The government has published details of its so-called Great Repeal Bill,
the day after the UK officially began to sever its ties to the EU.
Among the thousands of details it will also involve the transposing
of EU laws into UK law to avoid a legal "black hole"
when Brexit finally happens.
This, said Brexit Secretary David Davis, will "end the supremacy"
of EU law in the UK, but also means no sudden
changes for businesses.
And workers' rights, environmental protection
and consumer rights currently enshrined in EU laws will continue
when Britain leaves.
Our political editor Gary Gibbon is in Westminster tonight.
For a lot of Brexit Long marchers, Tory MPs amongst them, quite a few
of them, this was what it was all about.
Bringing laws, lawmaking, back from Brussels and into the
building behind me.
They are already controversies around executive
powers the government is taking in order to achieve some office.
They say there's nothing underhand going
on.
There will be enormous controversy about some of the other
bills that accompany the so-called great reform bill, not least reform
of an immigration, that's got to be in place ahead of the Brexit date.
I suspect the really big controversy
that will put all of this in the shadow is probably awaiting the
other side of the Brexit date.
When you've got these thousands of
statutes sitting here, some politicians desperate to defend them
and some politicians who have waited all their lives to sink their teeth
into them.
EU laws on workers' rights, environmental standards, product
standards, all walks of life, thousands of them, are going to be
imported into British law.
So that the laws here are pretty much the
same the day after the UK leaves the EU as they would have been the day
before.
The Brexit Secretary David Davis told the Commons, from that
day onwards the UK parliament would be able to throw out what it didn't
like, but, he said, there was much that would be kept.
To provide the maximum possible legal certainty,
the Great Repeal Bill will convert EU law into domestic law on the day
we leave the European Union.
This means for example the workers'
rights, environmental protection and consumer rights that are enjoyed
under EU law in the UK will continue to be available in the UK law after
we've left the European Union.
Many of the most passionate supporters of
Brexit wanted to leave the EU, so they could rip up much EU employment
law, environmental law, and will not want it sitting on British statute
books for long.
Two years from today our sovereign parliament will indeed
have the power to amend, repeal or improve all this ghastly EU
legislation.
I will...
I will pass on the assessment of the legislation.
Some people listening to David Davis today might get the feeling that
like some artefact the EU laws will be admired in a glass case forever,
particularly employment law, environmental law, he singled those
out.
Is that how it feels to do?
Initially we are going to have it and we'll then decide which bits we
want to keep and which bits we don't, but I find it very hard to
imagine any situation where Britain is not a more competitive and more
deregulated country after this process.
I think the centre of gravity here, from all parties, is
much more about consumers and producers, much more about freedom,
than it is in Brussels.
Is a complete con this, the idea that
they are going to transfer all these European directives, which, by the
way, Brexiteers has been frothing at the mouth against four years if not
decades, and transposed them into British law and because they are now
nicely nestled in British law, they ROK now.
Does anyone seriously think...
They'll rip the long up?
Does anyone like the Daily Mail like the habitats directive or the green
renewable energy directive?
All of those directives and many others
were listed as targets for repeal on the front page of the Daily
Telegraph a few days ago.
Pro remain Lib Dems say they will try to ambush
the great reform bill.
With up to 15 other bills following in the wake of
that mighty Bilic could be there's hardly any room for the normal
domestic legislation that parties get elected to push through.
When Thatcher went there...
Lord Lisvane was a clerk in Parliament for 42
years.
Some people have talked about 80% of government business having a
Brexit label on it, being Brexit related.
It could be like that, couldn't it?
I don't think 80% is particularly out of the way, simply
because EU competence spreads so widely and in the areas where there
isn't EU competence, and it's purely a domestic matter, there will be
knock ons to consider.
I think everything will have, it will be
like a stick of rock with Brexit written all the way through.
Theresa May's two biggest backers in the
newspaper world cheered what they saw as a threat to Europe delivered
yesterday.
Headlines that would have been studied carefully by Europe's
leaders.
Some of them gathered today, in Malta.
Right, after receiving the letter from Prime
Minister Theresa May, invoking Article 50, I said that
paradoxically there's also something positive in Brexit.
Brexit has made us the community of 27 more
determined and more united than before.
Chancellor Merkel didn't even mention Brexit in her speech
here, a reminder that Europe has much else on its plate right now.
Only adding to their irritation with Brexit.
Gary Gibbon.
The perceived warnings in Theresa May's Article 50 letter
about Brexit's effect on the fight on crime and terrorism
have caused concern, if not consternation, in Brussels.
Earlier I spoke to Guy Verhofstadt, the EU Parliament's chief Brexit
negotiator, and I asked him how he felt about the repeated
references to "security" in the Prime Minister's letter.
