The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency
( )
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement
about EU retained law.
Earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set
out that:
“The United Kingdom’s uncoupling from the rules, regulations and
institutions of Brussels was never simply about the moment of our
departure; the act of Brexit was not an end in itself but the
means by which our country will achieve great things.”
Now that we have left the European Union the sovereignty of
Parliament has been restored and we are free once again to
legislate, regulate, or deregulate as this sovereign Parliament
redux pleases. As we maximise the benefits of Brexit and
transform the UK into the most sensibly regulated economy in the
world, we must reform the EU law we have retained on our statute
book. Only through reform of this retained EU law will we finally
be able to untangle ourselves from nearly 50 years of EU
membership.
In September 2021 my predecessor the noble announced a review into the
substance of retained EU law. The purpose of the review was to
catalogue which Departments, policy areas and sectors of the
economy are most saturated by European law—law that was imposed
upon us in a time when Parliament was unable to refuse consent.
The road to reform remains a long one; not all Brexit freedoms
can be grasped at once. I am pleased to report that Whitehall
fired on all cylinders to complete this review. As a result,
Members across the House can properly appreciate the extent of EU
law on our statute book and the extent of the opportunities that
reforming this law provides.
In the 2022 “The Benefits of Brexit” announcement, the Prime
Minister committed to making the outcome of this review available
to the public. It is right that the public know how much retained
EU law there is and that they should be able to hold the
Government properly to account for reforming it. The public have
already shown great interest in the EU law that remains on our
statute book, as evidenced by the huge amount of correspondence I
received in response to my request for details of EU legislation
that still burden them—and I am grateful to readers of The Sun
and the Sunday Express for their many replies. I am also
encouraging some competitiveness between my right hon. Friends in
the Cabinet, and hope that this spirit will inspire rapid reform,
with returns published every quarter by Departments.
Therefore, I am pleased to announce that today we publish an
authoritative catalogue of over 2,400 pieces of legislation,
spanning over 300 individual policy areas. This catalogue will be
available on gov.uk through an interactive dashboard. It will be
updated on a quarterly basis so the public can “count down”
retained EU law as the Government reform it. I commend the
Cabinet Office officials who developed this dashboard; it is a
fascinating resource in its own right, and is of both political
and—in my view—historic constitutional importance.
The pertinence of publishing the dashboard today should not be
missed. Six years ago tomorrow—that day of legend and song—the
United Kingdom voted decisively to leave the European Union. The
public voted to take back control, and while it took some time to
get there—two general elections and some constitutionally
fascinating parliamentary prestidigitation between 2017 and
2019—the Prime Minister has delivered such control in spades. His
Brexit agreement, which guaranteed regulatory autonomy for
Britain, means that the publication of this dashboard offers the
public a real opportunity: everything on it we can now change.
The author E. M. Forster once said
“two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety, and two
because it permits criticism.”
Therefore, as I did earlier this year, I am inviting the public
from across the country—whether in Wakefield or in Tiverton and
Honiton, or in other places selected at random for the purposes
of illustration—to once again share their ideas of reform and to
look further into pieces of retained EU law that have an impact
on their lives. By using this dashboard, the public can join us
on this journey to amend, repeal or replace retained EU law.
Together we will make reforms that will create a crucial boost to
productivity and help us bring the benefits of growth to the
whole country.
Of course, Her Majesty’s Government are legislating to seize the
opportunities of Brexit and have been since 2020. From
introducing our points-based immigration system and securing the
integrity of the United Kingdom’s internal market to boosting
growth and innovation by allowing gene-edited crops and
recognising high-quality professional qualifications, we are
already showing—among others—the benefits of Brexit to the
British people.
There are countless other opportunities for reform ahead of us.
Members will know that the recent Queen’s Speech was full to the
gunwales with the opportunities of Brexit, ranging from financial
services to agriculture, data and artificial intelligence,
transport, energy, and restoring sense to human rights law. This
Government will work to develop a new pro-growth, high-standards
regulatory framework that will give business the confidence to
innovate, invest, and create jobs.
