My Lords, I am glad to be associated with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in supporting this amendment to seek some clarity. I will simply add two further points, having said that this distinctly lacks clarity at the moment.
First, I draw attention to paragraph 3, which says:
“Any power to make, confirm or approve subordinate legislation which, immediately before exit day, is subject to an implied restriction that it is exercisable only compatibly with EU law is to be read on or after exit day without that restriction”.
A little gloss on that from the Minister would be helpful. The second thing that needs clarifying is the impact on the devolution aspects of the Bill. The Government’s Explanatory Notes say that,
“in relation to the devolved administrations these pre-existing powers”—
that is, the powers that can be used under the clause we are discussing—
“are subject to the devolution provisions described in paragraphs 36 to 41 of these notes, meaning powers in pre-exit legislation cannot be used to modify retained EU law in a way that would be incompatible with EU law as it existed on exit day until the relevant subject matters are released from the interim limit on their competence”.
I imagine that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, pricked up his ears at that phrase, because it goes to the heart of the argument we have been having about the impact of the Bill on devolution and the idea that powers will be released to the devolved Administrations only once the UK Government are satisfied with the way they will deal with the framework provisions. The appearance of the phrase,
“until the relevant subject matters are released from the interim limit on their competence”,
in the Explanatory Notes is quite worrying. The provisions are of course there because some of the provisions here relate to existing devolved powers. The devolved Administrations must have the capacity to take this kind of action if the UK Government have the capacity to do so. However, it is subject to this rather extraordinary restriction: the Government hold on to the powers until they are satisfied that they can be released. For the benefit of clarity, I hope that the Minister can help us.