Well, I was shocked by it, because the rest of the letter of Mrs May's
is very constructive, but on this point, that cannot be accepted.
You cannot use the security of our
citizens in a negotiation, saying, oh, yes, we're only going to
cooperate on the security of our citizens of the fight against
terrorism if we are having a good trade deal.
That you don't do it, they are separate issues.
Did you read is under threat?
-- did you read it as a threat?
Nevertheless it was the only point because I found
the tone of the letter very constructive, and one journalist
yesterday asked me, is that not blackmailing?
I said, I'm a gentleman and I never believe a lady
as Mrs May will even think to use blackmail.
In the spirit of tit-for-tat, the impression I get is
the threat from London about security was answered by a threat
here in Brussels about the rights of EU citizens in the UK.
In other words, if there is no deal on those
rights, pronto, then there will be no deal at all.
. I think we have to
stop, the letter needed to be sent, but we have to stop to do this
little fight outside the negotiation room.
What we need to do is to agree that first things first.
What we need to do, the first thing to
settle on the rights of the residents, the UK residents on the
continent and the EU.
So why didn't you, in a spirit of goodwill?
I don't fire the first shot.
What I'm saying is we need a solution for
both.
For me, even before talking about money, I want an agreement,
September, October, November, on residents' rights.
That is your priority?
That is my priority.
Is there a suspicion that the
government will use the 3 million EU citizens in the UK as a bargaining
chip?
That cannot be done.
It is being done.
It cannot be done, we cannot use the UK citizens living
here.
Who is the victim of all this that our citizens under -- and it
doesn't matter.
They are citizens.
The impression I get, forgive me if I'm wrong, there's a suspicion in
this city, the nurtured after years of dealing with British
exceptionalism, that the Brits will try and do something sneaky through
the back door, try and stitch up separate with different countries.
Is that true?
Is that the way you see it?
Certainly in the minds of some people...
That's a yes then.
Not in my mind.
The best way to deal with this is keep the unity of the
27, so what we're going to do and what we are saying is the European
Union, its mandate, that we give to Mr Barney, we have to keep on board
all the interests of the 27.
Is going to be tough, isn't it?
It's going to be tough, the unity of the
27 is not easy.
But if we take on board the interests of the 27
countries, including and especially Ireland, who is most affected by the
Brexit, then we can keep this unity.
Looking at the tone on both sides, it does sound as if we are setting
ourselves up for a pretty rancorous divorce here.
Divorce is always difficult.
We know it.
It's always difficult.
Is not very positive.
There's also an opportunity to find a new partnership between the EU and
the UK.
What is absolutely necessary.
We are proposing an agreement, will it be difficult,
yes, will it be taken a number of years, yes, but it's also an
opportunity, I think.
Try and put yourself into a Brexiteer's shoes,
if you will.
That's difficult.
What is the upside for Britain in all
this?
What do you mean, the upside?
Is there anything positive about Brexit, from where you are standing?
Anything at all?
The only positive thing in it is that we finally may
be confined an agreement -- can find an agreement on a discussion, a
dispute, that's already poisoning a little bit the relations for a
number of decades.
You are quite happy that Britain is leaving,
aren't you?
No, no.
We were a pain in your side.
You can see it that way.
No, I'm sad about it, because I think it's weakened Europe as a
whole.
How big is the temptation here to make an example of Britain
in the divorce talks?
As a signal to other European nations, member
states, who might be contemplating the same rush.
It's not a question of punishment, it's not a question
of revenge, this negotiation.
What I see is not a domino effect on Brexit
in Europe, I see a reverse domino effect.
What I see is since Brexit, more and more of the public opinion
is going towards a more pro-European stance.
People are saying, yes, I'm also very critical towards the
European union but I'm not so stupid to leave it all to destroy it.
Guy Verhofstadt, thank you.
One of the bastions of British commerce -
Lloyd's of London - is to set up a new European
subsidiary in Brussels, to avoid losing business when the UK
leaves the EU.
Other financial institutions have also said they are thinking
of moving some of their business to other parts of Europe.
And Dublin appears, for some, to be the location of choice.
It is for now contingency planning, but does it foreshadow
a more profound shift for the British economy?
Our Business Editor Siobhan Kennedy reports.
It's an institution as old as the City of London itself.
What began as an outlet offering maritime insurance
from a coffee shop is now, 328 years later, the world's
largest insurance market.
But today, Lloyd's of London said it would also become
Lloyd's of Brussels, setting up an office in the heart
of Europe to mitigate the potential damage of Brexit.
We're going to be regulated like a Belgian insurer, under the
regulation of the Belgian regulator and that's what we're doing.
The thousands of brokers that operate here underwrite
business across the world, including in Europe.
