European Union Bill

‘I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes. This amendment is an addition to the words now incorporated in the revised Bill at the end of revised Clause 18—those being the words in the amendment moved last week by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. My amendment, which in the words of the Companion is clarificatory, states that all the Acts of Parliament which flow from the famous or infamous EU treaties following on from Rome—Maastricht, Lisbon, et cetera—should set out in a straightforward way the list of the United Kingdom Acts which are the basis on which Parliament here in Westminster has enacted laws to give effect to EU legislation in this country. One of the reasons for believing that the Government’s intention is to pre-empt any rethink is the feed from the office of the Foreign Secretary, the right honourable William Hague, to the Financial Times last week, which appears to throw down the gauntlet that the Lords should be put in their place and get back in their box. That is surely not the height of courtesy when we have not yet completed Third Reading of the Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who cannot be here today because he has to preside at an awards ceremony in Cambridge, but to whom I spoke yesterday, mentioned at Report that a list approach could additionally be considered. On another aspect, he indicated at col. 804 of Hansard that he could indeed visualise clarificatory amendments at Third Reading. I could not speak to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, because he is in China. So far as directly applicable law is concerned—where one of the confusions arises—as adumbrated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, it would be a brave man or woman who would try to encompass that in one declaratory yet legally watertight sentence, and it is now becoming increasingly clear that it does not work. The problem is that Ministers wish to make a political point and officials are trying to make it work technically. Trying to kill two birds with one stone is rarely a good idea. There is, indeed, no simple political point that can be made about UK law which can define this in a few words, for the reasons which the exchange on 15 June between the noble and learned Lords, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Wallace of Tankerness, amply demonstrated. Assuming that I am correct about the Government’s intentions, it would be ludicrous to go into ping-pong in blinkers—ultimately, no doubt, the Lords would submit to the will of the Commons—when the resulting assertion in the Act would still be clearly erroneous, and in effect admitted to be such by Ministers. On the Government’s contention so far as directly applicable law is concerned, we have the position as set out on page 2 of the Explanatory Memorandum that all we are looking for is a declaratory sentence. Therefore, I put this amendment forward for consideration. I do not see why it should not be accepted on all sides of the House. I will not press it to a Division but I hope that the issues I have raised will be ventilated this morning and that the amendment will in due course be accepted in the spirit in which I have put it forward. I beg to move.