Lords Committee criticises Home Office for lack of transparency over Brexit and justice

Lords Committee criticises Home Office for lack of transparency over Brexit and justice

The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has published a report today criticising the Draft Law Enforcement and Security (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

These Home Office Regulations are a contingency measure in case of a no-deal Brexit which relate to 24 different security, justice and policing matters.

The committee criticised the Home Office for providing insufficient explanation on the impact of proposals to allow Parliament to scrutinise them effectively.

The committee stated: “Correspondence with the Home Office has not persuaded us that so wide-ranging an instrument, covering policy areas which are individually of significant concern to the House, can be justified.

“Effective scrutiny is further inhibited by the failure of the Home Office to provide any contextual explanation, with estimated numbers or an indication of the degree of usage, to illustrate the impact of the changes that this instrument addresses. Without such information we cannot determine whether a policy change is significant and whether it needs to be drawn to the special attention of the House as a result.”

It added: “As with any other instrument, the House needs sufficient information to understand the context and whether the solution offered by the regulations is an effective one. In order to do that, the House needs practical information on the real-world effects before and after exit day.”

The committee also highlighted the dearth of information provided by the government and refers to finding information on the BBC website it argues is more relevant than the Home Office’s explanatory material.

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