That's a service they want to continue offering and the only
way to guarantee that, is to be there yourself.
We have had to think about it long and hard, but it's so important, it
affecting directly 5% of our revenues.
Importantly, we've been doing business with those European
clients for so long, we must continue coverage for them.
We must be able to provide specialist
products to them.
11% of Lloyd's business comes from Europe, 5% of it
will now move to Brussels, but if certain regulatory regimes
are not in place post Brexit, then this warning -
that the rest will have to move to the Brussels subsidiary too.
It's important that our regulator understands that, and that the
regulatory regime here is equivalent to PE you, so we can continue to
write that other business here, otherwise as to go through our EU
sub as well.
The question is if this move of Lloyd's of London fits a
pattern.
We learn today JP Morgan, the powerful American investment
bank, is considering buying a building in Dublin to relocate as
many as 1000 its bankers, that one start top of staff moves by HSBC,
UBS and Goldman Sachs or point, some say, to a worrying exodus from the
City of London.
And this, two years before we exit.
Goldman Sachs has said it will move hundreds more
staff to Europe and expand its office space there is a contingency
plan because it cannot bank on there being a transitional period to
adjust to life post-Brexit.
While JP Morgan's boss warned before June's
last referendum that the bank could move as many of 4000 of the 16,000
UK staff forced out of London.
Today we learn those bankers could end up
in a new office in Dublin.
It declined comment today, but Lloyd's
of London was happy to talk.
And when the institution that
underwrites and understands risk better than any other decides it's
time to act, the chances are others will follow.
Leaving aside the nature of Britain after Brexit,
what about Britain's nature?
The bulk of our environmental protections are European ones
and conservationists worry that our wildlife could be
under threat, post-Brexit.
Channel 4 News has obtained a copy of the Government's much delayed
25-year plan for the environment.
It's ambitious in scope, but will it help protect
the environment better than European laws have done up until now?
Here's our Science Editor Tom Clarke.
Less than 10 miles from the centre of Manchester is wilderness.
Astley Moss is one of the last fragments
of the Manchester Mosslands, a vast area of peat bog,
drained over centuries for agriculture and industry.
It's a vital habiat for rare wildlife, created by moss
slowly rotting into peat.
This bog is at least 6000 years old.
So is it too much to expect from government, a 25 year plan,
to preserve and restore England's biodiversity?
The Lancashire Wildlife Trust are trying to breathe
more life into this bog.
Will be now and that helped hold the water in and did the disloyal mice
and wet.
Today volunteers are planting a type of heather, cross leaved heath,
to encourage the return of a rare butterly long long
extinct in Lancashire.
But this palce isn't just good for wildlife,
it serves us too - from our water to
fighting climate change.
70% of our drinking water runs through peat bog, so it's really
important for us having clean water.
Then there's the carbon stored in the peat, they hold 10% more than
our forests.
In the jargon, these services nature provides can be accounted
for as Natural Capital.
This balance sheet approach to conservation, is the one
government has embraced.
Channel 4 News has obtained a copy of the Government's long overdue 25
year plan for the environment.
The green paper outlines how future environment spending,
from air quality all the way to our oceans, needs to be
be better integrated.
And there's one overriding theme: nature will have
to help pay for itself.
According to the 25 year plan documents this is the sort of fight
that could benefit because peat bogs aren't just great for biodiversity,
they store carbon, hold back flood water, clean water and it makes
sense landowners should be rewarded for those public services.
But what conservationists worry about is it
doesn't leave much room for the nature that can't earn its own keep.
It's hard to put a price tag on a hedgehog - and its not just
because they're prickly.
Much of our wildlife has no utilitarian value,
but is treasured nonetheless.
Use natural capital to put a value on things, but not for species.
Let's make sure we're clear we want to keep these species in our
country, and take action to look after them.
Conservationists like the plan in principle.
But with Britain about to leave the EU, they warn against a return
to the bad old days.
More than three and a half millions of national waste dumped each
year...
It was the threat of fines from Brussels that often forced
successive governments to act on things like dumping industrial
waste, and sewage on our beaches.
We may carry over most of Europe's environment laws
in today's Great Repeal Bill, but there's no new mechanism
to enforce them.
On the plus side, leaving Europe's agriculture and fisheries policies
behind could help us protect the environment better.
It's a once in a generation opportunity to try and get a new
agriculture and land use policy and fisheries policy which helps not
only provide thriving agriculture and fisheries industries, but also
to improve the environment on land and at sea.
In a statement, Defra told us it remains committed to publishing
a long-term plan to protect the environment.
The delay, is almost certainly due to the demands of Brexit.
Now we've voted to get our country back,
the work begins to look after the nature that comes with it.