Those are the big, headline-grabbing issues, but the dashboard
is, I hope, an opportunity to tackle hundreds of matters. They
may seem marginal on their own, but all these measures in the
margin will combine to usher in a revolution: not a French- style
revolution with blood running in the streets and the terror of
the guillotine, but a British-style revolution whereby marginal
improvements move inch by inch so that soon we will have covered
the feet, and the feet will become yards, and the yards will
become chains and then furlongs and miles, until the journey is
complete. With inflation running high, we need to search
everywhere—under every stone and sofa cushion—for supply-side
reforms that will make products and services cheaper, will make
things easier for business, and, ultimately, will grow the
economy and cut the cost of living.
The dashboard, therefore, is the supply-side reformer’s El
Dorado, and, naturally, I am pointing to the treasure trove of
opportunity that this publication represents. It highlights
unnecessary and disproportionate EU regulations on consumer
goods, such as those regulating the power of vacuum cleaners—why
should that trouble Her Majesty’s Government?—and the
expensive testing requirements mandated by REACH—the regulation
on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of
chemicals—for the plastics that make up items we use every day,
requirements that shut out the newest and most innovative
materials. Thankfully, we left the EU before it decided to
mandate what sort of phone chargers we can have, a typically
short-termist and anti-innovation measure which will only have a
long-term negative effect for consumers.
The dashboard includes the overbearing reporting requirements
which add costs to businesses and slow down progress, whether by
building new developments in areas that need housing the most or
by making it more expensive to hire people at a time of a labour
shortage and to respond to militant strikers. We will continue to
work with Departments to cut at least £1 billion of business
costs from EU red tape to secure greater freedoms and
productivity. Ensuring that we have the right regulation is
crucial. Excessive and unnecessary regulations which burden
business or distort market outcomes, reduce productivity, pushing
up prices and negatively affecting everyone’s cost of living.
Using our new-found freedom to address the over 2,400 retained EU
pieces of legislation on our statute book, the Government will be
able to remove and amend regulation that is not right for the UK.
This will make a real difference to the process of reducing the
number of unnecessary EU regulations that contribute to the cost
of living.
Some—perhaps dozens—-of these rules we might wish to maintain.
That will be a decision for the Queen in Parliament, our
Parliament, rather than the European Commission. We will preserve
retained EU law that is required for our international
obligations. We will preserve high standards, such as those for
water, and we may even be able to go further in some ways to move
ahead of the European Union.
The publication of this dashboard will mark a pivotal step
towards reform of our statute book and those 2,400 pieces of
retained EU legislation, ahead of the introduction of the “Brexit
Freedoms” Bill. That Bill will allow the United Kingdom to take
the next step in reclaiming the sovereignty of Parliament. It
will address the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which
preserved and incorporated too much EU-derived law at too high a
status, giving much of it the same status as an Act of
Parliament. That is clearly mistaken, and means that many changes
to retained EU law require primary legislation.
Undoing this vandalism to our constitutional order policy area by
policy area would dominate the legislative agenda for Parliaments
to come, which would affect the Government’s ability to deliver
more fundamental domestic reforms and the opportunity for the UK
to reap the benefits of Brexit. The “Brexit Freedoms” Bill will
create a targeted power to allow retained EU law to be amended in
a more sustainable way, and will go with the grain of the British
constitution. This will help us to deliver the UK’s regulatory,
economic and legal priorities.
Ahead of the Bill’s introduction, I invite Members to review the
dashboard themselves, and to delve into the legislation that
affects the communities that they serve.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the shadow Minister.
13:54:00
(Cardiff South and Penarth)
(Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for advance sight of
his statement.
This appears to be simply a vanity project. It is quite
extraordinary that on a day when inflation has topped 9%, when
the cost of energy is soaring, when families are facing massive
pressures and wondering how they will put food on the table, and
when prices are rising at the fastest rate in 40 years, the
Government’s offer to the British people is a digital filing
cabinet of existing legislation that the right hon. Gentleman
describes as “marginal”—his own word.
