Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jonathan Reynolds

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I absolutely agree. If the right hon. Lady has positive proposals that she wishes to bring forward to amend the law, and if she is making the case that UK food standards are currently onerous to the point of adding expense to her constituents and mine, I will listen to that case—I might not agree with her, but I will listen to it. If that is the case that she is making, surely it is incumbent on her to bring forward such proposals, and reveal which regulations would be necessary to change that and where she thinks the law is going wrong. I accept, and I think the Government accept, that the major driver of food-price inflation has been the war in Ukraine. That is a reasonable point. [Interruption.] I can hear some chuntering on the Government Benches. Many of us recognise that point. When the Government see inflation rise, they claim—reasonably—that international factors are the drivers of that, but when some of that peaks, supply chains change and inflation comes down, the Government often seek to claim the credit for that, which, I think she will agree, is unreasonable. But I accept her point. I hope that that clarifies for her how I believe the law in that area should be approached.

Finally, rather than allowing future pieces of retained EU law that the Government wish to restate, revoke, replace or update to be slipped in by the back door via statutory instrument, Lords amendment 42 would give Parliament the proper role that it deserves in such matters.

[Stella Creasy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister may wish to use different wording or perhaps even correct the record? He suggested that such powers would be novel, but amendable SIs were in fact part of the Census Act 1920, which is over 100 years old, and were most notably present in section 27 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The idea that we might actually involve those who were brought to this place to make legislation in amending it is not a new one. This law removes that idea. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister may do well to read his constitutional history before he dismisses it so easily?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I will take her word for it on the Civil Contingencies Act, about which I fear she may have a level of expertise that exceeds mine. To be frank, I thought that the Minister’s whole defence of that area was somewhat questionable. Much of what we are talking about is a relatively novel set of procedures that relate to the unique situation that we find ourselves in. Indeed, the Government’s whole approach is based on the uniqueness of the need to have a position on retained EU law following the mechanisms that we chose to adopt as a country when we left the European Union. I thought that that was a somewhat weak defence. If my hon. Friend has information contrary to what the Minister said on the record, I am sure that he will seek to amend that and put forward the correct form of affairs—perhaps if he receives wisdom on the Front Bench at some point in the next four hours.

Our colleagues in the House of Lords have, through all their amendments, sought fundamentally and in good faith to make sense of what was an embarrassing set of proposals whose only aim appeared to be to pacify the hardliners on the Government Back Benches. I appreciate that those Members do not look happy today.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jonathan Reynolds

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I certainly can. I have always said, for instance, that Solvency II could be improved by having to do the regulation on a basis in this country. If we look at the Government’s approach to that area through the financial services and markets legislation, we see that they are taking exactly what might be termed a more sensible approach, going on a sector-by-sector basis, putting forward positive proposals, rather than following the sunset clause procedure, which is so reckless and uncertain. I say genuinely to the right hon. Gentleman: please have the humility to look at the damage done in the past four weeks, and the role of Government Members in that, and perhaps think, “What if we are wrong, and what are the consequences if we are?”

[Stella Creasy]

Might one of the reasons why businesses are so confused about the impact that the legislation will have be because the Minister is? He tried to claim to the House that all the laws affected are published on the dashboard and will have full transparency. However, 24 hours ago in answer to my written question, the Minister admitted that the dashboard provided an “authoritative, not comprehensive” list. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when businesses and consumers are already struggling with the cost of living crisis, the last thing that we need is to not even know what a piece of legislation is deleting?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The retained EU law dashboard, although useful, is not and never has been a comprehensive list of all the retained law that this Bill affects—[Interruption.] Government Members say that they never said it was. It does not clearly distinguish where retained EU law has been devolved, much to the frustration of the Welsh and Scottish Governments. However, it still lists more than 2,400 sources of law. If the Government want to put a blanket sunset clause on all of this, should they not be able to list exactly what is covered?

The practical case that the Government have put forward for the sunset clause is that they cannot find the time to use primary legislation to amend these laws. Why not? The Government have a majority of 70, at least for the time being. Where the law needs to be changed, what is preventing the Government from doing so? The fear is that what they really want to do is to reduce key regulations entirely, which brings me to my next point—that the Bill poses a threat to core British rights and protections.

There is no question but that the scale of the Bill is large. The policy areas affected cover not only employment law, but environmental protection, consumer protection, agriculture, fisheries, transport, data protection and much, much more. That is why a huge variety of organisations, from the TUC to the RSPB, have signalled their alarm. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will raise their own worries about those issues during the debate.

The situation in relation to employment law is particularly alarming. Most of the UK’s core labour law protections are contained in regulations originally made under section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972, rather than in primary legislation. They are not cumbersome red tape; they are things that British workers expect, including the Working Time Regulations 1998, the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 and the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000. On all of them, the Government are saying, “Trust us.” Why should we?

This is a Government who have not kept their promise of an employment Bill to ensure workers’ rights post Brexit and who do not keep their manifesto promises at all. This is a Government in which we do not know who will be in each job from one week to the next—and I wrote that bit before the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) resigned as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy a few hours ago. I am afraid that we cannot in good conscience hand the Government powers to arbitrarily decide matters that are of fundamental importance to the lives of working people in this country, not least because we have no idea whether any Ministers will still be in position in 24 hours, let alone 12 months.

Under the terms of the Government’s trade and co-operation agreement, the UK must maintain a level playing field with the single market. Such provisions are important to the UK: they protect against a global race to the bottom in standards and protections. We can only guess how the Government will use these powers, but the powers in the Bill are clearly deregulatory in tone.

This goes to the heart of the Conservative party’s simplistic and inaccurate understanding of regulation. When I ask a business what attracts it to invest in the UK, good regulators are always on the list. Businesses simply do not want the fantasy deregulatory agenda that lives only in the mind of so many Tory MPs. After the events of the past month, in which the financial markets themselves rejected the Conservative party’s allegedly pro-market agenda, I would have hoped for a little more wisdom and insight from the Government, but unfortunately I doubt that that will be forthcoming.

Finally, there is the issue of how Parliament will go about changing the law in future. The Government have already been severely criticised for how little power they have returned to Parliament since we left the European Union, and the Bill continues that approach. The use of negative statutory instruments, so that MPs have to actively object to prevent something from becoming law, is very poor practice indeed. When it comes to future proposals, the use of a sunset clause to cover such a large and complex body of law effectively puts a gun to Parliament’s head. Anyone who wishes to scrutinise or object to any future legislation replacing retained law will be taking a gamble, because unless that legislation is passed in time, the current law in its entirety will simply fall away. That is not conducive to good laws being made.

The obvious question is “Why not proceed on a policy-by-policy basis or, if appropriate, a sector-by-sector basis?” As we have already discovered, the Financial Services and Markets Bill does exactly that. Why not bring forward positive replacement proposals where the law needs to change or where something can be done better?

The fact is that this Government are out of ideas. They are more intent on their own survival than on putting in place the positive changes that we need. At a time when the British people are crying out for stable, competent government by a Government who recognise that economic growth comes from working people and businesses and from stability and certainty, not from the fantasy economics of the Conservative party, the Bill is not just wide of the mark, but wantonly destructive.