Brexit: Divergence from EU Standards

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to inform Parliament of their priorities and objectives in the areas in which they wish to diverge from European Union standards by way of United Kingdom regulations.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

The UK already goes beyond EU minimum standards in a number of areas, such as working rights and environmental protections. Our high regulatory standards are not dependent on EU membership. After leaving the EU, we will be free to set our own laws and the Government will continue an ambitious and flexible approach to make smarter and more efficient regulation. Any future changes to regulations will be subject to the appropriate parliamentary scrutiny.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that Answer, which tells me exactly nothing. I am even more confused than when I put this Question down, because I see in the various documents that we had yesterday that we are now about to have,

“continued regulatory alignment for a potentially prolonged period across the whole island of Ireland”.

That suggests that, if we are going to keep Northern Irish and British standards the same, we will not diverge. The Written Statement in the noble Lord’s name says that,

“we will be negotiating a revised Political Declaration”.

I assume that that is about divergence of regulations, among other things. Are the Government trying to say different things to different audiences? I think that they are. Are we planning to go back to what happened before Margaret Thatcher developed the European single market, which was to move towards adopting US regulations? Or are the Government simply not going to tell us what we are doing?

[Lord Callanan]

I am not sure why this is such a difficult concept for the Liberal Democrats to grasp. There are EU minimum standards. In most of these areas—whether it be holiday pay, maternity entitlement, annual leave or emissions standards—the UK goes beyond those standards as a matter of our sovereign choice. Why do the Liberal Democrats not have any confidence in our ability to determine our own standards?