I promise that I will try to keep my comments as brief as possible. It is a bit of an intimidating experience to follow such distinguished lawyers, particularly as I was only sitting my legal practice course finals some two years ago, so to be here debating with the Lord Chancellor on private international law is an interesting one.
A really important point was raised at the start of the debate, which was about making the Bill applicable to real life. To reiterate that point, which was articulated particularly well, I must say, by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), this affects real people’s lives. This is about how businesses operate and how some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society are protected. I think about the exporters in my region of the west midlands who account for a quarter of a million jobs. The export value of the goods sent out from the black country was something like £3.81 billion in 2018-19. The Bill is really important, because it relates to people’s livelihoods. It is absolutely vital that we get it right.
On the protections for young people who need financial support from absent parents, I have 3,000 lone parents in my constituency who rely on support for their children. Looking at my caseload, I would say that many of them do not get that support. We spend time having to fight very complex battles to receive very complex levels of support, so we must relate this to the situation on the ground. I think of businesses in my constituency, such as KTC Edibles in Wednesbury, which rely on these provisions to do their day-to-day business. It is as simple as that: they rely on private international law to ensure they can trade and can keep their employees in a job.
Turning more widely to the provisions in the Bill, I want to touch on the clause 2 that was removed by the other place. We have heard articulate arguments about that today. In my preparation for this debate, I read the comments in the other place. To an extent, I have sympathy with what was said on the possibility of utilising the delegated powers as some sort of Executive power grab. What I would say—I think this was articulated by my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor—is that the preceding system was one of direct effect, so in a way it took those powers away from this place in the first place. Having said that, however, equally we cannot just remove the role of this place entirely. We cannot allow that to happen. I am somewhat reassured that, through the affirmative procedure, there is a degree of scrutiny. I appreciate that for some Members it is not the desired level of scrutiny, but I have been very impressed by my hon. Friend the Minister’s openness in taking forward suggestions on how it could perhaps be improved on.