Meeting of the Parliament 23 February 2023
I refer to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I am a member of the Faculty of Advocates.
This is, of course, the second time that I have risen to speak in a Scottish Government debate on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill—this time for an LCM debate. As the cabinet secretary has already mentioned, the Scottish Government held a debate on the bill in November 2022. As I argued at the time, the timing of that debate was unprecedented, given that the two parliamentary committees that were looking at the bill had not yet reported. As the convener of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee has just mentioned, our committee has agreed to write to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee to recommend that it consider undertaking a review of the relevant provisions of the standing orders.
To move on from that issue, it is arguable that the debate that we are having today is likewise premature because, as the cabinet secretary noted, the bill is not in its final form. It was robustly debated in the House of Lords at the beginning of the month, it is entering the committee stage, and there are reports that it will possibly be amended. In my view, it would have been preferable to have waited until we could at least see a finalised version of the bill before debating it again and considering the issue of consent. However, we are where we are.
The Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee have published their reports on the bill.
Although I am not speaking for the committee on this occasion, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the constitution committee clerks for all their work during the scrutiny of the LCM and the drafting of the final report. Although my Scottish Conservative colleague Maurice Golden and I did not, ultimately, support the conclusions of that report, I acknowledge the hard work of MSP colleagues and the clerking team of our committee.
Let me briefly lay out our position on the bill. I acknowledge that there are several concerns about the REUL bill, especially around timeframes. I retain some personal misgivings about various aspects of the bill, but, in principle, I do not believe that the Scottish Parliament should refuse to consent to the bill. The bill, in our view, rightly seeks to end the inertia that currently exists when it comes to retained EU law on the statute book.
Although there are concerns, my belief is that we cannot maintain a kind of statutory stasis forever and ever. We temporarily kept EU laws in place to smooth the process of the UK’s exit from the EU, but that was always envisaged as a short-term bridging measure.