1. The link below will take you to an amended version of written advice I gave yesterday to a client. It is amended in the sense that I have anonymised the client and removed details from the description of the facts that might enable the client to be recognised. It is otherwise unchanged. I am publishing my written advice in this form with that client’s permission.

2. The client in question engages thousands of ‘casual’ workers – I come on to discuss what I mean by that term at 4 below – and was exploring whether it might use the Job Retention Scheme to furlough those workers so that they have money to live on.

3. Although the advice is specific to that client – and I accept no responsibility to anyone else who acts upon it – it might very well have read across to all who “employ” – in the wide sense in which that word is used in the Treasury Direction – “casual” workers.

4. By “casual” workers I mean those who do not benefit from a commitment on the part of their employer to enage them for a minimum number of hours. If you are engaged by such an employer the advice is likely to extend to you (1) whether you are in the employment law sense a worker or an employee and (2) if you a zero hours contract worker (3) if you work for an agency or an umbrella company. If you benefit only from a contractual minimum number of hours the advice would suggest that your furloughed pay may be no more than that for the contractual minimum number of hours. If a considerable proportion of your income is made up of overtime then the advice suggests that your furloughed pay might be based only on your ‘basic’ wage or salary.

5. Employers engaging ‘casual’ workers can be very profitable but they tend to operate on thin margins. They will have no income from their clients in respect of any sum they pay to casual workers they choose to furlough that they cannot recover under the Job Retention Scheme. If they ‘overpay’ those workers – by which I mean pay more than they can recover under the Job Retention Scheme – that overpayment will be pure cost for them. And if they ‘underpay’ those workers – by which I mean pay less than the sum prescribed by paragraph 7 – they risk not being able to recover anything at all under the Job Retention Scheme. They are unlikely to have any financial incentive or reason to pay furloughed workers. They are, thus, in a difficult position: if they want to help they must take considerable financial risk without any financial reward.

6. My reason for publishing this advice is the hope that it might help persuade Treasury to amend its Direction so that employers of casual labour can do the right thing. Unless there is an amendment, it is a fact that thousands, or tens or hundreds of thousands, or even millions of casual workers, a class that is structurally vulnerable and likely to be most in need of financial support, is unlikely to be able to access this basic safety net. It seems to me perverse that the application of the Job Retention Scheme is most secure for those likely to need it least and least secure for those likely to need it most. It should go without saying that these are outcomes that I abhor but they seem to me to be the outcomes that the Direction delivers.

7. It goes without saying that I derive no benefit from publishing this advice. However, if you have found it useful, and you are in a position to do so, I hope you might consider supporting this case which seeks to ensure that a million of the most disadvantaged children in the country are able to access schooling.

Jolyon Maugham QC

AnonymisedCJRSOpinion

My speech at the Rali dros enw uniaith Gymraeg i’r Senedd [Rally for a Welsh-only name for the Senedd]

My good friends at Plaid Cymru have sent me some briefing notes about the important legal issues raised by the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill. And I am grateful to them. And they suggest I speak to you of those issues.

But I although I am a lawyer, you have invited me today not for that reason but because I am a New Zealander who has spoken of how policy changes in NZ to promote the use of Te Reo Maori, the Maori language, sparked a resurgence in Maori culture in New Zealand.

New Zealanders can see how the Maori people carry their cultural inheritance with pride. The world can see how New Zealanders carry Maori culture at the forefront of how we, as New Zealanders, project ourselves

I shall not linger too long on the rugby. Perhaps wisely. But you see this clearly when you compare the haka of the 1970s with that of today. Look at the cultural pride the nation shares. All of NZ benefits. And I want, and everyone who loves Wales should want, all of Wales to benefit from resurgent Diwylliant Cymru. [Welsh culture]

What I say next I say with genuine humility – because I am not Welsh. But I cannot understand the objection to calling the Senedd the Senedd. I gather the argument is that some people living in Wales will not understand what the word means. If that is so that is – and being an outsider obliges you to speak with humility but also allows you to speak with clarity – that is a terrible state of affairs: laith Cymru yw diwylliant y genedl. [The language of Wales is the culture of the nation.] If you do not know what is the Senedd then for Godssake learn! And calling it the Senedd is an opportunity to teach.

