European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — Clause 26 — Status of EU Case Law — 22 Jan 2020 at 14:05
The majority of MPs voted to allow ministers to set out the degree to which European Union case law is to bind United Kingdom courts and against requiring courts and tribunals departing from retained European Union case law to provide reasons and refer the case, as appropriate, to either the Supreme Court or High Court.
MPs were considering the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill.[1]
The motion supported by a majority of MPs in this vote was:
- That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 2.
Lords amendment 2[2] stated:
- Page 30, line 20, leave out paragraph (d) and insert—
- “(d) after subsection (5) insert—
- “(5A)
- Where a court or tribunal other than the Supreme Court or the High Court of Justiciary is of the opinion that any retained EU case law that is relevant to an issue before it should be departed from, that court or tribunal must—
- (a) in its judgment set out the reasons for that opinion,
- and
- (b) refer the case to the Supreme Court or, as appropriate, the High Court of Justiciary, and if the Supreme Court or High Court of Justiciary grants leave for the case to proceed, it must decide whether to depart from the EU case law on the issue before it.”, and”
The element (paragraph d) of the clause which would have been removed by the rejected amendment[3] was within Clause 26 of the Bill, and stated:
- (d)after subsection (5) insert—
- “(5A)A Minister of the Crown may by regulations provide for —
- (a)a court or tribunal to be a relevant court or (as the case may be) a relevant tribunal for the purposes of this section,
- (b)the extent to which, or circumstances in which, a relevant court or relevant tribunal is not to be bound by retained EU case law,
- (c)the test which a relevant court or relevant tribunal must apply in deciding whether to depart from any retained EU case law, or(d)considerations which are to be relevant to—
- (i)the Supreme Court or the High Court of Justiciary in applying the test mentioned in subsection (5), or(ii)a relevant court or relevant tribunal in applying any test provided for by virtue of paragraph (c)above.
The amendment provided for in paragraph (d) related to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
- [1] Parliament's webpage on the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. Parliament.uk website
- [2] Lords amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, Parliament.uk website
- [3] Version of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill as introduced to the House of Lords, 9 January 2020, Parliament.uk website
Party Summary
Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.
What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.
What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.
What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.
| Party | Majority (Aye) | Minority (No) | Both | Turnout |
| Alliance | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Con | 342 (+2 tell) | 0 | 0 | 94.2% |
| DUP | 7 | 0 | 0 | 87.5% |
| Green | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Lab | 0 | 186 (+2 tell) | 0 | 93.1% |
| LDem | 0 | 8 | 0 | 72.7% |
| PC | 0 | 4 | 0 | 100.0% |
| SDLP | 0 | 2 | 0 | 100.0% |
| SNP | 0 | 44 | 0 | 93.6% |
| Total: | 349 | 246 | 0 | 93.4% |
Rebel Voters - sorted by vote
MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division
Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote
| Name | Constituency | Party | Vote | |
| no rebellions | ||||