?

[Greg Hands]

That is one of the reasons we are investing £6.6 billion over this Parliament in energy-efficiency measures, which will include the ECO4—energy company obligation—measures that we debated in this House in July. We will have to see what energy-efficiency measures may be forthcoming from the Prime Minister in the coming days.