European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I will give way to both right hon. Gentlemen in a few minutes.

Following this, it will be for United Kingdom legislators to pass laws, and for the United Kingdom courts to adjudicate those laws.

The Bill enables us to leave the European Union in the smoothest and most orderly way possible. It is the most significant piece of legislation to be considered by this House for some time, and it will rightly be scrutinised clause by clause, line by line on the Floor of the House.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Stephen Timms]

rose—

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[Mr Davis]

If my right hon. and learned Friend will forgive me, I will not for the moment.

Let me now talk the House through the Bill’s main provisions. The first clause repeals the European Communities Act on the day we leave the European Union, ending the supremacy of EU law in the UK and preventing new EU law from automatically flowing into UK law after that point. When the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson led the debate here in May 1967 on the question of the United Kingdom’s entry into the European Communities, he said:

“It is important to realise that Community law is mainly concerned with industrial and commercial activities, with corporate bodies rather than private individuals. By far the greater part of our domestic law would remain unchanged after entry.”—[Official Report, 8 May 1967; Vol. 746, c. 1088.]

I think the passage of time has shown that he was mistaken. European Union law touches on all aspects of our lives, in a far wider way than the drafters of the European Communities Act could have envisaged. That means the Bill we have before us today has a difficult task: it must rebuild United Kingdom law in a way that makes sense outside the European Union.

[Stephen Doughty]

Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?

[Mr Davis]

In a moment.

To do that, the first step the Bill takes is to preserve all the domestic law we have made to implement our EU obligations. That mainly means preserving thousands of statutory instruments that have been made under the European Communities Act, with subjects ranging from aeroplane noise to zoo licensing. It also extends to preserving any other domestic law that fulfils our European Union obligations or otherwise relates to the European Union.

Equally, the Bill converts European Union law—principally EU regulations, all 12,000 of them—into domestic law on exit day. It also ensures that rights in the EU treaties that are directly effective—that is, rights that are sufficiently clear, precise and unconditional that they can be relied on in court by an individual—continue to be available in UK law.

I have no doubt that there is much about EU law that could be improved, and I know that this Parliament will, over time, look to improve it. [Interruption.] Including the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who laughed just then. But that is not the purpose of this Bill. It simply brings European Union law into UK law, ensuring that, wherever possible, the rules and laws are the same after exit as before.

Just as important as the text of EU law is the interpretation of that law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

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[Stephen Doughty]

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[Mr Davis]

I will make this point and then give way. Future decisions of the Court of Justice will not bind our courts, but our courts will have discretion to have regard to such decisions if they consider it relevant and appropriate to do so, in just the same way that our courts might at the moment refer to cases in other common law jurisdictions such as Australia and Canada. I give way to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who has been patient.

[Stephen Doughty]

Given the scale of the task that the Secretary of State is setting out in his introduction to the Bill, and the huge impact that our relationship with the EU has on every aspect of our lives—our economy, our workers’ rights, our environmental rights, and our security and law relationships—can he explain why we are only getting eight days to discuss the Bill in Committee when the Bill that took us into Europe had 22 and the Maastricht treaty had 20?

[Mr Davis]

The first thing I would say is that eight days is quite a long time for this sort of thing. Perhaps the most relevant comparison is with the Lisbon treaty, which recreated—[Interruption.] Yes, it is, because it recreated the European law on a major basis. This Bill does not do that. It does not aim to change law, with a tiny exception that I will come back to; it aims to maintain the laws that we currently have—it is primarily technical in that respect. If the hon. Gentleman sees it as being any different, then I will give way to him again.