European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. For those of us who are not lawyers and are uninitiated in the complexities of this law, what does “implemented” mean? As I understand it, once the Council of Ministers adopts a directive, it is then the responsibility, under the European Communities Act 1972, of member states to implement it. Presumably the question is: what duties lie on Her Majesty’s Government and Parliament to implement directives which have been adopted by the Council but which would, in the normal course of events, be implemented over a period that might or might not span beyond 29 March next year? I assume that that becomes a very important issue in the scenario that my noble friend Lord Liddle has just referred to, where, in the “implementation period”, the United Kingdom is undertaking to abide by the evolution of European law in the making of new directives over that period. I am not sure whether I should call him the non-Advocate-General for Scotland, but could the noble and learned Lord, in whichever capacity he is speaking to us this afternoon, give us a view on this matter?