Sunday 22 May 2022

The Queen's Speech and future policy

I said the other day that I would return to The Queen's Speech because I think it tells us a lot about Brexit and the future.  I suppose one of the things you learn as you grow older is that all governments are very good at setting out long term ‘visions’ in Queen’s speeches, and presumably King’s speeches before that. They are rather less good at carrying them through. Governments usually begin with all good intentions and genuinely think they’ll improve the people's lot. This one is different. Johnson’s Queens speeches are simply something to get through the week.

The speech was, as usual, big on ambitious goals being set for points well in the future, when most people will have forgotten what the government was trying to achieve in any case.  The 38 bills are outlined in the background briefing notes you can see HERE.

After 12 years in power, the Conservatives are now going to "turbo charge the economy, create jobs and spread opportunity across the country." Most commentators think we're headed for stagflation and a recession but never mind. I suppose they would claim they had to get Brexit ‘done’ first in order to ‘unshackle’ industry.

Anyway, I want to look at the so-called Brexit Freedoms [plural] bill, heavily trailed in sympathetic newspapers like The Daily Express as saving £1 billion in "unnecessary" red tape. 

A Downing Street source is quoted saying, "The first bill in the Queen’s Speech will be on cutting EU bureaucracy. It will end the supremacy of EU law. There are still thousands of EU regulations. This will be the removal of unnecessary restrictions that add to the cost of British business. In the past with Brexit, there have been symbolic rather than practical benefits. So this will be a major move in that direction."

However, it wasn't the first bill, it was down in 17th position in the briefing notes. One would be forgiven for thinking we would finally get to see which rules are to be scrapped but no, after having had six years to think about it, we still don’t know which of those thousands of EU regulations they plan to get rid of. Most leave voters expected something really dramatic but I am sure they’re bound to be disappointed. Some might already be getting suspicious.

The bill doesn’t identify any specific EU laws. It is just a legal mechanism to remove EU laws from the statute book once they have been identified. 

The main elements of the Bill are:

● Creating new powers to strengthen the ability to amend, repeal or replace the large amounts of retained EU law by reducing the need to always use primary legislation to do so.

● Removing the supremacy of retained EU law as it still applies in the UK.

● Clarifying the status of retained EU law in UK domestic law to reflect the fact that much of it became law without going through full democratic scrutiny in the UK Parliament.

The key point is that these laws will be amended, repealed or replaced by secondary legislation, by ministers alone in other words. So much for parliamentary sovereignty.

I think we can glean what the government is up to by looking at another bill, the Bill of Rights, tucked away on page 118 of the notes. The purpose of this Bill is to:

● Introduce a Bill of Rights which will ensure our human rights framework meets the needs of the society it serves and commands public confidence.

● End the abuse of the human rights framework and restore some common sense to our justice system. 

A lot of people were worried Johnson intended to repeal the Human Rights Act or go for some far reaching reforms that would have the same effect. Don't worry, it's nothing of the sort.  I don't think he can do much damage since we are still members of the ECHR and must remain so since this is a fundamental requirement of the Good Friday Agreement - Ireland again!!

However, Joshua Rozenberg, a former BBC legal correspondent who describes himself as the UK's most experienced full-time legal commentator, honorary Gray's Inn bencher, non-exec board member of the Law Commission and non practicing solicitor, said it was "very difficult to see how the legislation can be drafted to meet Raab’s aims."

He tweeted:

Rozenberg in his Sub-Stack blog says, "This bill, if it ever gets off the ground, may tinker with the 1998 legislation. But it’s not, in any sense of the term, a bill of rights."

Another legal commentator, David Allen Green in his Lay and Policy blog describes the government's proposals as "semi-waffle in support of vanity legislation," "pathetic" and "pointless tinkering."

Green says, and here is the central point, "So this proposal is, in part, an exercise in misdirection – an attempt to make it look like the government is ending the Human Rights Act but pretty much keeping the ECHR in domestic law."

So, I think the government is trying to make small, often irrelevant or cosmetic changes - tinkering as Green puts it - to Britain's human rights laws to give the appearance of massive reform and is using exactly the same approach on EU regulations.

After all this time it must be clear even to the most ardent and radical Brexiteers in government there are no great benefits to be gained by scrapping rights and regulations that have often been supported and even advocated by UK governments over many years. 

Politically, I am not convinced either that there is anything to be gained by removing consumer rights or health and safety rules or any of the thousands of EU laws that make life safer, better and allow us to trade more easily with our nearest exports market.

So, the future direction of government policy will be in selling next to nothing as a great leap forward in both curbing the 'lefty lawyers' who 'abuse' human rights legislation and in unshackling British industry from 'burdensome' EU laws.

The question is how long will it take for the British people to realise Brexit was worthless and they have actually been sold a pup?

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