EU Retained Law

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes, indeed. Putting the information online, and opening it up to people—including, of course, to Members of Parliament—will make it much clearer where the blockages, obstructions and difficulties are for businesses. Once we know where they are from the detail of the legislative instrument, it becomes much easier to remove them.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is increasingly clear that the right hon. Member’s ministerial title refers to the political opportunities that the Government see in reopening Brexit wounds as often as possible. His pointless statement today ignores the wishes of the British people, who want the Government to stop banging on about Brexit and start tackling the issues that they face in their daily life. It ignores the wishes of business, although we know what the Prime Minister’s view is of business—it is summed up in a four-letter expletive. Was not the Minister’s Cabinet colleague, the Environment Secretary, right when he said that “messing around” with retained law wastes officials’ time,

“costs businesses money and is unlikely to make much difference”?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As it happens, my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary has been extremely helpful in this process, so the hon. Gentleman should not believe everything he reads in second-tier publications. This is not about opening wounds. It is the Labour party that always wanted to oppose what the people had voted for. It thought its voters did not know what they were doing. It treats its electors with contempt and the results were reaped in December 2019. This is about getting the advantages from Brexit. This is about the agenda set out in the 2019 manifesto, but also in 2016 at the time of the referendum, of how we benefit from leaving the European Union. We do not now want slavishly to follow the diktats of the EU. That would be a way of losing all the advantages. This is the way of making the economy more efficient, getting supply-side reforms, and making goods and services cheaper.