It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hanson.
I rise to speak to support new clause 24 and amendment 96, in my name, as well as amendment 104, also in my name, which relates to new clause 27 and others on institutional arrangements. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)
intends to return to the Chamber to press new clause 27 to a Division, but it is an important clause about governance arrangements and I hope she does.
It is welcome that the Government have accepted the Procedure Committee’s amendments. There was much concern about the sweeping powers set out in clauses 7, 8 and 9, which, as many Members have said, would give Ministers excessively wide powers to make secondary legislation. There has been near universal recognition that we need to strengthen sifting and scrutiny powers, and there is huge scepticism about the process under schedule 7 for sifting through the 800-plus statutory instruments. There is a suspicion—I believe it to be justified—that it was to avoid much needed parliamentary scrutiny and that it could be used to weaken EU laws in the process of transposition.
I understand what the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) said, which is that there simply is not the time to work through them one by one, but that is why some of us voted against triggering article 50 when the Government chose to rush into it. We knew that this was an incredibly complex procedure and that it would not be easy in the way that some Conservative Members said it would be. We needed the time to do this properly. The reason we cannot do it properly is because we triggered article 50 too early.