My Lords, I agree very substantially with my noble friend Lord Pannick’s general approach. Any attempt to repeat or paraphrase what he said would merely weaken it. I shall not do so, but I will make two comments.
First, on the supremacy question, my noble friend is clearly right that this is a wholly alien notion and we do not want it incorporated in the Bill. I confess I could not find what he calls Amendment 31A in my Marshalled List—this must be my fault. Is it the same as what I have as Amendment 32B? I suspect it may be. I certainly read that amendment as modelled on Professor Paul Craig’s proposal for how to deal with this. If that is the position—my noble friend nods helpfully to indicate that it is—I entirely support that approach. The language is substantially Professor Craig’s and it is altogether satisfactory.
Secondly, my noble friend canvassed an outline of the alternative ways to deal with giving legal status to, and the categorisation of, retained EU law. On the one hand, the Constitution Committee suggested that we turn it all into UK primary legislation. Then there is
Professor Paul Craig’s competing approach, which is also endorsed by the Bingham Centre. I have a huge preference for the latter, not the former. As Paul Craig points out, we pass, in round figures, about 40 statutes a year. If we suddenly turn 10,000 or so instruments—the figure I think he suggests—which obviously in the ordinary categorisation would fall into the category of secondary legislation, into primary legislation, with all the consequences of that, we would simply overwhelm the statute book. We would make it impossible to deal with them properly as statutes. We would then inevitably start needing Henry VIII clauses in full measure. We would devalue primary legislation and give credibility and justification to use of Henry VIII powers, which is the last thing we want to do. Go down the Craig-Bingham line, not the Constitution Committee’s recommended route. I say that with all respect and deference to the committee, whose report is overall an enormously helpful document.