Lord Keen of Elie QC, Advocate General for Scotland & Ministry of Justice spokesman in Lords, giving evidence to EU Security & Justice Committee on EU Cooperation on civil justice & family law after Brexit parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/e2…
Keen says the government is adhering to the rule in the Internal Market Bill. He says the proposition that the Bill breaks international law is not correct. He's concerned that it has coloured so much of debate in last few days.
Keen said that in stating that the government would be breaching international law, Brandon Lewis answered the wrong question and as a consequence, the whole matter has been taken out of context.
Questioned later on his opening remarks re Brandon Lewis answering wrong question re Internal Market Bill, Keen draws analogy with the scenario were I go into bank & take £1,000 off the table & leave - that's in breach of law. But ...
... if you omitted that fact I handed over a signed check drawn on a solvent account you get a completely different impression. Keen says we have that situation here.
Keen says Bill not breach treaty or international law. In theory it could have that effect, but that's not its purpose – purpose is to address UK’s remedies under int law in absence of good faith by EU or if EU’s behaviour fundamentally changes obligations under protocol.
We hope these eventualities never emerge, but we have to prepare ourselves to deal with them - we can't reach the 11th hour to conjure up primary legislation to deal with s7(a) of withdrawal act.
These are contingent powers, and we will only do this if it's absolutely necessary & in doing it we will present the regs to parliament with an explanation as to why we require them.
Keen says he can't comment on whether the BBC was wrong in reporting today that Brandon Lewis's precise words were cleared through the government machine.
Justice minister Lord Keen has offered to resign -- see earlier tweets from yesterday where he tries to grapple with the fact that a member of cabinet admitted the government was going to break the law. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla…
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