I certainly believe that, when it is appropriate and when the country will derive benefit, we should continue to participate in EU agencies. The important point, however, is that when the functions and powers of EU agencies are transferred to either an existing or a new body, the purpose, scope and effect of the rights and protections that flow from those agencies should continue. That is one of the issues that clause 7 fails to address.
Returning to my earlier train of thought, all of this was why the Prime Minister’s Florence speech of last year was so welcome. It made it clear that Government policy was to seek, semantics about implementation versus transition aside, a time-limited period in which the UK and the EU would continue to have access to one another’s markets on current terms, and with Britain continuing to take part in existing security measures.
Crucially, the Prime Minister made it clear that this bridging arrangement would take place on the basis of
“the existing structure of EU rules and regulations.”
That quite clearly implied the acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ECJ, as confirmed by the Prime Minister in an answer to the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) in the weeks following the speech, when she stated:
“that may mean that we start off with the ECJ still governing the rules we are part of”. —[Official Report, 9 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 53.]
It is also set out in black and white in the phase 1 agreement.
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