European Union (Amendment) Bill

moved Amendment No. 121: 121: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause— ““Supremacy of United Kingdom Parliament Nothing in this Act or the Treaty of Lisbon shall affect or be construed by any court in the United Kingdom as affecting the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament to make or unmake laws or regulations applicable in the United Kingdom.”” The noble Lord said: In the absence of my noble friend Lord Blackwell, it might be appropriate for me to talk to my Amendment No. 130A, which is the last in this group. I am very disturbed because my colleague in this matter, if I may so call him, the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, is not yet present, but he will be here shortly. I should say now that he has already given me some very wise advice. My advice is that noble Lords should pay a lot more attention to what he says than to what falls from my lips if there is any difference between us. I start with the well known case of Thoburn v Sunderland City Council, which is relevant to this matter. In that case, Lord Justice Laws referred to the European Communities Act 1972 as a constitutional statute, but that does not mean that it cannot be repealed or disapplied in part by clear words in a later Act. With the 1972 Act, there was, in the words of Lord Bridge of Harwich in the Factortame case referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, a voluntary surrender of sovereignty, but what has been given can be taken away, and that was made clear in another case referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, McCarthys Ltd v Smith. I quote from Lord Denning: "““If the time should come when our Parliament deliberately passes an Act with the intention of repudiating the Treaty—" that is, the treaty of the European Union— "““or any provision in it or intentionally of acting inconsistently with it, and says so in express terms, then I should have thought it would be the duty of our courts to follow the statute of our Parliament””." There are other passages in the Thoburn judgment which make one wonder whether this will always be the view of our courts. It therefore seems that if we do not soon assert that our Parliament can still pass laws inconsistent with our obligations under the treaties—and if we do not, in fact, pass any such laws—we will sooner or later lose the right to do so. It is a matter of great regret.