My Lords, as I understand it, the amendments in this group have two aims: to curb the overbroad power to implement relevant international agreements by regulation, and to signal in primary legislation that there is no objection to giving the force of law to the Lugano convention. I support the first, which is furthered by other groups of amendments, and am sympathetic to the second. However, for the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Mance at Second Reading on the interrelationship between Lugano and the 2019 Hague Convention, there seems to be a question of whether we should sign up immediately to Lugano, even if the EU gives its consent, which is perhaps not a given. I would welcome the Minister’s considered comments on that.
It was good to hear the Minister say at Second Reading that the United Kingdom, should we become a party to Lugano, could drive for its amendment so
as to incorporate into it the material improvements that as an EU member state we did so much to help deliver in the form of the recast Brussels regulation. Speaking as a practitioner—I declare an interest as a practising barrister—and as a former member of the EU Justice Sub-Committee, with some awareness in both capacities of the defects of the Lugano convention, I suggest that we not only could do so but should do so.