My Lords, I have tried to follow and to listen to as much of the discussions on the Bill as possible, and I confess that some of the legal arguments happening earlier were beyond me. I will raise a couple of points, the first of which is in relation to the delay. I said at Second Reading, and I maintain the point now, that the Bill has been a long time coming. The public perceive the debate about how we deal with taking control of our own laws, as the UK having left the EU, not in the sense that it has been rushed through, but rather that it has been sluggish and blocked, and that any attempts to try to force through that break from the European Union have been obstructed by people who did not approve of the decision taken in 2016.
I am very sensitive to the perfectly reasonable criticisms made throughout the arguments I have heard. The Minister must give some reassurance that there are no unintended consequences of the Bill and that important laws are not lost that the Government do not intend to lose—those they will lose by accident, as it has been described. That is of some concern. Reassurances that they are in control are not that reassuring when we look at the parlous state of the way everything else is falling apart at the moment. So I have reservations myself; I wanted to clarify that. But saying that we should delay things until 2028 will be seen, understandably, as quite simply putting off the task, and that does not work at all.
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I also want to address the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, made when she rightly noted that when we were in the European Union much of the law that was not looked over by Parliament was indeed put forward by UK Ministers. It is true that many politicians in the UK felt much happier dealing with getting laws through Brussels and Strasbourg than being answerable to the UK public—to the electorate in this country. They quite liked taking their laws over there and coming back to the UK and saying, “What can we do about it? It is just being imposed on us by the EU.” I have always been critical of that.
There is no doubt that there was less fuss made in both Houses about the fact that laws were not scrutinised by Parliament at that time. I want there to be more scrutiny by Parliament now. I think the reason why people outside Parliament, Westminster and Whitehall are suspicious of opposition to this Bill, which you cannot blame them for, is that over the years they have not seen the same enthusiasm for scrutinising law that was imposed on the UK. I agree it was often under the auspices of UK Ministers having agreed it over in Brussels. There is a certain amount of speaking with forked tongue going on here. There is no doubt about it.
Whereas I want to hold the Government to account for the problems with the Bill, my nervousness is that it feels mired in politics. So I cannot get away from the feeling that any delays or tactics that say, “Can we not just wait a bit longer?”, let the Government off the hook. The Government should have got on with this a lot longer ago rather than having to rush it through now. But I think any delays are likely to cause real cynicism outside this place. But the Government do need to reassure me—