European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 — House of Lords, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses for their points. I am grateful that they have taken the time at such a late hour As I set out in opening, the Government continue to have no plans further to renegotiate the terms of our exit and we will always obey the law. Of course it was necessary to consider the Motions before us this evening, even though we are now in the process of legislating for the implementation of the deal. That is currently in the other place and will come to this House next week On the specific points asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, on the repeal of Section 13 there is no need for a further meaningful vote in Parliament. The public showed in the general election that they want to get Brexit done and to leave the EU with a deal on 31 January. The Bill will give Parliament the chance to repeal the conditions under Section 13 set out in the previous Parliament With regard to Section 19, we think it is unnecessary law, and it has no legal effect in practice. For this reason, it is being repealed. We have complied with the Article 50 extension requirements under the Benn Act, and we will shortly comply with the outstanding debate requirement. Beyond that, the Act serves no useful purpose, and there is no reason for it to stay on the statute book With regard to the repeal of the Cooper Act, the duties in the Act have been spent and no longer have any legal effect. The Act therefore has no future purpose and there is therefore no reason for it to stay on the statue book The noble Baroness’s point on Section 2(5) of the Benn Act was that, for further reports, it would apply only if the Commons defeated or amended the Motion referenced at Section 2(2), which it has not I move on to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. She referred to a further parliamentary vote on extending the implementation period. As she will understand, we will not be extending it. That was a commitment in the Conservative Party manifesto. As I am sure she has noticed, we won the general election on that commitment and therefore will not extend the implementation period. There is therefore no need for Parliament to have a vote on doing so I take the opportunity to reassure her that we are completely committed to parliamentary accountability. Ministers—whether me or others—will be here to answer questions on these topics, reply to debates in this House and appear in front of committees and so on of this House and the other place. Of course, the normal rules of parliamentary procedure will apply. In fact, we are essentially reverting to the procedures that operated under a previous Government involving her party—those of normal parliamentary scrutiny. There is no need to put special provisions on to the face of the Bill or into statute telling Parliament how it can carry out its role of scrutinising the Government I am sure that we will have extensive debates about ratification of the future relationship next week and probably in future weeks to come. The noble Baroness made some very interesting points about regulatory alignment. Again, as we have discussed many times, I do not agree with her on that, but this is really not the occasion to have those debates. There will be plenty of opportunity for them during the passage of the legislation over the next two weeks and indeed on many future occasions. Given the lateness of the hour, I think that now is probably not the appropriate time to go into all those details. I am sure that we will have those discussions in full in the future and it therefore probably makes sense for us to complete this debate We all look forward to the many hours that we will spend in this place considering the withdrawal agreement Bill, when, I am sure, this and many other related points will be raised and the Government will be provided with the appropriate scrutiny by the Opposition.