Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Stella Creasy and Brendan O'Hara

Committee stage
Thursday 24th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Ghani]

The preservation and restatement powers in the Bill or other existing domestic powers, such as section 8C of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, will ensure that retained EU law that gives effect to article 2 rights is either maintained beyond the sunset or the alternative provision is created to meet such requirements. The delegated powers in the Bill, particularly the restatement powers, will provide the ability to recreate the effects of secondary retained EU law, including the interpretative effects of case law and general principles of supremacy where it is necessary to uphold article 2 rights. That provides a mechanism through which national authorities might implement article 2 obligations. As I said earlier, I asked the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute to withdraw the amendment.

[Brendan O’Hara]

I will not push the amendment to a vote, but we will return to it on Report. I remain completely unclear, given the timeframe, how EU law will be removed by the Bill, but be maintained and reaffirmed in the protocol. I am unclear how that actually works.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Member is making a fair point. The people of Northern Ireland deserve some clarity because, if the Bill takes away the supremacy of EU law, as we discussed earlier, but the Government are committing that there will be instances in which article 2 rights will be upheld, it would be helpful to understand what those instances are and what the process is. Who will determine what EU law can be retained? The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, for example, could be part of that, but it is not clear how the process works. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we owe it to the people of Northern Ireland to set out that process now?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. Such muddled thinking and the unintended consequences of pushing it through so quickly go to the heart of the Bill. There are consequences to setting a ridiculously unachievable sunset clause. The thinking time that should have gone into the Bill has not happened. Although I will not push the amendment to a vote now, I strongly urge the Government to work on it to be able to explain on Report exactly how the measure will work. It is far too important to the people of Northern Ireland to let it wither on the vine and hope it does not come back. This is hugely important, but I will not press it a vote.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Stella Creasy and Brendan O'Hara

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend speaks with the experience and frustration of having seen this all before. That is the challenge. The hon. Member for Bosworth is relatively new to this experience, but many of us who have had to deal with this Government in its various incarnations over employment rights—and, indeed, over legislative processes—have seen the deterioration in their respect for and approach towards the parliamentary process, whereby Members could be confident about the Government’s direction of travel.

In this morning’s sitting I mentioned the words “cock-up” or “conspiracy”. A cock-up would be accidentally losing some of these pieces of legislation. That is why this amendment is so important: it sets out specifically all those pieces of legislation and provides a safety net. We could then have a sunrise approach to this legislation. If the Government wish to amend things, at least the legislation would be retained until it is amended. The conspiracy element comes from the previous experience of dealing with this Government, and the bemusement as to why Ministers and Back Benchers claim that we are scare-mongering, but refuse to give that commitment.

If the Minister will give a specific commitment today that every single one of those rights will be rewritten into UK legislation to give our constituents the same protection that they have now, I will happily support her, but she is not likely to do so. In that absence, it falls to all of us to make sure that our constituents—the vulnerable people we are concerned about—do not worry that their rights, precious as they are, are about to be abandoned. They have to hope that it is better to have a cock-up than a conspiracy, and that they might still be saved at some point, rather than that there is a deliberate attempt to reintroduce Beecroft by the back door—because that is what the Bill looks like, and that is what the amendment protects us against.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I will speak to amendments 60, 67 and new clause 4, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes. The amendments would oblige the Secretary of State to publish a full list of workers’ rights that could be put at risk under this legislation by 1 January 2023. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and for Walthamstow. I fully agree with everything they said. If they press their amendment to a Division, our support is guaranteed.

We have heard several times today that the Bill gives UK Government Ministers unprecedented powers to rewrite and replace huge swathes of domestic law, covering matters such as environmental protection, consumer rights, and of course those long-established, hard-won workers’ rights. The right hon. Member for Clwyd West, and indeed the Government generally, have been at pains throughout the passage of the Bill to say that there will be no diminution of workers’ rights, but given that they have failed to produce an accessible list of exactly what will stay and what will go as a result of the Bill, coupled with the fact that so many stakeholders see the Bill as the starter pistol for a deregulatory race to the bottom, they will fully understand the scepticism that exists not just here, but outside this place, over any promise that workers’ rights will be protected.

Although we have heard the Government’s vague promises that everything will be okay, and the reassuring words, “Trust us, we’ll see you okay”, that is not good enough. Workers across the country will fear that the Government are going down a one-way road towards deregulation that will certainly not benefit workers or protect their rights.

We heard in the oral evidence session that the trade unions are particularly sceptical about what the Government have planned for workers’ rights. They have serious concerns that, among those 3,800—so far—discovered pieces of legislation that are due to be sunsetted in 13 months’ time, there could be legislation covering annual leave entitlement, women returning to the workplace, the treatment of part-time workers, protection from dismissal, holiday pay, legislation on working hours, and rights to parental leave. As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston said earlier, the fact that this legislation was the brainchild of, and initially piloted by, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) sets alarm bells ringing—with some justification, given that back in 2013 he was quoted as saying,

“It is hard to believe that the right to paid holiday is an absolute moral right; it is something that comes about because of political pressure at the time”—[Official Report, 1 March 2013; Vol. 559, c. 605.]

If that is not evidence enough of the direction of travel—or, at least, the suggested direction of travel—in which this Government are heading, I do not know what is. The Government have to accept that they have a long way to go in addressing the concerns of the trade unions, who explained much of their fear was based on being unable to find out exactly which pieces of legislation will stay and which will go. Shantha David of Unison said that the dashboard is

“the most incomprehensible piece of equipment. You have to put in random words to try and identify whether certain pieces of legislation will remain or go.”––[Official Report, Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Public Bill Committee, 8 November 2022; c. 58, Q91.]

It is a completely unsatisfactory position. All that new clause 4 would do is oblige the Government to provide trade unions, individuals and other organisations with a comprehensive list of every piece of employment legislation that could be impacted by the Bill. I do not think for a minute that that is too much to ask, or indeed too much to expect, the Government to provide. If the Government are serious and they want us to believe that the Bill will not put workers’ rights under threat, that is a very small and simple step to at least signal they are moving in the right direction.