The Brexit Bill is ‘constitutionally unacceptable’, the chairman of the influential House of Lords Constitution Committee has warned, in a new report.
The committee, which is chaired by Baroness Taylor of Bolton, expressed disappointment the government had not acted on its previous recommendations, and called for key amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. Its report, published this week, claims the current form of the Bill risks undermining legal certainty, gives overly broad powers to ministers and may have significant consequences for the relationship between the UK government and the devolved administrations.
Baroness Taylor said: ‘We acknowledge the scale, challenge and unprecedented nature of the task of converting existing EU law into UK law, but as it stands this Bill is constitutionally unacceptable.
‘In our two previous reports we highlighted the issues this raised and we are disappointed that the government has not acted on a number of our recommendations. However, we identify a number of practical ways in which the flaws in the Bill can be addressed in line with existing constitutional principles and without compromising the government’s aims. We look forward to constructive engagement with the government on our recommendations.’
The committee’s interim report, published in September, warned that the Bill ‘weaves a tapestry of delegated powers that are breath-taking in terms of both their scope and potency’; that its capacity to undermine legal certainty was ‘considerable’; and that it was ‘highly complex and convoluted in its drafting and structure’.
Its previous report, 'The Great Repeal Bill’, published in March 2017, noted that the process of converting EU law into UK law ‘will be extremely complicated’ and that clarity was needed on how the process would be undertaken and how non-legislative elements of EU law should be treated.
