Legislating for UK Withdrawal from the EU

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I will pass on my hon. Friend’s assessment of the legislation, but I will reinforce the point I have already made, which is that at the end of the day the aim of this Bill is to bring decisions back to this House.

[Dame Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that he wants the maximum scrutiny of legislation over the next few years, but given the sheer volume of particularly delegated legislation that he has outlined, does he think it is really feasible to reduce the number of MPs by 50?

[Mr Davis]

That question is stratospherically above my pay grade, but let me pick up the underpinning point about the volume of legislation. We are bringing a large amount of the legislation straight into UK law without change. The reason for change and the use of statutory instruments is, as I said to the Labour spokesman earlier, that there will be technical amendments and issues that will come up. Separate to that there will be primary legislation—on immigration, customs and a variety of other areas. That is different, but the technical legislation will aim to make things practical, not to maintain great changes in policy, and this House should be well able to do that.