The case that my right hon. and learned Friend makes is completely unarguable. There is no answer to that thus far from the Government, and the only answer is to change and improve the Bill. To fail to tie up that clear, apparent and recognised loose end in the Bill could have the effect, almost by negligence or a measure of inadvertence, of denying UK citizens rights they might otherwise have. That would seem to me to be almost verging on the disreputable. I do not believe that the Ministers on the Treasury Bench wish to do that for one second and I know they will want to put it right. I hope that they will make it clear that it is the Government’s intention to make sure that that lacuna is resolved.
7.15 pm
Amendments 8 and 10 raise important principles, which relate to the same point. Once we have incorporated EU law into our law, there has to be consistency. In particular, there has to be an ability for the courts, when interpreting it, to refer back to the basic principles. Otherwise, how are we to make sense of it? No one is saying that it should apply to what happens after we have left the EU—I think my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield made that abundantly clear. However, the courts have made it equally clear—Lord Neuberger and others—that the judges need an aid to interpretation in this field. They need to have better guidance than the Bill currently provides on the parameters within which they must properly use their constitutional function and judicial discretion.