What a nonsense this row is about so called Henry VIII clauses.
All our current EU laws either were imposed direct with no reference at all to Parliament, or had to be voted through as Statutory Instruments in order to comply. Thousands of EU jaws became our laws with no opportunity for Parliament to debate and vote on them as draft Acts of Parliament. Parliament was warned it could not vote down SIs that were needed to implement Directives, and an alliance of the two main front benches ensured they always passed.
Now Parliament is debating at great length transferring all these laws into UK laws by a full Act of Parliament. Thereafter if we wish to change any of them we will be able to so, but again it will take a full Act of Parliament to do so. That is the restoration of the democratic control we voted for.
Because the draft Act says Ministers for a 2 year period may make technical adjustments so these laws still work in the way intended once they are Uk law by passing a Statutory Instrument Labour is wrongly saying this is not democratic.
The power will only be used for technical changes like striking out reference to other member states in what becomes a UK law, or substituting a UK’s court or other body to adjudicate or act where an EU institution does at the moment. Parliament will still be involved as any Statutory Instrument can be debated and voted on if the Opposition wishes.
It is embarrassing to hear and see so much airtime given over to this non story. Why did we never hear about the complete absence of democracy for all those laws the EU imposed on us? Why was it right to allow SIs for major changes to our law when it came from the EU, yet it is not even allowed to use SIs for technical changes to keep the purpose and effectiveness of the inherited EU law?
Follow this news feed: John Redwood MP