MNI EXCLUSIVE: UK Market Bill Won't Pass By Crunch EU Summit

The UK Parliament is unlikely to approve the government's controversial Internal Market Bill by mid-October, leaving the European Union to hold a supposed make-or-break Oct. 16 European Council summit on Brexit without sight of the final legislation, MNI has been told.

This means that the possibility of amending the bill, which would give ministers powers to renege on parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, a building block of the Withdrawal Agreement signed with the EU in December 2019, could become part of the European Council deliberations.

"The way I read the timetable is that the bill won't be law around the time of the European Council (and also won't have gone to the Lords yet) so there would be an opportunity for the UK to remove the offending provisions if they reach agreement with the EU," Maddy Thimont Jack, a senior researcher on the Institute for Government's Brexit team, told MNI.

"If relations haven't improved by the European Council then the fact the bill is still progressing won't help," Thimont Jack added.

FINANCE BILL

An additional complication is that the protocol refers to goods 'at risk' of moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and then on into the EU. The UK government has said it would use its finance bill, which enshrines budget legislation, to set out the powers it will take to allow ministers to decide, if necessary, which goods are 'at risk.'

The EU could take a dim view of the UK adopting any such powers, with a joint UK-EU body being set up to oversee the Withdrawal Agreement.

The finance bill, however, looks unlikely to see the light of day any time soon, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, under pressure to come up with fresh job support measures, opting against a full Autumn Budget. The fiscal measures in today's 'mini-budget' will not be placed into a finance bill, MNI understands

While the government could attach amendments to other pieces of Brexit legislation, these would have to make it through the full revising process in the House of Lords, the IfG's Joe Marshall said.

"No finance bill in the autumn would mean the government would need to find an alternative legislative vehicle to legislate to define 'at risk' … This could involve a government amendment to the Internal Market Bill or another piece of Brexit legislation currently in parliament," he told MNI.

"A key point about these options is that they would also go through the Lords in full (unlike a finance bill). Alternatively, the government could introduce a separate piece of legislation. If it wants to legislate and has the numbers, it will find a way," Marshall added.