Anyway, let us move on to the issues.
Let me first introduce government Amendments 65 and 66, which work together to remove a cross-reference in this Bill to Section 183A of the Data Protection Act 2018. This new Section 183A is due to be inserted into the Data Protection Act by the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. Since the DPDI Bill is not anticipated to receive Royal Assent in this parliamentary Session, new Section 183A will not exist when this Bill receives Royal Assent. As such, noble Lords will understand that, for practical reasons, it is necessary to remove the cross-reference. Let me reassure the House that the Government are committed to maintaining high data protection standards and a functioning data protection regime. At this stage, we are minded to use the DPDI Bill to insert the reference to Section 183A of the Data Protection Act into Section 5(A3) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
Amendments 73, 77, 78, 79 and 80 are to Clause 6 of and Schedule 1 to the Bill. These amendments are consequential to the Bill policy in Clause 6 which establishes “assimilated law” as a new body of law from the end of 2023. These changes are required to end the special status of retained EU law. Amendments 73 and 77 rename two further terms related to retained EU law, so that from the end of 2023 they will be renamed as terms related to “assimilated law”. The consequential Amendments 78, 79 and 80 make textual amendments to individual references in priority pieces of primary legislation which support the interpretation of retained EU law on the statute book, so that from the end of 2023 the identified references to retained EU law and related terms will be changed to references to “assimilated law” and related terms. These amendments are being tabled now purely for purposes of legal clarity and legal accessibility.
Turning to the non-government amendments, I start with Clause 3, which, as noble Lords have observed, repeals Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. Amendments to this clause seek to delay that repeal and thus a core part of the Government’s ambitious programme of retained EU law reform.
The matters saved by Section 4 consist largely of rights, obligations and remedies which overlap with rights already well established by domestic law. In our view, these overlaps can cause confusion, so we should no longer perpetuate this situation. Work is already well under way across departments to identify the implications of the repeal of Section 4 of the 2018 Act, and the Bill provides adequate powers to codify and safeguard relevant rights in domestic statute as needed.
Indeed, as Sir Stephen Laws, ex-First Parliamentary Counsel, said:
“The ideal for the law is that all law can be found from easily accessible sources and relied on to mean what it says without being qualified by complex, obscure or general glosses, or involving
complex historical research to find out whether it is valid. The Bill, by removing everything that is subject to those disadvantages—because the ideal is not the situation at the moment for retained EU law—is an important step towards securing that the ideal is achieved, by forcing the decisions to be made about how this law can be properly integrated into UK law quickly. Things will only get worse if that does not happen.”
That will not mean the blanket removal of rights. Rather, combined with other measures in our Bill, it will result in the codification of rights in specific policy areas. This clarification will provide certainty for businesses and citizens in this country.
On Amendment 59 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, although I appreciate the concerns about the ambitious timetable we have set, I can assure her that the retained EU law reform programme is well under way and will ensure that the necessary legislation is in place by the sunset deadline.
Turning to Amendment 60, removing just Clause 3(2), as the amendment aims to do, would reduce legal certainty. We consider that this amendment is intended to operate in conjunction with Amendment 61, which seeks to delay the repeal of Section 4, so let me turn to that amendment.
We do not believe it is necessary to delay the repeal of Section 4. Where required, the Government will use the powers in the Bill to codify specific rights clearly and accessibly in domestic statute, and work is indeed under way to do so. These powers are also conferred on the devolved Governments, with whom we will of course continue to work closely to ensure that the most efficient and appropriate approach to exercising powers is taken in a way that provides certainty for all parts of our United Kingdom.
Amendments 61A, 61B and 61C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—I know he is no longer in his place but he apologised for having to leave, so I will address his points—relate to policy-specific carve-outs from the measures in Clause 3 and from the sunset clauses more broadly. We have already discussed carve-outs extensively in previous groupings, and I do wish to rehash the same arguments. However, I reiterate that the Government do not see the need for carve-outs in individual departments, policy areas or sectors.
The intention of the proposed new clause under Amendment 62, put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, is to leave matters saved by Section 4 of the 2018 Act on our statute book for longer—perhaps in some cases indefinitely. The noble Baroness mentioned in particular Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which is on equal work for equal pay. Equal pay already exists in UK statute. However, we recognise that here, the expression of the EU-based right can be slightly wider than its expression in UK legislation. That is why we have put powers in the Bill to codify the policy intent of these interpretive effects, such as Section 4 rights, where we need to. It would be for the Government Equalities Office and other government departments to decide whether to use the restatement powers in Clauses 12 and 13 to codify those principles.
The noble Baroness also mentioned Article 6—