Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I rise to support these two statutory instruments. I will be brief because, although I intended to serve on the original Committee, I appreciate that I have not had a chance to give you a great deal of notice of my intention to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I pay tribute to our civil service and the officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who, on these regulations and many others, have done a sterling job in making sure that retained EU law is operable should we leave without an agreement at the end of this month. Over the past six months, I have seen at first hand the huge amount of work put in by DEFRA officials, working late at night, to ensure that we have such statutory instruments in place so that retained EU law is operable when we leave.

We often read media reports that we are not ready for a no-deal exit and that we could not possibly leave without an agreement, and on that basis Parliament decided last week to vote to say that we should not leave without a withdrawal agreement. My experience in the Department until quite recently is that a huge amount of work has been put in, and the civil service has made sure it is an option for us to leave without an agreement, should that be necessary and should Parliament have the courage to do so. Obviously, we will find out in the next couple of weeks whether, indeed, that is still necessary.

Both sets of regulations, in common with all statutory instruments tabled under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, make very minor changes simply to make existing retained EU law operable.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my fear that people working extremely hard very late at night to get through vast quantities of regulations might make some mistakes?

[George Eustice]

No, I do not. Having worked in DEFRA for five and a half years, I have tremendous admiration and respect for all those people. Although they work very hard through the night, somebody will mark and check their work the next day. That is how our civil service works, and it has made a sterling effort to make sure we have all these regulations in order.

As a general rule, almost every regulation of these two statutory instruments substitutes “Secretary of State” for “European Commission”. These regulations are not complicated but rather straightforward. We often hear a lot about so-called Henry VIII powers in such debates, and there is a suspicion that, through the use of statutory instruments, we might be making changes to primary legislation that should not be made.

In truth, the most pernicious use of a Henry VIII power in modern times has been section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, which has run rampant through whole pieces of primary legislation, even important flagship Acts that predate our membership of the European Union. We are in a rather odd situation in debating on the Floor of the House whether it is okay to change “European Commission” to “Secretary of State”, as the original powers implied by these statutory instruments were imposed by the European Union without any debate in this House, typically through either an implementing Act or a delegated Act, and therefore with little or no scrutiny by the European Parliament and often with little or no scrutiny by the European Council. The role of this Parliament, if it was lucky, was to receive an explanatory memorandum but, by and large, only ever to receive letters to the European Scrutiny Committee advising on what the European Union had done to us.

Nevertheless, this is what taking back control means. It means that our Parliament, for once, is starting to take an interest in these matters, rather than leaving them to the European Union.