While the Government plan to cut 20% of civil servants, the
Minister for so-called Government efficiency is running his own
make-work scheme in the Cabinet Office, creating tasks for it to
satisfy his own obsessions. How much has this exercise cost the
taxpayer? How many civil service hours? Perhaps we could have a
running meter counting them up on the dashboard so that we all
know. What is the expected number of users among the general
public? Is the dashboard even active? I am an eager beaver, but I
could not find it on gov.uk this morning.
The reality is that gimmicks do nothing to address the real
challenges that the public face today. For all the Government’s
talk about changes that we can make outside the EU, they still
refuse to make the one concrete change that the Labour party has
demanded for months, with the overwhelming support of the British
people, and the Prime Minister himself has promised: the removal
of VAT on home energy bills.
Other changes that are now possible post Brexit and which Labour
has called for but the Government have refused include a ban on
the import of fur; the imposition of VAT on private school fees
to fund a transformation in the provision of mental health; and
the introduction of US-style bans on the import of goods from
China produced using slave labour. Those are all changes that the
Government could make right now, but they were not mentioned in
the right hon. Gentleman’s lengthy oration.
As for the regulatory changes that the Government propose, I have
not heard a single example today of a specific change that
depends on the passage of the planned Brexit freedoms Bill, nor
have we heard an example of additional changes that will follow
in due course as a result of that Bill. What is that Bill for? In
the absence of any answers, it is only right that we are cautious
about what the new legislation will mean and whether it could be
used as a mechanism to fast-track changes that could, for
example, impinge on the devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland, threaten workers’ rights or threaten the
environmental protections and food standards that the British
people were repeatedly promised would be maintained post Brexit.
It is also vital that we ensure that any changes proposed under
the legislation are subject to the proper processes for scrutiny,
consultation and impact assessment. Anyone in doubt about why
that is necessary need only look at the Department for Digital,
Culture, Media and Sport’s proposals, included in the paper “The
Benefits of Brexit”, to ditch the UK’s current data protection
standards. That one move, which has been confirmed in recent
weeks, would jeopardise tens of billions of UK exports that
depend on the ability to sell services online to EU customers
quickly and easily. However, there has been no mention whatever
of that threat, let alone a full assessment of its impact, and it
did not feature today. That is all further evidence of a
Government entirely driven by rhetoric and increasingly detached
from reality.
Could it be that the dashboard is designed not only to satisfy
the right hon. Gentleman’s obsessions, but to distract members of
the public from the Government’s shambolic handling of the
Northern Ireland protocol? All this self-congratulation comes
from a Government who are now trying to convince people that what
they described as their flagship achievement was not a
negotiating triumph, but a deal so flawed that they cannot abide
by it. Not only is their Northern Ireland Protocol Bill a blatant
breach of international law, but it risks the integrity of the
Good Friday agreement, risks causing divides across Europe when
we should be pulling together against Putin’s war on the
continent, and risks causing trade barriers in a cost of living
crisis. We need negotiation, graft and statecraft, not unilateral
action or gimmicks.
Those are just some of the very real and serious problems that
will affect the lives of ordinary people in the UK and beyond for
years to come. The dashboard that the right hon. Gentleman
described will provide little comfort. A Labour Government would
make Brexit work by unleashing the potential of British
businesses and entrepreneurs so that we can lead the world in new
industries. We would seize the opportunities of the climate
transition to create well-paid, secure jobs in all parts of the
country. Rather than pursuing vanity projects, the Government
should focus on the real problems facing the British public.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to thank me for an advance
copy of my statement; it is a pity, then, that he did not read
it, because so many of his questions were answered there. He
wants to know what the purpose is—the purpose is supply-side
reforms that are essential for dealing with the cost of living
crisis. [Interruption.] He quotes “marginal”, so he did pay
attention to one thing, but he then wrenched it out of context to
use it in a way that shows he was not following the argument.
Each individual item is marginal, but cumulatively they are
fundamental. That is how we have supply side reforms.
