Governments would normally be expected to have information and facts, with evidence being collected and presented and with an assessment made based on information that has been analysed and digested in a professional way, but it appears that, although we were told they exist, the impact assessments do not actually exist but are sectoral analyses. What is the difference between an impact assessment and a sectoral analysis? Well, we have been discussing that for quite some time.
Returning to EU retained legislation, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield rightly pointed out that we have lived with important legal understandings, such as on equalities law and environmental law, for a number of decades. Those understandings have been tenets of our expectations of the civilised society in which we live. Of course, they will now be transferred from European law into UK law. If they had originated in this House, they would have been enacted in primary legislation and any changes would have had to be made through primary legislation. But the Government’s proposal is to take this new category of EU retained law and bring it into UK law, and it will not have the same status as primary legislation. In many ways, it will be repealable or amendable, often by secondary legislation—by statutory
instrument. This is not a point about Brexit; it is about the process of transposition. It is important that the public know what is going on when we are doing this. If a transfer is taking place, information should be set out in the explanatory notes, not just about the technical details, but about the weight that those legal rights will have once they come back into UK law.
There are a number of other aspects to this—