My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her contribution.
I have presumed for the purposes of this response that the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, are intended to ensure that a statute, specifically that provided for in Clause 9(1), is required to approve a situation in which the UK fails to negotiate a deal with the EU.
With the greatest respect, the amendments do not achieve the desired outcome. The statute specified in Clause 9(1) is intrinsically linked to the exercise of the Clause 9 power, which is itself dependent on the existence of a withdrawal agreement. Therefore, in a no-deal scenario, the Clause 9 power and all provisions within it would be unavailable, because there would be no withdrawal agreement.
The amendments would also leave other areas of the Bill inoperable. For example, Clause 7(7)(d) sets out that the power cannot be used to implement the withdrawal agreement. Changing the definition of withdrawal agreement to include the absence of an agreement would therefore leave us unable to use Clause 7 in a no-deal scenario. Vital corrections could not be made in that case and we would be left with many inoperabilities on our statute book.
Of course, I remind the House that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and others have said, we are confident that the UK and EU can reach a positive deal on our future partnership—