Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Revocation and Sunset Disapplication) Regulations 2023 - Motion to Approve

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords am 5:15 pm ar 17 Hydref 2023.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Lord Offord of Garvel Lord Offord of Garvel The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) 5:15, 17 Hydref 2023

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, which has obviously had a lot of airtime in this House. I turn to some of the points raised. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made many contributions to the Act. The point about the devolved Administrations is well made, in particular in relation to the Scottish and Welsh consents that are required for this, both of which have now been received. The timing of this is that it has to be through these Houses by 31 October, with limited time to seek agreement with the devolved Governments, but these agreements have now been sought and given by the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government. This completes the suite of amendments in this parliamentary time, so this is going on the statute book. We will then go forward in the new Session of Parliament as the need arises, as and when reform is required and as and when revocation is required. As far as this process is concerned, the devolved Governments have been consulted properly.

In relation to some of the specifics, and there are a lot of specifics with 93 Bills being dealt with here, I take the very specific point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, on alcohol, as one point of many. With all these laws one can access the GOV.UK website where there is a line-by-line explainer for each one. This particular one is the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1979. It restricts the carrying on of certain other trades by a distiller or rectifier within three kilometres of a distillery or rectifying house. Prior to August 1992 that restriction was within two miles. This legislation is now inoperative as it amends provisions that were revoked in 1979.

It is an example of quite a lot of Acts that were on the statute book and have indeed been updated, not least the Companies Act, revoking previous Acts. This is literally a tidying-up exercise. It falls within the remit of REUL, and is one of the benefits of the wider process that we are going through.

I turn to the general principle on which the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, has requested further detail. It is clearly to do with the fact that this comes across all departments, and all departments are required to give their views. In fact, taking the 93 revocations, we already have 11 departments contributing to that. The Government have already reformed or revoked over 1,000 pieces of REUL. In addition to the list of 587 in the REUL Act, we have the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 and the Procurement Bill, which will repeal around 500. All told, this comes to more than 2,000 revocations and reforms already completed or under way, of the original estimate of 6,000—this work is well under way.