UK Parliament / Open data

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Of course, our constitutional position has altered over the last few years—say, the last 500—and, at the end of the day, we see ourselves as, essentially, an amending House. I understand the noble Lord’s point but, in that context, we also understand the precedence of the other place with regard to the final passage of legislation. Therefore, our primary tasks in this context are scrutiny and comment.

The Government have always said that this Bill is not the place for radical policy change. Essentially, what we want to do at this stage is preserve the existing domestic powers to amend legislation pursuant to paragraph 3 of Schedule 8, in order that we can address issues with regard to retained EU law. But the manner in which those powers will ultimately be deployed will depend on the outcome of our consideration of the question of what status we confer on retained EU law. Given that that is an ongoing issue, I invite the noble Lord at this stage to withdraw his amendment. He may, of course, choose to return to it once he has seen our proposals with regard to retained EU law, but it appears to me that the two issues are inextricably linked.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

790 c876 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Subjects

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