European Union (Amendment) Bill

As I said earlier, clause 3 does two things. First, it makes technical changes to the terminology in UK law to reflect the Lisbon treaty. Secondly, it provides a power for a Secretary of State to make orders to amend primary or secondary legislation to reflect other technical changes in terminology or numbering that arise from the Lisbon treaty. The changes are technical and should be uncontroversial. Nevertheless, they are necessary. The clause ensures continuity and consistency in new and existing domestic legislation. It also gives power to make similar technical changes by order, which will not mean a change of substance to existing UK legislation. There is no point in the suggested alternative approach of making consequential amendments in definitions to change ““EC”” to ““EU””. If clause 3 were removed, we would be left with legal confusion about important legislation that refers to the ““European Communities””, such as clause 24 of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002, which establishes in UK law the way in which elections to the European Parliament work in the UK. It sets the boundaries of electoral regions and determines how our voting system should work for those elections. We have had a good general debate on the clause. Without it, Parliament would have to amend each of the hundreds of Acts, regulations and statutory instruments that refer to ““European Communities””. The schedule is standard and clearly sets out the nomenclature changes to the 1972 Act. The Bill is designed to amend the 1972 Act and, as Conservative Members know, it provides for changes to the horizontal Act for interpreting UK law—the Interpretation Act 1978. Those changes obviously and clearly follow from the treaty.