It is often said that if you are of privilege equality feels like oppression. It is less often said that if you are oppressed equality can come to feel like privilege. Having a title in English for those who do not care enough to learn is not good enough. If you rightly love your culture you should not bear it.

A culture resides in its language or it dies in a museum.

Can I finish with some words from John Robert Jones. And I ask for your forgiveness for not speaking them to you in Welsh:

“Leaving your country is a common and sometimes sad experience. But I know of something which is much more heart rending, for you could always return to your native land. And that is, not that you are leaving your country, but that your country is leaving you, being finally drawn away into the hands of another people, another culture.”

Ffrindiau, gwn na fyddwch byth yn caniatáu i hyn ddigwydd. [My friends, I know you will never allow this to happen].

The Prime Minister has made his “take it or leave it” offer to the EU – but it is far from clear that either the EU or Parliament will find it palatable. Parliament has said that unless it approves the Withdrawal Agreement the PM must ask for an extension – but the PM has point blank refused.

Behind the scenes, the PM’s office is briefing journalists about ever more cunning plans to avoid the Benn Act, litigants are lining up in Court to compel compliance with it, and Parliamentarians present and past are worrying about whether one of those cunning plans might just work.

We all know the damage this is doing – to businesses forced to delay investment decisions, to judges worried about attacks on the judiciary, to trust in democracy, and to broader civil society – and the longer it continues the greater the damage.

However, there is a solution. And it is one MPs can readily implement after (once again) seizing control of the business of the House.

A simple Act. An Act to ensure that the final decision about whether to ‘No Deal’ rests with Parliament.

If, prior to the day before “exit day”, Parliament had neither (a) ratified a Withdrawal Agreement nor (b) adopted a motion to leave without a deal, Article 50 would be revoked by letter sent by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Such an Act would be democratic – it would give to Parliament, elected from 46 million of us, rather than a Prime Minister elected from 160,000, the final say on what to do. By changing the default it would give effect to the numerous occasions on which our supreme Parliament has ruled out No Deal. It would put an end to cunning plans to thwart the intention of Parliament as expressed in the Benn Act. It would incentivise both the Prime Minister and the EU to negotiate to avoid the risks each fears. And it would remove any incentive the Prime Minister may have further to prorogue Parliament.

And it would get Brexit done – one way or another – by 31 October. For there is much else to do.

***

Note: A rather lengthy version of such a Bill, drafted by Helen Mountfield QC, can be seen here. It would not be difficult to draft a shorter version occupying only a single page.

There is a flaw in the European Union (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act 2019 (the “Benn Act“) and, if MPs want to avoid us leaving without a deal, they may need to take counter-measures.

The flaw arises in circumstances where the Prime Minister brings a Withdrawal Agreement (“WA”) to Parliament for approval. And it arises from the mismatch between the provisions of the Benn Act and those of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (the “2018 Act“).

What follows is a slightly simplified description of the flaw, to aid readability.

To avoid the PM having to request an extension from the EU under section 1 of the Benn Act the Commons must approve the WA. If they do, on or prior to 19 October, the obligation in the Benn Act to request an extension falls away.

However, the provisions of the 2018 Act specify further preconditions, beyond approval by the Commons of the WA, before the WA can be ratified and No Deal avoided.

Those preconditions are set out in section 13(1) of the 2018 Act and include the passing of a further Act implementing the Withdrawal Agreement (the “Further Obligations”).

Summing up, if the Commons approves the WA but these Further Obligations are not satisfied before 31 October 2019, then two consequences follow. First, the Benn Act will not apply to require the PM to request an extension from the EU. And, second, we will leave with No Deal.

So, imagine the PM says privately to the ERG ‘support my WA and I will deliver No Deal.’ In those circumstances, with the help of some Labour MPs, the Commons might approve even Theresa May’s WA.

The PM would thus have escaped the obligation in the Benn Act to request an extension and could deliver No Deal.

