European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will speak also to Motion L and Motion M. The scope of the powers in this Bill is not an issue that either House has taken lightly, and it is not one that the Government take lightly, either. Before the Bill was introduced, the Government set out the shape and size of the task ahead and why it could be achieved only by the use of relatively broad delegated powers. I do not believe that any noble Lord rejects the premise of that task. All of us here today accept that our law must be corrected so that it works properly when we leave the EU and EU law ceases to apply in the United Kingdom. None of us wishes to face a scenario, once we leave the EU, where the law does not work or where it is left so complex, confusing and convoluted that we spawn a new generation of legal cases that inherit the mantle of Jarndyce v Jarndyce. My ministerial colleagues in the other place have given examples of where this might come to pass if our law looked as if it was still referring to the EU. We have a duty to do everything we can to provide legal certainty, and I know that I share that goal with Peers across the House. We want a sensible solution, accepting that the powers should be as wide as is required but no wider. The Government have honoured their commitment on this front with the limits we have already put on the correcting power, and indeed the total removal of one of the key powers in the Bill now that further analysis has weakened the case for it We have followed the recommendation of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee and have required Ministers to make, alongside any exercise of the key powers in the Bill, a statement that they have "good reasons" for their course of action and an explanation of this to Parliament. We are happy to have been able to do as recommended by the committee, and we are grateful for its constructive and expert approach to this issue Noble Lords asked the Commons to consider again the test that should circumscribe the breadth of the correcting power. They have done just that and they have found that a stark test of necessity, while perhaps understandable in everyday language, is not acceptable on the statute book. Indeed the Commons have now voted four times in favour of "appropriate"—I repeat, four times. Given that, I do not think it would be the right course for this issue to return to the Commons yet again, when their view has been so clearly expressed. I ask noble Lords to consider that Having accepted what the task ahead is and the principle of how to approach it, we must ask ourselves today what statutory wording will permit the sensible, logical and common-sense corrections we all support without giving unnecessary discretion to Ministers? For example, our approach will permit us to end inappropriate reciprocal arrangements such as those established by the directive on the return of cultural goods, which could leave the EU 27 able to force UK nationals into court to demand the return of cultural objects brought here, with no power for the UK to take legal action in similar situations overseas Other potentially unnecessary but sensible and appropriate corrections to deficiencies would include folding the EU’s authorisation process for controlling the export of devices that risk being used for torture into the UK’s own more responsive and effective domestic export control regime. We looked at this important issue and, by sending our amendments, we asked the Commons to look again. As I said, they have done so. They have debated at length and they have decided that it remains clear that only the original wording of the Bill will suffice. I hope that noble Lords will respect the decision they have made. I beg to move.