I am obliged to the noble Lord and to the noble Baroness for their observations. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, observed, there will no longer be scope for a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union over the construction or interpretation of the convention. Given that the convention has been there since 1980, that may already have happened but we cannot say that it would never have happened again. But I say to the noble Lord—and I address this to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti as well—that, although there is no longer a basis for a reference by a UK court to the Court of Justice, the UK courts may of course have regard to the decisions of the Court of Justice going forward. Quite sensibly, they would have regard to decisions that bore upon the interpretation of the convention, or of Rome I and II as well. That would be of relevance to the incorporation in domestic law of provisions which had their genesis in those European Union provisions.
The immediate matter of insurance is quite narrow and concerns one of the limited derogations from the freedom to choose your own law, as it were. There is a
limitation about choice of law where an insurance contract contains provision to cover risks located in the European Union. Essentially, there cannot be an insurance contract that covers risks in an EU member state where the law of Russia is chosen as the relevant law for resolving the contract. The difficulty faced in drafting these regulations was that the reference under the derogation was to a risk in an EU member state. We were going to be concerned not only with a risk in an EU member state but with a risk in the United Kingdom. This is why we have had to move from reference to “member state” to “relevant state”, which is, in turn, defined by reference to member states and the United Kingdom. It is a fairly narrow move, which I do not believe is, of itself, going to impact on the choice or application of law with regard to the type of contract to any material extent. I do not see how it would impact on the transfer of assets such as was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. This is not what this regulation is addressing.
I acknowledge that, if we leave the European Union without a deal—which is not this Government’s preferred option—there will be issues for banks, insurance companies and others with regard to their future arrangements in the European Union. No one would take away from that. That said, this is essentially implementing an existing scheme with just those changes necessary to make sure it operates in domestic law. I do not believe this is going to take away from the attractiveness of English law—or, indeed, Scots law—as a system for the resolution of commercial disputes. English law in particular remains the lingua franca for charter parties, major commercial contracts and so on. Because of the flexibility of common law, it will continue to be used for this reason. I do not see that this is going to result in any major change. No doubt there are options when it comes to choosing a common law system—such as the law of Hong Kong, Singapore or New York, for example. That already exists and we deal with it.
Noting all the observations that have been made, I beg to move.
Motion agreed.