My Lords, I apologise to the House for being unable to speak at Second Reading. I put my name down but realised that I could not be present at the end of the debate. If noble Lords will accept my apology, I assure them that I will not now make a Second Reading speech; I will simply summarise what I believe to be the case: that, as proposed legislation, this is a lamentable Bill.
If we want a careful, detailed analysis of the issues in and chronology of this case—I recommend that we do, if I may say so—the report from the House’s Library is absolutely magnificent. I personally thank those who prepared it; I recommend it to your Lordships. Everybody wants to have a say, so I am not going to add to the long list of things that are required, but can I suggest three more?
First, the Constitution Committee has just reported. The power of its report is not merely in that it repeats the concerns expressed by the delegated legislation committee on the Henry VIII aspects of the Bill; it directly addresses the Government’s contention that there is no problem with the lawfulness of the Bill. The Government have so far treated the report from the delegated legislation committee with scant respect. We have not had an answer to it. We should not proceed with this Bill until such time as there is an answer to the delegated legislation committee’s report and to the Constitution Committee’s report. These are our committees. They are cross-party, and the reports speak for the committees as a whole.
My second concern is that there is litigation afoot. A judicial review of the protocol has been taken and is due to be heard in the Supreme Court on 30 November. My question is this: has any attempt been made to expedite the hearings so that they can come on more quickly and we can have the Supreme Court’s answers to the issues raised instead of saying, “Well, we’re going to have to wait for that decision so we must act quickly because we’re having to wait too long”?
Thirdly, a number of infringement processes have been taken against us by the EU. It would helpful if we could see our responses to those. We need to know
where we stand in the formal proceedings taken by the EU that we are in contravention of our treaty obligations. They are not a matter of privacy. I understand that negotiations must be conducted privately and there is confidentiality attached to them, but surely not for our Government’s response to the EU’s requests for infringement processes to be looked at.
In the end, I am very glad that this issue will not be taken to a Division today. That is sensible, particularly because all sides of the House need to understand what the problems are with the Bill and why it is, in the word which I used at the time of Second Reading, which I did not take part in, a lamentable Bill.