With the EU Withdrawal Bill now in the House of Lords, Clause 11 of the bill is expected to be a cause of potential trouble for the government. The Scottish and Welsh governments, as well as the Labour Party, are all currently opposed to the clause as currently drafted and it seems unlikely it will survive the Lords in its present form. Akash Paun explains the concerns of Edinburgh and Cardiff in this blog and proposes a number of possible solutions, each of which will require compromise on all sides.

The UK government is locked in dispute with the Scottish and Welsh governments over Clause 11 of the EU Withdrawal Bill. This clause prevents the devolved administrations from modifying ‘retained EU law’, the term for all the European legislation the bill will bring into domestic law.

The effect would be that all powers exercised in Brussels return to Westminster, at least initially, giving the UK parliament the ability to create binding legal frameworks in place of EU law. The devolved governments say this is unacceptable, and Edinburgh and Cardiff have refused to grant legislative consent to the bill.

The government accepts that Clause 11 needs to be amended, but it has not brought forth alternative proposals, despite promising to do so before the bill left the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the Scottish and Welsh Governments propose that Clause 11 should simply remove the requirement for devolved bodies to act in accordance with EU law. Full control of the 100-plus areas of ‘intersection’ between EU and devolved law would then revert to the devolved level.

In this case, new UK-wide frameworks would have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis and could not be unilaterally imposed by Westminster. The concern in Whitehall is that this would increase the risks of legal uncertainty and regulatory divergence, and could make it more difficult to implement a new UK-EU economic relationship.

The bill has now entered the House of Lords with the UK and devolved governments still dug into their trenches. Recent reports suggest, however, that a peace deal may be within reach. Continue reading →