Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

With respect, my hon. Friend might consider that matter again. The mechanism to enable the constitutional procedure to have the effect that I desire is contained in the new clause. I think that the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) understood that. We need the backing of primary legislation, using the magic words,"““notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972””," and then referring to the fact that it shall be binding in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom. That provides the mechanism whereby the judiciary are under a duty to give effect to that latest Act of Parliament. Before I move on to the question whether legislative supremacy is a principle to which we still adhere, I want to deal first with the reasons why, from a practical point of view, I regard it as extremely important that we understand how invasive the burdens have been in relation to the business community, industry, competitiveness and enterprise. Leaving aside the system that I have employed to achieve my results, that is my main point. For example, a short time ago, the British Chambers of Commerce produced figures showing the accumulated cost of burdens that arose in respect of a number of regulations. It did not, however, demonstrate that the top six—the most burdensome and most costly ones—were all of European origin, of which I could give several examples. The total cost, from the moment that the burdens were introduced to the moment that the figures were published, came to £25 billion. The regulations concerned included the working time regulations, the Data Protection Act 1998, the Employment Act 2002 and so on. In addition, Sir David Arculus, the Government-appointed chairman of the Better Regulation Task Force, estimated the cost to business of over-burdensome regulations—I stand to be corrected, as the figure seems extraordinarily high, but it is the one that he gave, as far as I can recollect—as £100 billion. No wonder the Government are looking for a way to deal with the problem. We can break down the European element of that, but we should also consider the percentage of legislation passed through the truncated, unaccountable, unattractive and undemocratic procedures in the House, which impose those expensive regulations on British business. Those regulations are then in concrete, and we can do nothing about them, whatever their merits. Once such regulations have been passed by a qualified majority vote, the legislation is imposed on us, and other member states might have a vested interest in not making changes that may be required. I take seriously the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner). However, I do not want or intend to over-egg the pudding on this point. For me, this is essentially a practical question about the burdens on business and deregulation. It is not a foray into the abstractions of sovereignty; it is about the way that the system works. It is a time check on reality. Are we going to allow this legislation to continue to invade our business community? The House should remember that I have always said that I am in favour of trade and political co-operation, and I voted for the Single European Act, notwithstanding my attempt to preserve the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, for that reason. I wrote an article in The Times for that purpose at the time. I foresaw that we might find ourselves saturated in unnecessary burdens and that we would need to relieve them in the interests of competition. It was therefore essential to have the mechanism to enable us to do that. Unfortunately, under the rules of the supremacy of Community law—the other law, in the parallel universe that exists in legislation—we are not allowed to have that mechanism, under the terms of the case law of the European Union. The hon. Member for Cambridge and I could go through all the case law, and I would agree with him that the position is clear under Community law. However, all that case law, every one of those burdens and every aspect of that European legislation depend on one thing only—the legislative supremacy of this House in passing the European Communities Act 1972. As a consequence, it is open to our judiciary—as in the different context of the Human Rights Act 1998—to interpret and apply that law. That is solely, exclusively and entirely because of the European Communities Act 1972 passed by this House. If this House decides that it wishes to make changes, by whatever procedure, it is incumbent on the judiciary to give effect to that subsequent inconsistent law, providing that it is express and unambiguous. That case law is laid down unequivocally by Lord Denning in the case of McCarthy’s v. Smith, by Lord Justice Laws in the case of the metric martyrs and by Lord Steyn himself in a lecture in 1996. There are so many misunderstandings about the role of the judiciary in these matters. So much confusion is created by invoking the principles of Community law when we are dealing with, and must continue to insist on, the principles of United Kingdom constitutional law. From the earliest days of the 17th century, in a constant movement towards the establishment of the democratic Parliament that we have today, that has been dependent on the fact that we legislate and the judges obey. I do not mean that in a derogatory sense; it is what the judges say of their own function. I mentioned Lord Steyn. He is well known as a distinguished lawyer, with—I would say—some influence, and with strong views about the European Community. We understand that he is enthusiastic about it. In a lecture that he gave in 1996, however, he made his opinion abundantly clear. He said"““in countless decisions the courts have declared the unqualified supremacy of Parliament. There are no exceptions.””"