European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

The right hon. Lady has much greater faith in the Government’s intentions than I perhaps do. What I am trying to suggest—I thought she might possibly agree with me—is that, by this stage in the process, we ought to have some definition of which Acts of Parliament will require amendment, because there are anomalies in them with regard to the body of EU retained law, and we ought to have narrowed down the number of areas in which we have to give Ministers the power to use their discretion and to bring forward changes through delegated legislation to our existing legislation. The fact that we have not narrowed that down and that we are still talking about giving Ministers quite sweeping and general powers is quite alarming, and I only hope that, as we go to the next stage of this process, we will get more clarity. Ministers’ defence is basically to say, “Trust us to rectify these anomalies and to get things right,” but Opposition Members are saying, “Well, we would be better able to trust you if we were able to get a reassurance that you are not going to use these powers in certain areas.” Yet, Ministers are resisting every attempt to qualify and limit the exercise of these powers.