My Lords, there is no more terrifying ordeal in your Lordships’ House than intervening in a debate between lawyers, particularly following the noble and learned Lord. It appears to me, however, as a lay man reading the Bill for the first time and reading the reports of our Constitution Committee, that a critical issue relating to all the debates we shall have on Clause 2 and the following clauses is whether converted law is primary or secondary legislation. Will the Advocate-General for Scotland give us his view, so that that can colour our discussion of the later groups?
When I was wrestling with this issue and reading debates in the other place, I noticed that the Solicitor-General said on 15 November last year:
“Converted law … will not automatically have the status of either primary or secondary legislation”.
He did not then go on to say what will determine whether it is primary or secondary legislation. Somewhat confusingly, he then said:
“Indeed … paragraph 19 of schedule 8 sets this out: ‘For the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998, any retained direct EU legislation is to be treated as primary legislation’”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/11/17; col. 416.]
Again, as a layman reading this, I wonder whether that means only in respect of the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998 or with general applicability. I know that the Advocate-General for Scotland is good at speaking plain English as well as legalese, so will he set out for us in plain English his view of whether the generality of law converted into UK law under the Bill will be primary or secondary legislation?