European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I want to direct the Committee’s attention to the fact that in the process of defending this Parliament and trying to bring back control to it, we are in danger of legislating one of the worst set of Henry VIII powers that could possibly be imagined. They would enable the Government to change the Northern Ireland Act, the Scotland Act and any of a series of things, so long as they were matters that had been considered in the withdrawal agreement.

Having come from a position of wondering why Clause 9 was in the Bill at all, because these are all matters to do with the withdrawal agreement—we have not got one yet, so we cannot legislate for it—we are now in a situation where I am surprised that the Government want to keep it. A poison pill has been administered to it by a very helpful amendment in the other place. None of the powers which we will put on the statute book can be exercised until a piece of legislation on the withdrawal agreement has been passed. It is entirely useless from the Government’s point of view, but from the point of view of those of us who are trying to protect Parliament, it is the one place in which we have a guarantee that there has to be an Act of Parliament to complete this process—if we do, indeed, complete it.

The grouping suggests that this is where we consider clause stand part. I think it would be wrong to pass over what Clause 9 contains, without recognising that it is not what we should be putting on to the statute book at all, certainly not without knowing what the withdrawal agreement is and without therefore being able to circumscribe the powers to things which reasonably arise from it.

There are things that cannot be done under these powers which are specified in subsection (3) but an enormous range of things can be done if a Minister considers them appropriate for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement. I will no longer be ready to turf Clause 9 out of the Bill, for the reason I gave. The Constitution Committee, when it considered it, thought that it was entirely inappropriate to have these powers at this stage. The stage at which we should have them, if at all, in modified form is in the withdrawal agreement Bill, and not before, but we have the compensation that the clause contains the guarantee that the process can go no further without another statute being passed in both Houses of Parliament.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 196.