UK Parliament / Open data

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

I thank the noble and learned Lord for his response. I appreciate that some of what I was trying to outline was complicated, and made more so by it no doubt being difficult to listen to. I am not convinced that the point is nailed with regard to the recitals of directives, not least because there is no provision to publish those in Schedule 5. If you are going to rely on them in court, you will have to adduce some other evidence, whereas regulations are going to be published. That lies behind the amendment that I tabled to Schedule 5—it is for advance information, if you like.

I think this is a technical fix—I may be wrong, and I just bring that to noble Lords’ attention. I think I understand what has been said about Clause 6(6) in that, if the modification is trivial then, for that bit of the legislation, nothing changes and another bit in the same legislation would probably remain unaffected. So, within an individual piece of legislation, the impact of the recitals might have been removed from some bits and not from others. I think that is what was being said, and that is where the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, was trying to get some clarity. Maybe we can take that offline to get that clarity. I am still not quite sure who makes that decision in Clause 6(6), and whether it will be something that appears when we get the schedule modifications or whether the courts and others will be left trying to decide it for themselves.

This may be something that we have to return to but, with the Committee’s agreement, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

789 c1126 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Subjects

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