European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Ruth Cadbury and Kerry McCarthy

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who is very committed to protecting the environment and did an excellent job as a Minister. On a future day, we might consider a new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) that specifically deals with the governance gap. I hope that when we debate it we hear more from the Government about exactly how this agency will work, because at the moment it is only a vague proposition. It looks to be heading in the right direction, but I have a lot of questions about how it will work.

I shall speak to amendments 93, 94 and 95, and new clause 28, which stand in my name. The new clause covers similar ground to new clauses 60 and 67, on environmental principles, but I want first to speak to the amendments.

I am grateful to the Minister for thoroughly demolishing my arguments in advance of my having the chance to make them. It is not my intention to press the amendments to the vote, and I will reflect on what he said and consult with the lawyers I have been working with on the amendments, but I will outline my understanding of what the Bill means and what the amendments would improve.

The White Paper assured us that the Bill means that the whole body of existing EU environmental law will continue to have effect in UK law, and the Prime Minister promised us that the same rules and laws will apply on the day after exit as on the day before, but that is simply not the case, because the Bill does not properly capture and convert all EU environmental law into stand-alone domestic law.

There are legal obligations that will not be retained because they can be found only in EU directives and not in the domestic legislation that transposed those directives. Sometimes, that is because the directives have been incorrectly or incompletely transposed. There is also an issue in that the preambles to directives, which can be important in setting out their purpose and linking them with overarching legal principles and international obligations, will not have been transposed into UK law either, so they will not come over with the conversion.

Clause 4 may appear to deal with transposition but, as has been said, because of the inexplicable and unnecessary restrictions in subsection (1)(a) and (b), important aspects of environmental law would be lost. I was reassured to hear that the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield was struggling to get his head round some of the language in clause 4. He is a far more distinguished lawyer than I ever was, and I hope that between us all we can perhaps bring some clarity to it by the end of this process. I am sure that if we do not succeed in doing so here, those in the other place will have something to say.

The aspects of environmental law that could be lost include reporting and reviewing obligations that are crucial in ensuring that the law is complied with and up to date. Without reported data, for example, ClientEarth would not have been able to hold the Government to account on air pollution. We would also lose obligations on the Government to meet various energy performance targets.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the action that ClientEarth brought on expansion of Heathrow could not have been pursued, had the law been as the Government propose to amend it?

[Kerry McCarthy]

There are various different aspects to what right we will have to pursue court cases and judicial review once this law comes into effect. We discussed some of those when we talked about the role of the European Court of Justice, the governance gap and the fact that if breaches of the law are not enforced, monitored and measured, it can be very difficult to bring court cases as well.

There is real concern about how the Government are restricting legal aid for environmental judicial review cases. Community groups really rely on this law—it is not just for groups such as ClientEarth, which is well supported and has been able to take the Government to court on air pollution three times and has instigated other proceedings. There is also a real issue about what this means for local people who want to challenge the Government—we may cover that in a different debate.