There are endless obstacles in the way of doing business—hundreds
and thousands of them—and our job is to find them, expose them
and remove them and to have a Bill that makes that simple. If you
had to have primary legislation to remove every stone from your
shoe, Madam Deputy Speaker—no doubt they are very elegant shoes
that no stone would dare enter, but nonetheless, should a stone
enter and we needed primary legislation to remove it, that brave
stone would remain there almost permanently. What we are doing is
speeding up the process so that stones may be removed from shoes.
Then the socialists complain that the agreement was not up to
scratch. Bear in mind that at that point the Labour party still
did not want to leave the European Union. It was still arguing
about things such as a second referendum. Labour Members did not
want to follow what the British people had voted for, and now
they want slavish acceptance of EU laws. Have we not had a
socialist recently calling for the single market to be where we
should end up again? That is where they want to be: under the
yoke of Brussels, ignoring the referendum and the will of the
British people.
The hon. Gentleman also thought that this dashboard should be
released before my statement to Parliament. Some people may
remember that I used to be Leader of the House, and in that role
I was regularly hearing from Mr Speaker about information being
given out before it had come to the Floor of the House. I see my
hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) nodding—he
would be the first to raise a point of order.
I am glad that there are a few socialists in today, rather than
being on picket lines. It might be that when they are on their
picket lines, they could read a bit of “Erskine May” and the
Standing Orders of this place to understand that things are meant
to be announced here first, which is what we are doing.
(Chingford and Woodford
Green) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having made this
statement? It is quite right that we need to get on with this. To
those who complain about not having absolutely everything done
now on the Floor of the House by primary legislation, I say that
so many of these rules and regulations were imported without so
much as a single element being dealt with on the Floor of the
House, so we need to ensure we get this in balance.
Can I press my right hon. Friend on general data protection
regulation rules? One of the problems we have is that many
charities, small businesses and start-ups face real cost problems
and regulatory detail problems that they cannot cope with, and
they have cried out for changes to be made. Will he confirm to me
that this is one of the areas that the Government will look at to
make sure that those charities, companies and individuals do not
face anything like the terrible bureaucratic mess that is the
regulations today?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend makes two very good points. The first is
that it is important to note that most of these laws came in
using the section 2(2) power under the European Communities Act
1972. The vast majority were not subject to a parliamentary
process, despite the diligence of my hon. Friend the Member for
Stone ( ), the Chairman of the
European Scrutiny Committee. When we asked for debates on the
Floor of the House in that Committee, they were often not given,
and the debates that were held in Committee could not refuse or
block a European law—even the ports directive, which everyone was
united against. This great flood of regulations came in without
so much as a by-your-leave from this House, and my right hon.
Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green ( ) is right to point that
out.
My right hon. Friend makes a good point on GDPR, and it is worth
bearing in mind that Australia has a general exemption from GDPR
for smaller businesses. Whether we can go that far, I do not
know, but I will certainly take his point up with my right hon.
Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and
Sport.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the SNP spokesperson.
(West
Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I know that the Minister speaks with passion as a Brexiteer, as I
speak with passion as a remainer—at least we can both having
conviction in our belief, unlike those who have slightly changed
their minds. As I listened to his statement, replete with the
usual—forgive me—flim-flam about Brexit Britain being liberated
from the European yoke, I found myself wondering whether he
really believes that this Palace is the only place capable of
promulgating rights and laws. From listening to him speak, and
from what we know about the Brexit freedoms Bill, it is almost as
if those on the Government side have forgotten that there are
other legislatures across these islands that have a role in
making laws and that may wish to express an opinion on whether
the laws and rights that we accumulated during our membership of
the European Union should be snatched away by whatever whimsy
this Government are attracted to in a given week.
