As we move to Third Reading, may I thank all colleagues, Ministers, civil servants and Clerks of the House for their work on this Bill. In particular, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for leading on it for the Opposition, and for the strength and clarity of the arguments he has put forward, and the diligence of his work to try to improve the Bill at all stages. I also wish to recognise my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) for their work, and my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) for their work in the Bill Committee.
We opposed the Bill on Second Reading on the basis that it was not a serious or appropriate way for the Government to address the matter of retained EU law, and nothing that has occurred since has changed that view. This is not and never has been about Brexit. It is about how the law should be changed, and the certainty and clarity the Government need to give when they do that. Legislating for a sunset clause on a huge body of legislation, the scale of which the Government have themselves struggled to identify, has appalled businesses, charities and the public. The fact that we now know on Third Reading that 1,600 additional laws, on top of the ones disclosed in the dashboard, are affected, without the Government being able to tell us what they are, is frankly absurd.
The Government are asking us trust them on a whole range of laws, covering employment rights, consumer protection, environmental standards and more, but how
can anyone trust this Government? They are hardly a model of stability. Between First Reading and Third Reading we have had a completely different Prime Minister and a completely different Business Secretary. So who knows who may be in charge by the time it finishes in the other place? We have still not heard a compelling answer as to why the Government cannot address the body of EU retained law on a sector-by-sector basis, putting forward their replacement proposals in the same way as we legislate for everything else. After all, this is the Government’s own approach, which they have taken with the Financial Services and Markets Bill in the area of financial regulation.
This Bill is a charter for uncertainty, confusion and the regression of essential British rights. We cannot and will not stand for that. The Labour Party will therefore vote against the Bill’s Third Reading tonight, in the national interest, and I urge all colleagues to do the same.
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