Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade if she will make a statement on her failure to come to the House before she made the written ministerial statement on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill and the article today in The Telegraph?

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)]

I am very sorry, Mr Speaker, that the sequencing that we chose was not to your satisfaction. I was—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kemi Badenoch]

Mr Speaker, I apologise. What I was trying to say was that I am very sorry that I did not meet the standards that you expect of Secretaries of State. Forgive my language. I have been trying to make sure that I provide as much clarity as possible, so I am actually very pleased to have come to the House to speak on this issue.

I have published a written ministerial statement to explain that yesterday we tabled an amendment to the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill that amends the operation of the sunset in clause 1. It is a technical change that introduces to the Bill a schedule of retained EU law that will be revoked on 31 December 2023. The schedule includes around 600 pieces of legislation provided by nearly all Departments, and spans a huge number policy areas. We tabled the amendment in response to concerns raised in this House, and it will provide the legal clarity and certainty that has been called for.

I reassure my hon. Friend the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee that the 600 pieces of legislation in the schedule are not the limit of our ambition—neither the beginning nor the end—but over the past year, as Whitehall Departments have been working hard to identify retained EU law to preserve, reform or revoke, it has become clear that time constraints have led to the programme becoming more about preserving EU laws than prioritising meaningful reform. That is why we are proposing a new approach. Had I known the intense excitement that the House would feel about this issue, I would have come running to make sure that the technical details could be investigated by all and sundry.

As I have said, we are proposing a new approach, one that will ensure that Ministers and officials are enabled to focus more on reforming retained EU law and doing so faster. I am pleased to say that the Government have already reformed or revoked more than 1,000 pieces of REUL. In addition to the list of about 600 revocations in the schedule to the retained EU law Bill, about 500 further pieces of REUL will be repealed by the Financial Services and Markets Bill and the Procurement Bill, which means that we will have repealed not 600 but more than 2,000 pieces of REUL by the end of the year.

We are committed to lightening the regulatory burden on businesses and helping to spur economic growth, and our Edinburgh reforms of UK financial services include more than 30 regulatory reforms to unlock investment and boost growth in towns and cities across the UK. Our regulatory reform announcement yesterday set out a long-term plan to improve UK regulation over the coming months. As a down-payment on that commitment, we announced changes that will reduce disproportionate EU-derived reporting requirements and could save businesses about £1 billion a year. That is just the first in a series of announcements that the Government will be making on reforming regulations to drive growth, and in addition to the schedule the powers in the Bill will still enable us to revoke, replace and reform any outdated EU laws that remain on our statute book by 2026. This new approach will provide space for longer-term and more ambitious reforms. Members will no doubt be pleased to hear that it will also mean that fewer statutory instruments will be required to preserve EU laws that are deemed appropriate to be maintained.

I want to reassure my hon. Friend that we will still fully take back control of our laws and end the supremacy and the special status of retained EU law by the end of 2023. That will ensure that we are ending the shadow statute book and the inappropriate entrenchment of EU law concepts in domestic statute.

[Sir William Cash]

Under the Standing Orders of this House, the European Scrutiny Committee is specifically charged with examining the legal and political consequences of EU legislation. The Committee reported on 21 July 2022 after a five-month inquiry in support of the Bill, which was passed unamended by a large majority in this elected House and by the Public Bill Committee, all of which endorsed the Government’s policy on the Bill.

Since February, the Secretary of State has been asked three times, formally and personally, to appear before the European Scrutiny Committee. Why has she failed to do so? The amendments published today are not accompanied by any explanation to the House—apart from her very short written ministerial statement yesterday and her article in the press today—despite the utter reversal in vital respects of the Bill as passed by this elected House. Why not? The amendments have not been subjected to any analysis or questioning by this House, which is now essential given the fundamental change in Government policy. The House is being treated in a manner that is plainly inconsistent with clear promises already made.

Will my right hon. Friend specifically seek and make arrangements for the immediate deferral of the Bill’s Report stage in the unelected House of Lords, which is due to take place on the 15th and 17th of this month, so that she can come to the European Scrutiny Committee next week and answer our questions—as provided for by Standing Orders—and produce a Command Paper before that Report stage to explain the reasons for these fundamental questions of constitutional importance, which affect all our constituents, all our voters, and the coherence of our statute book and our legal system?

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend has asked many questions, and I will endeavour to answer them. I think he knows that he has heard the answers before, but I am nevertheless happy to respond on the Floor of the House.

My hon. Friend and I have had many private conversations in which we have discussed retained EU law. He wrote to me about attending the European Scrutiny Committee, and I replied that until the policy was settled I could not attend the Committee but instead could have engagement with colleagues, which is what I have done. I should, of course, be delighted to attend the European Scrutiny Committee. I attend numerous Select Committees in my role not just as Secretary of State for Business and Trade but as Minister for Women and Equalities, and I should be very happy to speak to the Committee, but—no doubt you will sympathise with this, Mr Speaker— there is no point having to talk about policy on the Floor of the House before we know exactly what is settled.

My hon. Friend claims that this is a change of policy, but it is a change of approach. The policy is still the same: we are ending EU supremacy, and we are ending interpretive effects. What we are changing is the way in which we are doing that. We could have ended up with a programme of 450 statutory instruments to preserve EU law. What I have done is respond to businesses in particular, but also to the parliamentarians—including many of those who are chuntering on the Opposition Benches—who have raised concerns with me about how we can have clarity and some transparency. I have shown exactly what we are doing. I have listed all the laws that we are removing. There is a key point to make here. We left the European Union not just to delete EU law from the statute book, but to make our economy better. To do that, we have to reform the laws. If we delete the laws from the statute book, we will be starting from scratch in bringing in the reforming primary legislation. This is a better approach. It was my suggestion to the Prime Minister. I am very pleased that he accepted it. I am very proud to be standing at the Dispatch Box showing that those of us who are Brexiteers can be pragmatic and do what is right for the British people. That is why I am very pleased to be explaining this change on the Floor of the House today.