MPs to debate 15 House of Lords amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill

In summary, the 15 House of Lords amendments – several of them relevant to the scrutiny and transparency of legal changes relating to food, farming, fishing, public health and the environment, as well as workers’ rights, are:

• Customs Union: requiring government to make a statement on the customs union by 31 October 2018.
• Enhanced scrutiny procedure: requiring amendments to retained EU law only with enhanced scrutiny, including employment and equality rights, health and safety protections, and consumer and environmental standards.
• Charter of Fundamental Rights: transferring the Charter into UK law.
• Challenges to retained EU law: removing a limitation on challenges to the validity of retained EU law after exit day.
• Challenges to retained EU law: allowing legal challenges to domestic law if it fails to comply with the general principles of EU law.
• Scope of delegated powers: limiting ministers to use ‘Henry VIII’ powers only use where “necessary” rather than where they think it is “appropriate”.
• Meaningful vote: requiring approval of Parliament for the withdrawal agreement and transitional measures, with specific deadlines.
• Parliamentary approval of mandate for future negotiations: preventing withdrawal from the EU before Parliament has approved a mandate for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
• Rights of reunification of unaccompanied child refugees: enabling unaccompanied child refugees in one EU member state to join relatives in another.
• Northern Ireland: preserving North-South co-operation after Brexit and border arrangements agreed between the UK Government and the Government of Ireland.
• Continuing relationship with the EU: enabling the UK to replicate EU law made after exit day in UK law and to participate in EU agencies.
• Date and time of exit: removing a fixed date and time, to give the Commons a chance to think again.
• European Economic Area: requiring the Government to make remaining in the European Economic Area a negotiating objective.
• Scrutiny: broadening the scope of the sifting committee for statutory instruments and giving it the power to ‘require’ greater scrutiny rather than just ‘recommend’.
• Environmental principles: requiring the Secretary of State for Defra to take steps to maintain the EU’s environmental principles in domestic law.

An amendment was defeated that would have required the government to pay regard to the welfare requirements of animals as sentient beings, in accordance with EU principles.

The Commons can accept or reject the Lords’ proposed amendments outright; suggest amendments to the amendments; or propose ‘amendments in lieu’, achieving a similar effect in a different way.

Unless all the amendments are accepted, the EU Withdrawal Bill will then return to the Lords for peers to consider the Commons’ proposals. This process – sometimes referred to as ‘ping pong’ – will continue until all outstanding points of disagreement are resolved.

The Government has already accepted 200 amendments in total, including those giving clarity to UK courts on interpretation of Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case law, and parliamentary scrutiny of powers in the Bill. The EU Withdrawal Bill is now expected to return to the House of Commons in “weeks not months”, according to a Number 10 spokesperson. MPs will need to debate and vote on amendments proposed by the House of Lords. Details may be given by Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom in her weekly Business Statement on 7 June, which may also cover the Trade and Customs Bills.

A useful state-of-play for the EU Withdrawal Bill has been produced by the Institute for Government, explaining the process and more details of the House of Lords amendments.