Motor Insurance: Court Judgments

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 4:59 pm on 22 September 2021.

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Photo of Bill Cash Bill Cash Chair, European Scrutiny Committee, Chair, European Scrutiny Committee 4:59, 22 September 2021

I am very glad that you mention that, Ms Bardell. I am not giving a tour of my knowledge; I am giving a tour of the answer to the question that is before the Chamber at the moment. It is the only way it can be dealt with. The remedy is there, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has said.

I will pursue this point for a short few minutes, because it is really important to get this on record. The objective of the grandfathering of EU retained law was to maximise continuity and stability following our withdrawal, without an express commitment to keep this anomalous category of law on the statute books indefinitely. There are ambiguities in all this and they have to be resolved as well. As I have indicated, the most dangerous situation would be if the concept of EU supremacy continued to apply, notwithstanding what I have said.

We have one directive here. I can assure you, Ms Bardell, that the House of Commons Library briefing paper No. 08136, published in November 2017, identified up to 20,000 EU laws that fall into this category. Forgive me if I make the point again, but it is important that people understand the scale of the problem and the fact that it can easily be remedied. About 900 directives are in force, almost all of which apply to the UK, which are not generally retained, and there are 12,484 regulations, around 7,000 of which were incorporated in the UK as

“the amended legislation is considered as one with the legislation amending it”.

There are 7,000 EU decisions, which are converted through the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act and apply to the UK. That also includes European court judgments and case law before exit date, converted to UK law as retained EU case law.

I am now Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, having been on the Committee for 38 years, with my hon. Friend Craig Mackinlay. I can assure the Chamber that there is a very easy way to achieve this, but it is a complicated political manoeuvre, which is now under consideration by the Government. These laws were passed under qualified majority vote, as was the ports directive, for example, which I believe is now on the execution block for the same reason. It was done by qualified majority voting behind closed doors, and much of the legislation that emerged out of the Single European Act is stuff that we would never have implemented ourselves.

In a nutshell, this is a serious matter. It raises questions of sovereignty and the role of the courts, and it raises practical questions of the scale that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has referred to. One incident she mentioned would cost the British taxpayer £1 billion. That is the scale of the necessity to get this right. I conclude by congratulating my hon. Friend the Minister. She and I have got to know one another very well over the past few years and I am delighted that she has got the job.