European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-21
Topic: Law and Crime
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): I do not want to detain the Committee for very long; I will make just one or two points. First, I congratulate the Government on the steps they have taken to amend the original structure of the Bill so that it fits better with the architecture of the devolved statutes. If you look at the list of amendments, there are not just one but 22. That gives an idea of the scale of the exercise that has gone into preparing what we are discussing this evening. I congratulate the team that has been working behind the scenes to put this together. There are one or two loose ends, as I mentioned earlier this afternoon, but this has gone a very long way and—apart from on the one issue of consent, about which perhaps enough has been said—I support entirely the structure and wording of these amendments As far as the solution put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, is concerned, one feature that is worth noting is paragraph 11, which is the requirement that, if there is disagreement—a failure to reach unanimous agreement—reasons must be given. I have sat for a long time in court where, if you want to dissent, you have to explain yourself, and it is quite extraordinary; once you start writing these things out, you begin to wonder whether the dissent was justified. It is an extremely good discipline, when somebody is in disagreement, to force them to sit round a table and express themselves in writing as to what the nature of the disagreement is. The disagreement may remain, but at least it focuses the mind and makes it easier for the dispute to be resolved by the final body that has the responsibility of resolving the issue Regarding the three solutions offered as to how we might deal with this, there are three different solutions for resolving the issue. I have already suggested that the solution put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, would not work because the Supreme Court could not deal with that kind of issue. As for the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I believe that the panel he is talking about has four members, three of whom are from the devolved institutions and one from the United Kingdom. It is a simple majority decision and the United Kingdom would be in the minority—and I am not sure that that is an entirely satisfactory solution to have arrived at. So I am brought back to the solution offered by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, which, at the end of the day, is to refer to the United Kingdom Parliament. I am not quite sure what procedure would be adopted, but it seems to offer a fairer and better solution than the other two. Broadly speaking, I endorse the thinking behind what the noble and learned Lord suggested We have made a great deal of progress. My final point is to comment on the fact that the Government have undertaken to withdraw the amendments. I was arguing for that some days ago, because it seemed to me that if we had to vote on it tonight that would give a rather different flavour to the debate. It is a way of enabling us to talk around the subject and the way in which we on the Back Benches have to operate all the time. It may be unusual but it is part of the constructive way in which the Government are approaching this issue and I commend it.