Given that Scotland’s governance and destiny cannot be decided
without the sovereign will and consent of the people of Scotland,
not this place—this Government continue to ignore us at their
peril—could the Minister tell us whether the Government will seek
a legislative consent motion from Pàrlamaid na h-Alba, and from
other devolved legislatures, and if so, whether they intend to
respect the decisions of those Parliaments? We need to ask the
question: do we actually live in a United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, or in a greater England, where the
wishes of only one of the constituent nations need to be
respected in order for such Bills to be carried?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that he and I have been
consistent in our views on this matter, and therefore it is
interesting, as always, to cross swords with him. He brings us to
an important issue, because obviously where there are devolved
consequences from laws coming back from the European Union, the
power to amend will be with the devolved authorities. We have
already seen a great flow of power from Brussels to the devolved
Administrations so that the Scottish Government have received
powers. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 provided a
great swathe of extra powers to the devolved authorities, and
that will continue under this Bill and will provide benefits for
all the devolved authorities to take back control for themselves.
We will indeed ask for legislative consent motions, which is the
habit of this Government. I cannot promise whether they will be
granted; in that instance, he will be more influence than me.
(Stone) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the enormous progress
he is making with respect to the freedoms Bill, and the
opportunities that it will give the United Kingdom to regain its
sovereignty, its self-government and its democracy? Does he
agree, given his experience and having been a member of the
European Scrutiny Committee for many years, that one of the most
extraordinary aspects of EU retained law is that for about 50
years the laws were made by majority vote in the Council of
Ministers—Ministers of other countries—behind closed doors and
without even so much as a transcript, unlike in this House, so
people did not even know the basis, let alone who had actually
voted for them? Does he not regard that as so extraordinary that
he would be surprised if anyone could possibly justify
legislating for a country in that way, and particularly for a
country such as the United Kingdom, with its freedom and
democracy? It is completely unacceptable for it to have continued
for so long?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that the way legislation was
made in Europe was entirely undemocratic. It was unscrutinised
and then became our law automatically, and if we did not turn it
into our law properly, we could be told to jump to by the
European Court of Justice. The situation was entirely
unsatisfactory. However, because we are a democracy and we
believe in the rights of Parliament, we are ensuring that the
process of reversing that is done in a proper parliamentary
manner, and I hope that he will play his part in that manner.
(Leeds Central) (Lab)
It was widely reported that the right hon. Gentleman wanted to
introduce a sunset clause under which all EU retained law would
disappear after four years unless Government Departments had
decided that they wanted to keep it. However, having listened
carefully to his statement, it seems to me that he has suffered a
defeat at the hands of his Cabinet colleagues—we should pay
tribute to the Environment Secretary, who I think described that
approach as “messing around”. If the right hon. Gentleman is
serious about trying to remove constraints on businesses, what is
he going to do about the barrel-load of red tape, cost and
bureaucracy that has fallen on British businesses since the
beginning of 2021 when they are trying to export to the EU? That
has had a huge impact, especially on small businesses, some of
which have just given up trying to sell goods to Europe.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about
sunsets. I think I once called him the high priest of remain.
Yesterday, there was a marvellous picture of the latest sunset
over Stonehenge, where those who like the sunsets coming late had
all gathered to celebrate the longest day. I am surprised that
the high priest of remain was not there joining in on the
celebration.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s question, he will have to wait and
see what the Bill has to say about that. He mentioned EU
regulation. This great lover of EU regulation does not realise
where the blame lies. The EU runs a fundamentally
anti-competitive closed market, which was affecting us. It was
making goods and services in this country more expensive because
we could not trade freely with the world. Now the EU is applying
its regulations to us—that is what we are getting out of. That is
the economic opportunity: to be free from all of that which
slowly strangles the European economy and to have an economy that
can grow globally.
(Wokingham) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for all that he is doing to advance
UK prosperity and growth, including this Bill. The common
fisheries policy sunk many of our fishing boats. Can we have a
policy to replace that fleet? The EU policy ripped up many of our
orchards with grants. Can we have some UK money and a policy to
replant our trees? The EU imposed VAT on us and has left us with
a burden on our energy. Now surely is the time to use our
freedoms and cut VAT.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend is right: it is one of our freedoms. In his
spring statement, the Chancellor announced some amelioration of
VAT. I will ensure that my right hon. Friend’s suggestion is
passed on to the Chancellor.
