My Lords, I thank the Minister for the overview and explanation of this statutory instrument. In this first use of the powers in the retained EU law Act, the tidying-up exercise involves the exercise of the Section 1 power to disapply the sunset and the Section 14 power to revoke 93 pieces of retained EU law that no longer have any legal effect for whatever reason.

First, on the use of the Section 1 power, the Government have identified four pieces of legislation that never should have been included in the revocation schedule. This is extremely concerning. These instruments —two concerning the use of copper, one concerning merchant shipping regulations and one providing the legal vires to inform Northern Ireland and Gibraltar counterparts of the outcome of roadworthiness inspections —may not be the most significant pieces of legislation we have but they each play an important legal role.

Without the cross-party efforts of the House in improving the Act, these instruments would almost certainly have been lost at the end of the year, given that the further analysis required to spot these errors would have needed to take place on thousands, not hundreds, of instruments. Do the Government now accept that their initial unnecessarily reckless approach, borne out of internal party politics, was undoubtedly the wrong one?

Schedule 1 to the Act contained 587 instruments to be revoked at the end of 2023, to the extent specified there. I am sure the Government were 100% confident in this list when it was first drafted. We are now much closer to the end of the year and its looming deadline. Does the Minister seriously expect us to believe that now he really is confident that the revocation of the instruments on that list will not have any legal impact? Is the analysis that found the four errors I mentioned still ongoing or has it concluded?

The instrument also retains three pieces of legislation for Northern Ireland only relating to information provision and promotion measures concerning agricultural products. This again sounds somewhat minor, but their revocation would have represented a policy change, which would require agreement by Ministers in a non-functioning Executive. I am sure the whole House can see the constitutional risk, so is there any risk that proceeding as we are now will lead to such a situation? I assume that the Northern Ireland Civil Service will be examining this legislation continuously until and probably after it is revoked. If the Minister could share what he has been told by it on this matter, it would be very much appreciated.

Lastly, a further 93 pieces of retained EU law will be revoked using Section 14 powers. With the end of the year in sight, this is a remarkably small number, standing in stark contrast to how much would have been revoked by default under the Government’s initial approach. Does the Minister envisage that there will be further additions before the end of the year? Could he possibly enlighten us further on the general process that has taken place to identify this legislation? Given the lack of legal impact, can the Minister share any assessment that has been made on the wider impact, such as easier understanding for businesses and consumers? Has any assessment been made of how this adds up against the resources being put towards this exercise?

I turn to divergence. To avoid the economic costs of divergence, we should continue to stay close to EU regulatory standards. We co-created many of these club rules through negotiation processes where we could put the case for British businesses during the decades we were full members of the club. Now that we are no longer members, we of course no longer have a say in any regulations that are introduced and will come into effect in the future. However, British businesses will still need to abide by these new rules if they wish to trade within the EU. Uncertainty and ambivalence do not encourage investment and lack of investment in turn reduces capacity for economic growth. With public investment well below the G7 average and business investment at the bottom of the league, what assessments have the Government made to reverse this trend?

Sadly, we are not really surveying sunlit uplands. Instead, we find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to square the circle, crossing our fingers and hoping for the best no matter how much we tinker around the edges.

To return to the legislation, I suspect there will be many more instances of tidying up as we adjust to our new surroundings and relationship. I am looking forward to being issued with a new broom.