My Lords, while it is in my mind, I am not sure the Minister answered my noble friend Lady Brinton’s question, which was, in citing the Delegated Powers Committee report, to ask what was the policy intention and to point out that the Bill is a blank sheet of paper as far as that is concerned. That is what is completely worrying us, because of its effect on the real world and the lack of any parliamentary grip on this process.
For him to say that Amendment 69A would involve the Law Commission in Government policy misrepresents the amendment—no doubt inadvertently—which talks about asking the Law Commission to report on,
“the effect of sections 3, 4 and 5 … on legal certainty, and the clarity and predictability of the law.”
That is surely within the purview of the Law Commission. That would not involve the Law Commission in policy. I fear that the Minister misrepresented Amendment 69A, perhaps in his enthusiasm.
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The Minister also claimed that Amendment 68 would introduce unnecessary complexity. I am afraid I find that a little cheeky, because the whole Bill will result in extreme complexity. Every commentator with no particular party-political axe to grind points that out. It will make life very complex for businesses, unions, individuals and consumers trying to understand their rights. The Government are creating the complexity.
In Amendments 68, 69 and 69A, as in the amendments we debated in the first three days in Committee, there is a consistent theme calling for analysis, reasons, a report to Parliament and for Parliament to be able to make decisions. We are trying to pull back from the Government’s creation of a void. If there is anything more legally uncertain than a void, I do not know what it is. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, whispered to me, and gave me permission to repeat her whisper, “I’m glad I’m not a judge anymore.” She is feeling sorry for the judges who will attempt to sort out this void and this mess, and that is not a reasonable thing for a Government to do. As I keep saying, it is not good governance.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, will recall that he, I and the Minister were in the European Parliament at the same time. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, drew attention to the fact that Ministers keep saying to us that there was no parliamentary involvement in EU lawmaking, that it was not democratic, et cetera, but, as he pointed out, there are two Chambers of the EU legislature. The lower Chamber is the directly elected European Parliament, which we were in, and the upper Chamber, although it fails the transparency and accountability test, is the Council of Ministers, which included UK Ministers. It once had a veto and later had very strong influence, particularly from British Ministers, it must be said.
I am not sure whether this refrain from Ministers that the way this law was originally made was not democratic and so now we are making it democratic is the assertion. That is easy is to refute because there is nothing democratic about the way the Government are going about it now—the Bill simply gives powers to the Executive. Or are they saying that it was not democratic when it was done in the EU and that is their justification for it not being democratic now—so there will be a consistent lack of democracy? I am not sure which way round it is.
I will finish off by recalling, as I did in moving the amendment, that Conservative MPs have clearly been briefed to say, in the Brexiters’ consistent refrain, that this is taking back control and bringing back democracy. The Government are gaslighting us, frankly, because this Bill is the opposite of doing that. I would have thought that self-respecting MPs would at least not say that given this Bill, which they, certainly on the Conservative Benches, waved through the Commons. I do not know whether they ever read it, but if they had they would have seen that Parliament is carved out completely, so how they can keep a straight face when they say that democracy is being brought back is beyond me. That said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.