He could, for example, again suspend Parliament (subject of course to the outcome of this week’s Supreme Court hearing). There is some evidence (see below) that he plans to do this. And we would leave without a deal.

Indeed, even without again suspending Parliament, he may well be able to deliver No Deal simply by refusing to put before the Commons an Act implementing the Withdrawal Agreement. In such circumstances the Further Obligations would not be satisfied in advance of 31 October 2019 and we would leave with No Deal.

I had been discussing the above privately with trusted MPs and friends. However, because there is circumstantial evidence, set out below, that the PM’s office is aware of this flaw, I am putting it into the public domain in the hope that MPs consider what counter-measures they may wish to take.

The best way to bypass the flaw is for MPs to refuse to approve any motion for a WA on or before 19 October. Those who want the Withdrawal Agreement should refuse on the basis that, by voting for it, they may well be delivering No Deal.

In those circumstances, I believe the Courts, likely in consequence of proceedings afoot in Scotland, will enforce the Benn Act and require the PM to request an extension.

However, nothing is certain. There may be other flaws I have failed to spot. And the EU may refuse an extension. The situation now, as has always been the case, is that the only absolutely certain way to avoid No Deal is for Parliament to legislate to change the default if no agreement is reached from No Deal to revoke.

***

The circumstantial evidence is:

A story, reported in today’s Mail on Sunday, that a further suspension of Parliament is planned.

Reports that the Prime Minister is meeting members of the ERG privately.

Widely reported briefings that the Prime Minister plans to put a re-heated version of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement before Parliament.

On Monday, as we moved one step closer to a General Election, the FT launched a brutal attack on a flagship Labour policy.  Labour, in one of “the biggest state raids on the private sector to take place in a Western democracy”, will “confiscate” shares. Turning the rhetorical dial up to 11 it said “Labour would expropriate £300bn.”

Labour’s Inclusive Ownership Funds (IOF) policy requires a large company – defined as one with 250 employees or more – to transfer 1% of its shares each year into a fund on trust for its workforce, up to a maximum of 10%. The transfers will be effected either by a gradual dilution of the original shareholders – via annual scrip dividends – or by purchasing shares on the open market for the benefit of the IOF.

The case for IOFs is a holistic one. In a closely held briefing document – even a promise to write a supportive piece did not precipitate the delivery of a copy from the Shadow Treasury Team but I have my sources – Labour points to the declining labour share of national income, the concentration in ever fewer hands of financial assets, and the scope for decision making with a longer timescale that can follow from enhanced employee share ownership.

But what about the money? The aggregate value that would come to be held in IOFs might not much matter. It’s a figure that follows from the scope of the policy – something Labour’s rather hazy on. This might not surprise you because questions about geographical reach get very tricky very quickly but on any view it’s very significant.

A better way of looking at the policy might be to analyse its consequences for affected investors. The effect of diluting shareholders via scrip dividends would be a gradual reduction in their dividends of 10% over the course of a decade. Not ideal, perhaps, but not catastrophic either. And this diminution might be more than compensated – Labour gives some evidence for this effect – by the productivity gains resulting from a share-owning workforce.

A sharper criticism of the proposals – the foundation for the vigorous language of “expropriation” and “confiscation” – is the share of profits going to the Government. Under Labour’s plans each worker would receive an annual payment from her IOF capped at £500 with dividends over that cap going to the Government.  Clifford Chance, authors of the report on which the FT story is based, say this means £9.4bn – or 88% of total projected annual dividends paid to IOFs – would find their way to the State. Labour, on the other hand, gives an equivalent figure of £1.1bn.

The resolution of this divergence depends, again, on geographical scope. Clifford Chance says that global firms will pay dividends on global profits with the small number of UK employees quickly capping out at £500 and vast surpluses to the Government. There are some signs Labour might confine the policy to UK profits but this is still a forceful criticism.

