Although I campaigned and argued for this country to remain a part of the European Union, I fully accept that that is not the majority view of the country. But I would argue that this is the wrong way to leave the European Union. This is not a general enabling Bill; it is a poorly thought-out, complex and undemocratic piece of legislation. One of the most fundamental problems with the Bill is that it amounts to—yes—a power grab by this Government. That power grab takes several forms, but I want to focus on just two aspects.
First, there is the widespread use of Henry VIII powers, allowing the Government effectively to bypass Parliament and change primary legislation through secondary legislation. That has, of course, happened in the past, but not on such a huge scale as is planned now. As a result of this Bill, we will see extensive use of those undemocratic powers, because some 12,000 EU regulations will be brought into UK law. Some of them will make changes for technical reasons, but, as the most recent paper from the House of Commons Library states, it is anticipated that others will enable “substantive policy changes” to be made by the Government. So changes are likely to be introduced through Committees, which is why the Government are doing their best to pack those Committees with their own MPs, against the established procedure of the House.
We are also seeing an unprecedented power grab with regard to devolution. As a Welsh Member of Parliament and a former Wales Office Minister, I have followed devolution very closely. Many of us expected, as did the devolved institutions themselves, that this Bill would make real the promises the Government set out in their White Paper.