(East Antrim) (DUP)
As someone who supported Brexit, I welcome the statement today
and the fact that the Government are going to monitor and
identify ways in which we can make our economy more dynamic, more
innovative and more competitive. But as a Unionist, I have
concerns about the statement. The regulatory freedom that is
being sought cannot apply to many aspects of law in Northern
Ireland, and Northern Ireland will still remain under the dead
hand of EU regulation, which will smother innovation and
entrepreneurial dynamism. Will the Minister give an assurance
that, in order for the freedoms that he is announcing today to
apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, the Government will
make every effort and take every step to remove the dead hand of
the protocol?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and share a lot of his
views on this matter. It is fundamental that the benefits of
leaving the European Union are for the whole of the United
Kingdom. I am pleased with the Bill that my right hon. Friend the
Foreign Secretary has introduced, and I hope that it will go
towards ameliorating the problems that have arisen. Our single
united country cannot be ruled by the dead hand of the Brussels
bureaucracy, as we voted to leave as a single nation.
(Guildford) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that it remains a priority for
this Government to use our newfound Brexit freedoms to develop a
pro-growth, high standards regulatory framework that gives
businesses such as mine in Guildford the confidence to innovate
and invest?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we need is regulations
that work rather than ones that require a lot of form filling.
The Procurement Bill has been introduced in the other place, and
that will replace 350 EU regulations with one British law. That
is what we must be aiming at. We are not moving to the wild west.
We are not going to have no regulation. However, our regulation
must be understandable, simple to effect and accountable to this
House. The best check on regulation is Members of this House
coming forward and saying, “I seek redress of grievance for my
constituent who is being harmed by this regulation.” The Minister
at the Dispatch Box is then put on the spot and has to go back to
his or her office and ask, “Why are we doing this to the Great
British people?” That is how our democracy works, and that is how
we must make regulation work.
(Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister is right that it makes a refreshing change from the
practice of his colleagues that he came to this House first to
tell us about the dashboard, but he might have tried to see
whether it works on a mobile phone, because it does not. I know
that he is not a fan of being able to simply charge one, but he
might accept that most of the British public who want to use the
dashboard will have one. No matter—with some assistance, I have
been able to log on to the dashboard and I can see that on the
list of items that he has put up for grabs are the length of
maternity leave and the duty to pay statutory maternity pay. He
said in his statement that everything on the dashboard “can now
change”. Will he assure the thousands of women in this country
who rely on the protections of maternity leave and maternity pay
that they will not change? If so, what is the point of this? If
not, will he be honest that it is really about reinventing the
Beecroft reforms?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The dashboard worked perfectly well on an iPad, so I would have
thought that it was not beyond the wit of Members of this House
to get it to work. In many cases, the protections that we have in
employment law in this country predate the European Union or we
are ahead of the European Union. That is true of maternity
rights, where we are ahead of the base rights in the European
Union under our own law. To say, “Are we going to repeal bits
that are not even EU law, but domestic law?” is missing the point
of the statement.
(Wellingborough) (Con)
Over a long time in this House, I have noticed that when the
Government have done something well, the number of Opposition
Back Benchers present for a statement is very few. I spy no
Liberal Democrats at all—DUP Members are here, of course—and just
four Labour Back Benchers were here at the start of the
statement. They do not want to be here to listen to Brexit
opportunities and the savings and benefits to this country. The
able Minister said that there will be quarterly reporting, which
I hope he will come to the House to do. Will he publicise that in
advance, so that Liberal Democrats and Labour Members will know
not to attend?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his wise and witty
suggestion.
(Carmarthen East and
Dinefwr) (Ind)
The Minister mentioned in his statement that he hopes that
today’s proposals will reduce the cost of living, but is it not
the case that the British Government’s post-Brexit policy is
leading to reduced investor confidence and weakening the
currency, which further fuels inflation? Would not a responsible
Government, given the serious problems faced by households across
the UK, stop shredding European regulations and rejoin the single
market?
Mr Rees-Mogg
No. The hon. Gentleman knows that I will not agree with that
suggestion, because it would negate the referendum where a
majority of people in Wales voted in favour of leaving, as did
the majority of people in England. This is about reducing costs
and taking burdens off. The single market is an extraordinarily
regulatory organisation that boosts the costs of services and
manufactured goods. To go back into it would make life more
expensive and make things worse for British consumers.