Policy making in the tax sphere is notoriously difficult for any Opposition; it requires complex modelling of data and access to closely held and expensive tax expertise. And the problem is especially stark for the present Labour Party which has not sought or maintained good relations with the tax drones inclined to help on this stuff. What Labour has done is recognise its difficulty with a promise to consult to ensure that the implementing legislation is “robust and widely supported”.

What we’re left with is a policy of uncertain application, which will be hugely difficult to implement, and will have a number of distortive effects (go long outsourcers who will help keep your headcount below the magic number). But it will also deliver an important advance in how our economy is structured, a form of widely held employee share ownership.

Ultimately the question we, as voters face in a General Election might just be whether we’re ready to commit to an inclusive capitalism – or are just embarked on what Larry Summers described as a “rhetorical embrace”.

Note: I was an adviser on tax policy to Labour under Ed Miliband – and have (although not recently or in connection with this policy) advised the present Shadow Treasury Team.

The updated written pleadings in the case brought by over seventy Parliamentarians to prevent Boris Johnson treating Parliament as an inconvenience he can suspend can be read here.

One of our lines of argument is that ‘No Deal’ is unlawful as a matter of domestic law and, in extremis, a court would order Boris Johnson to revoke Article 50.

That is a rather striking contention and so I thought it might be helpful to set out, in somewhat greater detail, how the argument runs.

I met last night with a senior Conservative MP in a very small gathering (mostly of Tory supporters) under Chatham House rules. It was – even by those standards – a frank and honest discussion. X comes from a Conservative tradition I’ve always had regard for – although it is not my tradition – and I’ve been alarmed to see Tories of that tradition supporting Boris Johnson (“BJ”). In the circumstances I was keen to understand how X had arrived at that destination.

I tweeted a summary of X’s view last night but want to address (1) X’s logic in more detail and (2) some of the responses to my tweet.

The headline was that X believed BJ was the best way to counteract the threat from the Brexit Party. Although X was a Remainer – and believed BJ could pivot to supporting a second referendum – X was also prepared to contemplate what I understood to be a managed No Deal as an alternative to the Corbyn Government that X saw as being the natural consequence of not meeting the Farage threat.

Most of my tribe will likely have our own views about the damage a “managed No Deal” will do. And they are likely to differ sharply from the near equanimity of X. I certainly said so to X. But what I wanted to focus on is what lies on the other side of the balance for X: the fear of a Corbyn government.

X’s concern – and I reiterate that the dinner was unusually frank and honest – was that Corbyn’s would be no ‘normal’ Labour Government. And because of that, keeping Corbyn out had an importance of a greater order.

X elaborated little on why X believed that keeping Corbyn out was so important but I understand, and have some sympathy with, X’s basic point. I worked as a tax advisor to Ed Miliband’s Labour Party and have also advised McDonnell but I have no ambitions to be part of a Labour Government. This means I have no need to be otherwise than frank in giving some colour to what I understand to be X’s concerns. (I should say that what follows is what many of my tribe, including some Labour MPs, say privately about a Jeremy Corbyn Government.)

There is a narrative on some parts of the Left that sees, or finds it useful to portray, a putative Corbyn Government as coming from a moderate European social democratic tradition. But I think, and understood X to think, that narrative is wrong, and sometimes disingenuous.

What is my evidence for saying that? Here are the headlines.

In unguarded moments Labour talks about having the desire to effect an “irreversible” change in the country. That is uncomfortable language to use in a democracy. But more than that: we don’t know what that irreversible change looks like.

Most other countries have proper constitutions but the only higher law to which the UK is presently subject comes from the EU. It offers some constraints on some actions that step outside our collective European norms. Those constraints are limited by the fact that the EU is only able to constrain us where we have permitted it to do so but they do operate with greater intensity in the field of economic policy.

Labour’s leadership is anxious that we should leave the EU. And I find it hard to rationalise this otherwise than by reference to the fact that it wants to jettison the constraints that the EU represents; it wants unlimited power to remake the country. Labour says we need to leave the EU to jettison rules on state aid. But there is nothing in Labour’s 2017 manifesto that EU law would prohibit.

What specific actions does Labour believe EU law would constrain? What more does Labour have planned that it will not come clean about? Before we usher in “irreversible” change, are we not entitled to know what it looks like?

