Hansard

It is ironic that the House of Lords has been the great defender of democracy, accountability, standards and protections. It has stood firm and resolute against the bill. In response, the UK Government did some serious back-pedalling and watered down the bill and removed the cliff edge.

Reports of the subsequent battle between various groups of Brexiteers in the Conservative Party have been glorious to observe.

“I am not an arsonist, I’m a Conservative”,

claimed Kemi Badenoch, the current Secretary of State for Business and Trade. I presume that the previous holder of that post, Jacob Rees Mogg—I am sure that he was the previous one—was an arsonist.

The Lords defied the Government in the second round of ping-pong and reasserted two amendments—the first looking to provide additional environmental protections and the second seeking to increase parliamentary scrutiny and oversight.

Amendment 48 was a cross-party amendment that was signed by the Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson in the House of Lords, Baroness Parminter. Liberal Democrats voted for that amendment and the Government was defeated. The amendment has ensured that, where ministers seek to use their powers under the bill to restate, revoke or replace the retained EU law that is saved—as it were—by the Government’s amendment to clause 1, the proposed changes cannot reduce levels of environmental protection or of food safety standards. It also ensures that they cannot conflict with relevant international environmental agreements to which the UK is party. That seems to be eminently sensible.

We also supported amendments 2, 15 and 76 in the House of Lords, which would ensure that the Houses of Parliament would have proper scrutiny of any significant change to the law. Furthermore, we joined others to defeat the Government three more times and to impose restraint on the huge powers that Government ministers had given themselves in the bill.

I draw members’ attention to a significant point. Lord Krebs of Wytham, an eminent cross-bencher who was the first chairman of the British Food Standards Agency, led on amendment 48, and said:

“food and environment ... are crucial to the ... Bill, as between them they account for approximately half of the 4,900 regulations … These two areas are also crucial because of public concern. You have to think only of sewage in rivers, outbreaks of food-borne illness or GM foods to realise that these areas—environment and food—resonate with the public.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 May 2023; Vol 830, c 102.]

Unfortunately, the Government was able to overturn all those victories in the House of Commons.

Despite the watering down, the bill itself remains completely unnecessary. It is not required. It threatens environmental protections and it lacks parliamentary oversight.

The Government’s changes have improved matters, but they have not answered all of our concerns, so we will vote with the Scottish Government for the motion at decision time.