Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

I am conscious of time. The bit that I really want to touch on is this legislation’s role with regard to growth and small businesses. In the different world that we live in nowadays, it is essential that our small businesses—I believe that they are about 99% of all our businesses—can be nimble. We used to talk about having a shop on every corner, and we now have businesses that can be in every corner of the world. We need to ensure that they can grow and that they are not burdened with spending most of their time doing admin and back-office stuff to fulfil legislation that is out of date and unnecessary. We need to know what that legislation is.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

While most of the United Kingdom will benefit from the Bill, and my party will support the Government when it comes to the votes, Northern Ireland is being left behind due to the protocol, which the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) referred to. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that while we do these things tonight, we must ensure that the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill goes through so that the people of Northern Ireland have the same rights as the rest of us in United Kingdom?

[Dean Russell]

I thank the hon. Member—my friend—for his comments. Absolutely, we need to get that sorted, because it is essential that we move forward in the right way.

My point on small businesses is that, at the moment, they need staff to do extra things to deal with Government—admin, processes and all those different things—and if we relieved that stress and enabled them to be more nimble, they could spend more of their time selling and doing rather than filling out paperwork. That has got to be a good thing. When we look at this legislation, we must ensure that everything is fit for purpose, that there is a purpose to it and that we are being purposeful in implementing it.

There are thousands of laws on the statue book that are not essential or necessary. They are just there, and many hon. Members probably do not realise that they exist. That cannot be good for this country. It cannot be good for growth and it cannot be good in particular for small businesses and those who run those small businesses.

There is lots more that I would like to talk about, but I will finish. I absolutely support the Bill and look forward to seeing it go to the Lords. I hope that Opposition Members will see the benefits that it will bring to this country and that, when they talk about taking back control, they realise that this is at the heart of that.