Brexit bill is fundamentally flawed in multiple ways, warn Lords

would mark a shift in the constitutional balance of the UK away from the “three Celtic lands” of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Professor Richard Rawlings – Professor of Public Law at University College London – told peers.

He added: “At one and the same time, Westminster and Whitehall are freed up to shape a post-brexit world in crucial aspects and the devolved institutions are locked down and required to wait for partial release.”

The committee of peers is now urging the UK government to “work closely” with the devolved administrations to secure agreement on chang- es to the bill, which would draw a line under concerns of a power grab.

Mr Russell will be joined by his Welsh Government counterpart, Mark Drakeford, at an event in the Lords today aimed at promoting changes to the bill.

“Along with the Welsh government, we have made clear we are unable to recommend consent to the EU Withdrawal Bill in its current form,” Mr Russell said ahead of the meeting.

“That’s because it disregards the devolution settlement by allowing the UK government to take control of clearly devolved policy areas like farming and fishing.”

The bill was drawn up to transpose EU law into British law so the same rules apply on the day of Brexit as the day before, and will see EU responsibilities in devolved areas initially transferred to Westminster.

The UK government said this would allow common frameworks to be created ahead of further devolution, but the first ministers of Scotland and Wales say the devolved administrations will effectively lose out on areas of responsibility.

The Scotland Act, which brought about the creation of the Scottish Parliament, states responsibility over key EU powers such as farming and fishing lie at Holyrood and the SNP is demanding these be transferred to Scotland immediately after Brexit.

The peers report today also says the bill is “fundamentally flawed” in multiple ways and risks “undermining legal certainty” across the UK.

Inmanyareas,thefinalshape of that law will depend on the outcome of the UK’S negotiations with the EU, the committee warns.

“We conclude that the Bill risks fundamentally undermining legal certainty in a number of ways,” the peers add.

The method proposed to create a new category of “retained EU law” will cause “problematic uncertainties and ambiguities”, the peers said.

Plans to grant ministers power to amend regulations without full parliamentary scrutiny are “overly broad” and there is an “unacceptably wide” emergency procedure for short-term changes.

“The bill is therefore fundamentally flawed from a constitutional perspective in multiple ways,” the report said.

In a separate report, the Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-committee examined the impact of the government’s plans on the energy market and warned that bills could rise and major projects could be disrupted.

But the peers said the UK

0 Cabinet Office minister David Lidington, right, told host Andrew Marr on the BBC1 current affairs