(Clwyd West) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement and say how
much I welcome the publication of the dashboard, because it no
doubt provides a revealing snapshot of the extent to which the
body of United Kingdom law has been infiltrated by frequently
undemocratically formulated EU law. I echo the words of the right
hon. Member for East Antrim (): the big exception is
Northern Ireland, which is continuing to receive a stream of laws
because of the Northern Ireland protocol. I urge the Government
to press ahead with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which is
urgently needed.
Mr Rees-Mogg
This is beginning to sound like business questions. I will make
sure that his request is passed on to my right hon. Friend the
Lord President of the Council.
(Aberavon) (Lab)
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the
British economy: they drive forward innovation and they create
jobs, but they do not have huge departments to help them with the
mountain of red tape that is suffocating them because of the
Government’s botched Brexit. Can the Minister set out
specifically what his plan is to reduce that mountain of red tape
so that those SMEs can be supported rather than crushed by the
form of Brexit that he supports?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The retained EU law Bill.
(Tewkesbury) (Con)
Is it my right hon. Friend’s view that most of the bureaucracy
placed on British businesses that are trying to export comes from
the requirements made by other EU countries? They seem to be
making it a lot harder for us to export to them than we are
making it for them to export to us.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Yes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because that is a very
important point. Free trade benefits the receiver of free trade.
Just because the EU makes it harder for us to export to it is no
reason to retaliate in kind. All that does is make things more
expensive for our consumers and our businesses. That is why, on 1
July, we will not impose the full set of controls that the EU
imposes on us. We are looking to a single trade window by the end
of 2023, which will lower the barriers to trade from around the
world and improve the fluidity of our borders. Why? Because that
benefits our economy, even if we do it unilaterally, and that is
fundamentally important. The EU has never understood that, and it
is why it is such a high-cost area.
(Rutherglen and Hamilton
West) (Ind)
I thank the right hon. Member for the statement. I am a member of
the European Scrutiny Committee, to which he gave evidence on
this subject a couple of months ago. The Treasury has announced
reforms to the Consumer Credit Act 1974 as part of this package.
In the current economic climate, it is imperative that vulnerable
consumers be adequately protected, particularly when it comes to
credit agreements. Will the Minister confirm how the Government
expect to ensure full consultation with traditionally
hard-to-reach groups?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I do not know if the hon. Lady will particularly want a
compliment from me, but she is one of the most assiduous
attenders in this House. She fights for constituents who face
difficulties, holds Ministers to account, and ensures that
people’s concerns are brought to this House, and while I may not
agree with her overarching political philosophy, that is what we
Members of Parliament are here to do. We are the champions of
hard-to-reach people; we hold Governments to account; and we
ensure that the result is included in Bills as they make their
way through Parliament. The hon. Lady, dare I say it, is a model
of how this can be done.
(South Thanet) (Con)
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for giving a summary
masterclass, in his usual way, of what the Brexit freedoms Bill
will mean. I think that the British people have not realised how
we got to our legislative framework; there is primary legislation
in this place, directives, regulations, and the override of the
European Communities Act 1972. Nobody can be sure of the
position, be they manufacturing something, providing services or
doing anything else—this goes for anything that moves—because we
do not have consolidated legislation that says, “These are the
rules on the manufacture of paper,” for instance. That cannot be
fair. Does he agree that this proposal will be a refreshing
opening up of our legislative framework, so that we can make it
better, more streamlined and, most importantly, accountable to
this place and the British people?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Yes, indeed. Putting the information online, and opening it up to
people—including, of course, to Members of Parliament—will make
it much clearer where the blockages, obstructions and
difficulties are for businesses. Once we know where they are from
the detail of the legislative instrument, it becomes much easier
to remove them.
(Sheffield Central)
(Lab)
It is increasingly clear that the right hon. Member’s ministerial
title refers to the political opportunities that the Government
see in reopening Brexit wounds as often as possible. His
pointless statement today ignores the wishes of the British
people, who want the Government to stop banging on about Brexit
and start tackling the issues that they face in their daily life.
