EU withdrawal bill: what happens next after Lords votes?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/09/eu-withdrawal-bill-what-happens-next-after-lords-votes

Version 0 of 1.

What happens next, now that the House of Lords has nearly finished considering the EU withdrawal bill? Peers have one more day of formal debate, next Wednesday, when they are due to give the bill a third and final reading.

This will be all but a formality, although there is one important outstanding government pledge yet to be fulfilled. An environmental protections consultation document outlining how the government proposes making up for the loss of the EU environmental umbrella was promised before the third reading. No one yet knows when it will emerge.

There is also a standoff between the Scottish parliament and government ministers in Whitehall over how powers returned from Brussels that affect devolved matters will be handled. The government wants to hang on to them for a limited period; the SNP administration is demanding their return. If there’s no deal – and that looks possible – then Edinburgh could refuse legislative consent.

Then the tussle between MPs and peers over the 14 defeats inflicted by the Lords on the government begins, almost certainly in the week beginning 21 May. The government has always hoped to have the bill finalised by the Whit recess, which starts at the close of play on 24 May.

But there is speculation that the bill will not go back to the Commons until the cabinet has resolved its bitter argument over future customs arrangements.

Once it gets to the Commons, there will be some knife-edge votes on some of the amendments. The shock revolt among Labour peers in Tuesday night’s vote on the European Economic Area (EEA) – in effect demanding that the UK retains membership of a form of single market, keeping to common standards and observing free movement of people, goods and capital – was only one of a batch of very significant changes made by peers.

Like the EEA vote, the biggest tests in the Commons will be over questions that will shape the UK’s future relations with the EU. The EEA vote looks unlikely to survive in the Commons, but that issue will probably be addressed towards the end of the process of consideration. By then it will be clear what support there is for staying in a customs union that would bind the UK to EU trade policy but allow for frictionless trade and preserve the status quo on the Irish border.

Some clarity will come from a vote on an amendment that would prevent the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 until the government explains the steps it has taken to negotiate the UK’s participation in a customs union with the EU. Peers backed the amendment by a majority of 123.

Rebels included Tory and Labour peers, and there was often a sense during the six days of debate in the Lords of an earlier generation of politicians rehashing arguments one last time. But this will be a pivotal point in the Commons too, and a big test of how opinion has hardened since the bill was last seen by MPs in January.

Some of the amendments are technical, aimed at limiting ministers’ powers to change laws without consulting parliament. The process of incorporating huge amounts of EU law into the UK system in time for it all to be in force before the European Communities Act is due to be repealed on 29 March next year is immensely complex.

Peers feared ministers would take the opportunity to get rid of things they did not like. The technical amendments that peers have insisted upon will slow the process to give time for proper consideration.

The government may try to reverse some or all of these amendments, probably arguing that there are simply too many statutory instruments – there are at least 1,000 – for the procedure envisaged by the Lords to be implemented. Some MPs will want to defend them, but it’s possible the government will be able to muster a majority.

MPs will have to decide whether to fight for the power won in the Lords to approve the withdrawal agreement and transitional measures, if possible before the European parliament has debated and voted on this.

If the final deal is rejected, a Lords amendment has given MPs the power to say what the government should do next. The government will aim to reverse that, and this will be a key test of opinion in the Commons on the role of parliament and the power of the referendum.