European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Government Operations
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 70. There is not really much left to say as noble Lords have addressed so many of the points. I do not wish to delay the House, and I would like to hear what the Leader of the House has to say Having served in both Houses, the difference in how statutory instruments are treated is very familiar to us, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Davies. I always said in the House of Commons that when a statutory instrument committee came along and you were asked to take part, you would ask, "Why me, and how long will it take?" In this House, we have had more speakers on this debate than we had on the previous one on the EEA. That shows the level of interest and excitement generated by statutory instruments in your Lordships’ House. Someone may have said, "So many SIs and so little time" As we progress on the road to Brexit, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said, this House and the other place will clearly have to address a huge number of SIs. The concern is that we have to get this right. The consequences of making mistakes against the Government’s intention of ensuring that EU law can be transposed into UK law are very serious. Those SIs have to be accurate and they have to be properly considered In Committee, the noble Baroness confirmed that the Government intend to publish draft SIs "where possible and appropriate". If you look at the website, there are a few drafts—not many, but a few. There are illustrative examples, and I am grateful for those. They are helpful, but there is no way of knowing whether those examples are representative of the statutory instruments that are to come, particularly given the drive to reduce the overall number by packaging up multiple issues in one statutory instrument. I have raised this issue with the Government over some time. I gave evidence on it to the Select Committee in the other place and I gave evidence to our Constitution Committee, and it is really important that we have those draft SIs for, if nothing else, the appearance of accuracy, so that we know we are getting it right As I said, the noble Baroness made helpful comments on this about publishing draft SIs. However, I have to say that I am not convinced that "where possible and appropriate" is good enough. Can she go one step further and guarantee that SIs will always be published in draft form prior to being introduced into either House, unless of course they are made under urgent procedure? That is another discussion and there would obviously have to be very good reasons why they were urgent. Having those draft SIs is absolutely essential—not for delaying but for giving them proper consideration. It is much harder to rectify mistakes at later opportunities than if we deal with them straightaway The noble Baroness argued previously that the Committee stage amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, were unnecessary, and she said then that if both committees were to reach the same recommendation, "the Government’s expectation is that such recommendations are likely to be accepted".—[Official Report, 19/3/18; col. 154.] I understand that that is the intention, but "expectation" and "likely to be accepted" are a bit woolly for legislation. I do not think that is adequate. We hope that would be the case but, as the noble Baroness told us at the time, there would be a problem if the two committees disagreed or if the Government decided not to accept the proposed upgrade to the affirmative procedure. It is a limited upgrade; I would not get too excited about the affirmative procedure being too intrusive. We recognise that it is a step in the right direction. The noble Baroness told the House that she hoped the latter scenario—that the Government would not accept a proposed upgrade from one House—would be very rare. Again, it is very speculative. How rare does she think that occurrence will be? Could she outline the steps she would expect Ministers to take in the event of it becoming a reality All of us want to see EU law on the UK statute book as accurately and as quickly as possible, but to do that we must have confidence in the process and procedures that we have in place. We cannot do it on a wing and a prayer. If we do not get this right, there will be serious consequences, which will be far harder to rectify or amend later. I hope the Minister can give some reassurances on that issue in the course of her comments.