It ignores the wishes of business, although we know what the
Prime Minister’s view is of business—it is summed up in a
four-letter expletive. Was not the Minister’s Cabinet colleague,
the Environment Secretary, right when he said that “messing
around” with retained law wastes officials’ time,
“costs businesses money and is unlikely to make much difference”?
Mr Rees-Mogg
As it happens, my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary has
been extremely helpful in this process, so the hon. Gentleman
should not believe everything he reads in second-tier
publications. This is not about opening wounds. It is the Labour
party that always wanted to oppose what the people had voted for.
It thought its voters did not know what they were doing. It
treats its electors with contempt and the results were reaped in
December 2019. This is about getting the advantages from Brexit.
This is about the agenda set out in the 2019 manifesto, but also
in 2016 at the time of the referendum, of how we benefit from
leaving the European Union. We do not now want slavishly to
follow the diktats of the EU. That would be a way of losing all
the advantages. This is the way of making the economy more
efficient, getting supply-side reforms, and making goods and
services cheaper.
(Yeovil) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. It is great that we
are finally moving forward with the task of optimising conditions
here in the UK for businesses and individuals. Does he agree that
this is an essential part of moving on with the process? A number
of times I have had friends who might have voted to remain say to
me, “What was the point of this? Show us what the point was,
because we want to change things now. We actively want to change
rules in the City and in agriculture.” Will he drive this forward
with every effort?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. Both of us represent
rural constituencies in Somerset and one of the great advantages
of Brexit is taking away the red tape that ties our farmers and
simplifying processes to make it easier for them to get on with
the business of farming. It is not surprising that a very large
number of retained EU law Acts are within the auspices of the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, because that
has been a primary responsibility of the European Union. We need
to be able to clear away the thicket to make life easier. He is
absolutely right.
(Aberdeen South) (SNP)
They remove our businesses from a single market of 500 million
people. They remove our collective right to live, work and travel
across the European Union. They are delivering the slowest
economic growth in the entire G20—aside from Russia, of course.
And what do we get in return? We get an interactive dashboard and
potentially more powerful vacuum cleaners. The right hon.
Gentleman makes a compelling case for Scotland to choose a
different path, does he not?
Mr Rees-Mogg
There is a compelling case for Scotland to remain within the
United Kingdom, which is what people voted for in 2014. There
seems to be a remarkable short-sightedness about the length of a
generation, which as I understood it was going to be the period
before there was another vote. What we have done is what the
British people voted for. The truth about the SNP is that
whenever the people in the United Kingdom vote, they do not give
the result the SNP wants, so the SNP goes off in a sulk and wants
them to vote again and again and again in the hope that one day
they might give the right answer. But life is not like that. We
have had the referendum and it is all about proper opportunities.
If the hon. Gentleman is so keen on Europe, just look at the
spreads on bonds in the eurozone at the moment. Would he really
want to be in an organisation that has that degree of fragility
in its bond market?
(Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for his statement. Northern
Ireland’s section on the dashboard should be incredibly simple.
The Northern Ireland protocol has given the EU the final say
without any elected input from Northern Ireland. I welcome the
Minister’s statement today, but I would love to welcome the
statement that allows Northern Ireland to operate as part of the
United Kingdom in terms of our own legal place, so will he
confirm the date for the withdrawal legislation, which I believe
he is very eager to give but perhaps some of his colleagues are
less so?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I was sorry not to see the hon. Gentleman in the Chamber earlier
when we unveiled the shield to Sir Henry Wilson. I understand
that he was, of course, in Westminster Hall, but it is about the
only time I have ever been in this Chamber without his beady eye
looking down upon me. He is, of course, right. We want the
benefits for the whole of the United Kingdom, as the right hon.
Member for East Antrim () said, too. This is a United
Kingdom activity. The whole of the United Kingdom left the
European Union and we cannot allow Northern Ireland to be a
satrapy of the EU.
