Peers began ten days of line-by-line scrutiny of the Brexit Bill this week, following a stormy Second Reading last month.
The Committee Stage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will take place every Monday and Wednesday until 26 March. During the ten sessions, Peers are expected to discuss exit day issues including the role of devolved administrations, nuclear safeguards, health care, security and the effect of withdrawing from the single market and customs union.
Given the Bill’s controversial passage thus far, the government can expect plenty more potholes on the road.
A record 187 Lords took part in the Second Reading debate, with notified amendments running to more than 80 pages of text. They include Lord Adonis, who proposed but later withdrew a motion regretting that the Bill did not allow for the opinion of the people to be secured on the terms of any proposed withdrawal agreement.
Prior to the debate, the House of Lords’ Constitution Committee published a highly critical report warning that 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, who chairs the committee, described the Bill as ‘constitutionally unacceptable’.
Although the committee welcomed the government’s acceptance of the need for a ‘sifting committee’ in the House of Commons to recommend the right level of scrutiny for statutoryinstruments flowing from withdrawal from the EU, it proposed, that, subject to the view of the House, the new committee should have the power to ‘decide’, not merely to ‘recommend.’
