Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:15 pm on 25 October 2022.

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Photo of Jacob Rees-Mogg Jacob Rees-Mogg The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy 3:15, 25 October 2022

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is wise, as always. But it is even odder than that, because there is this very strange view that laws that came in without any scrutiny at all—regulations of the EU that became our law automatically—cannot be removed without primary legislation. That is just bizarre.

The laws with which we are dealing came in under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act. Either they came in with minimum scrutiny but could not be amended or changed, or they came in with no scrutiny at all. I know that my hon. Friend Sir William Cash disagrees with me on this, but we are not using this procedure to repeal Acts of Parliament. Even though these measures have the effect of introducing EU law, an Act of Parliament has had full scrutiny in the House, and to be repealed it deserves full scrutiny to be taken away. That is the correct constitutional procedure.