I am conscious that a lot of Members want to speak, and I want to get to the end of my remarks.
There are other issues relating to the standard of scrutiny, and perhaps the Procedure Committee will want to think about them as well. Currently, when regulatory policy issues are decided in Europe by EU
directive or regulation, the European Parliament—to which our constituents have been able to elect people—has a quite large set of scrutiny and decision-making powers over those laws. If we are moving the law-making power from the EU to the UK, surely we should also replicate the level of scrutiny that those laws received from the European Parliament and have that same arrangement in the UK Parliament. That is not happening in the Bill, however, which is why amendment 277 has been tabled.
I was partly inspired by conversations with the Association of British Insurers, which is concerned about the potential to lose a level of scrutiny as the policy-making powers are transferred across. The UK Parliament’s ability to scrutinise some of these things is not as tough as that of the EU Parliament. The ABI has said that it supports amendment 277, which states that any additional powers transferred to the UK regulators must be matched by equivalent scrutiny mechanisms and democratic accountability. That is not a small point, because a massive array of issues is coming at us thick and fast in clauses 7 and 9, and they have to be mentioned.
Finally, I want to touch on amendment 124, which has been tabled in the name of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). It would prevent regulations from undermining the operation of the single market. The Government have conceded that we are, de facto, going to remain in the single market and the customs union, certainly during the transition phase. It is important that protections should be in place to ensure that orders made by Ministers cannot erode those single market freedoms that we enjoy during the transition period.
Also, if we end up—as I suspect we should—staying in the single market and the customs union, we do not want anything in the Bill that will erode the operation of those important frictionless tariff-free trade arrangements in goods and services that we currently enjoy. Amendment 124 has great merit, and I certainly hope that all Members will consider giving it their support.
1.45 pm