European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Civil Rights
Thomas Anthony Brake (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): All right—the right hon. Gentleman is probably closer to his Front Bench’s policy than I am, certainly in respect of the understanding of it, if not necessarily the direct input. I hope that Labour may be able to take things one step further: to make staying in the single market and the customs union not an option but the party’s actual policy. As I said in an earlier intervention, staying in the single market was in the 2015 Conservative manifesto, which also mentioned the benefits of doing so I turn to amendments 363 and 364, and a number of other related amendments, which are on equality and human rights law. The amendments are needed to prevent changes to fundamental rights being made without full parliamentary scrutiny. The Bill permits Ministers to amend laws, including Acts of Parliament, by delegated legislation. The Government have said that the powers will not be used for significant policy changes and that current protections for equality rights and workers’ rights will be maintained. I welcome those commitments, but in order to protect fundamental rights, it is essential that they are guaranteed by reflecting them in the extent of the delegated powers in the Bill Many other Members have quoted the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, so I will not. That Committee has expressed strong concerns about the Government’s approach, as has the House of Lords Constitution Committee, which it might be worth quoting. It believes: "The executive powers conferred by the Bill are unprecedented and extraordinary and raise fundamental constitutional questions about the separation of powers between Parliament and Government." That point has been repeated by many Members during these days of debate I welcome the fact that the Bill already prevents the use of delegated powers to amend the Human Rights Act 1998, which, of course, recognises the importance of the rights it protects. However, if the Bill does that for the Human Rights Act, I do not quite understand why it does not protect the rights in other Acts. The Equality Act 2006 and the Equality Act 2010 must also be protected, as must the Employment Rights Act 1996 and secondary legislation such as the Working Time Regulations 1998, which were mentioned in an earlier contribution. My amendments would protect the rights in such legislation. I am unlikely to press them to a vote, but the Labour party’s amendments 25 to 27 are similar. In fact, they could be improved by providing equivalent protection to the Equality Act 2006 In the first day in Committee, the Government made a commitment to table amendment 391, which they have done. I welcome that, but I would like the Minister to clarify one point. I think it was the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), who said that the Government would ensure that they would address "the presentation of any Brexit-related primary or secondary legislation"—[Official Report, 21 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 904.] But as far as I read it, the amendment refers only to secondary legislation. I am not sure whether that means that there will be further amendments, that the Minister misspoke originally or that we are to expect more. Perhaps the Minister will pick up on that point when he responds I have a couple more minutes, in which I will refer briefly to EU citizens’ rights. Now, I hope that people are not under the impression that, in moving on to phase 2 of the negotiations, EU citizens in the UK or UK citizens in the EU are happy with where we are at; clearly, they are not. Some 3 million EU citizens in the UK still have significant concerns around the time limits being placed on certain protections. They are also concerned about the all too frequent errors that occur in the Home Office—something with which we are all too familiar—which they anticipate leading to a large number of problems with the proposed changes regarding their status. Nor are UK citizens in the EU any happier with the outcome, and they are as critical of the EU as they are of the UK Government in terms of the speed with which they have moved on. However, as has been said in the debate, given that nothing is agreed until everything has been agreed, those issues can still be pursued The final point I want to make relates to amendment 121. If I had had time, I would have read out the list of 21 organisations, although by the sounds of it, given the earlier intervention on this issue, I have missed about 19 organisations, because there are more than 40. However, I would have liked to ask Members present, in a moment of truth and honesty, whether any of them had anticipated that all the organisations on the list would be affected by our leaving the European Union—if, indeed, we do leave, because nothing is certain on that front. I suspect that not a single Member here would have claimed, if they had answered honestly, that they knew of each and every one of those organisations We are going to have to go through a costly process of creating our own organisations, with heavy costs attached to that. The purpose of the amendment is simply to ensure that the Government are not able to create these new agencies, or to give substantial new powers to existing agencies, by way of delegated legislation, because that is the sort of thing that needs to be done through Parliament and through primary legislation Thank you, Dame Rosie. I think I have kept within your time limit. I would just like to reinforce the point that I will be pressing amendment 124 to a vote, and I hope I will receive support from both sides of the House for it.