There are, of course, compelling counter-narratives to to the narrative that a Corbyn Government would have unconstrained power to effect irreversible change to unstated ends. Perhaps the most powerful is that he would be limited by the realities of Parliament democracy, a pluralist Labour Party, and the lack of a manifesto mandate. And I suspect X’s analysis, ultimately, understates the limitations imposed by these practical constraints. But I wouldn’t pretend to be completely unsympathetic to it.

More generally X also believed that it was possible to ignore BJ’s work as a paid rhetorician and discover in him the more socially liberal Tory who was London mayor. You’ll have your own view about that but I wonder whether X was really persuaded by the argument.

On the available evidence (purely hypothetically because I will vote for neither) I would choose a Corbyn Government over a Johnson one. But the above is the case, as I understood it, made by X, a senior Tory politician not impossibly far from my own tribe, for the alternative.

What follows is a draft clause for the Cooper/Letwin Bill which puts into the hands of Parliament the in extremis decision whether to revoke or No Deal.

*          Duty to seek the consent of the House of Commons to leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement

(1)        Subsection (2) applies if, at midday on the House of Commons sitting day immediately prior to the day when, by virtue of Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union, that Treaty and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union would cease to apply to the United Kingdom:

(a) no withdrawal agreement has been ratified in accordance with section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018; and

(b) no agreement has been reached under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union to extend the date at which the Treaties shall cease to apply to the United Kingdom.

(2)        Her Majesty’s Government shall immediately put a motion to the House of Commons in the form set out in subsection (3) following.

(3)       The form of the motion for the purposes of subsection (2) shall be:

“the House agrees to leave the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement.”

(4)        If the House of Commons does not approve the motion at subsection (3) above, Her Majesty’s Government must immediately notify the European Council that the notification given by the United Kingdom under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, of its intention to withdraw from the European Union, is revoked.

***

It is clear from the Business of the House Motion of 3 April 2019 that amendments made in the House of Lords can be considered in the Commons on their return.

What follows is an extended version of an article I wrote for the Guardian on 2 April 2019.

***

When you break up with someone you love all you can see are the things that are not her. Not her jokes, not her smile, not her taste, and so on. Anyway, the last three years have been a bit like that, constitutionally speaking. The pervading all around is the country that we no longer are – pragmatic, competent, careful, vaguely sensible. All you see is poignancy.

I say this because of – as you do if you’re a lawyer – the Cooper-Letwin Bill. Those same qualities we once associated with the country were their very brand-values. Perhaps a bit boring – perhaps a bit careful – but y’know, competent. But sadly their Bill is everything we and they no longer are. Technically it is the Swiss cheese of legislation – full of holes. And even if you forgive them that it achieves little or nothing of substance. In fact it’s worse – it’s a dangerous distraction from a very real crisis for the country.

Let me explain.

What the Bill wants to do is give Parliament the right to force the Prime Minister to ask for an extension of time and the right to dictate how long an extension she should ask for. That seems like a sensible enough ambition, right? Modest but desirable. And there is an important balance to be found – if you’re trying to force legislation through Parliament in the face of a Government that you assume is hostile and a House struggling to agree on anything – between legislation that is sufficiently modest to attract the support of a majority and sufficiently ambitious as to actually be useful. That’s no easy balance – I know because I’ve tried and failed.

But this Bill gets that balance profoundly wrong. Let me quickly run through some of the criticisms.

The Bill was published today and the idea is that tomorrow the Commons will carve out Parliamentary time for it to pass through the Common and even – if all goes to plan – start its progress though the Commons. Let’s assume, ambitiously, it can clear the House of Commons on Thursday and the House of Lords on Friday and receive Royal Assent the same day.

The first stage mandated by the Bill is that, the day after the Act receives Royal Assent, the Prime Minister must move a motion inviting the PM to seek an extension of time until such date as she wishes (but with which MPs can disagree). Does the Bill envisage Parliament will sit on Saturday or Sunday? We don’t know. Let’s assume the motion is moved on Monday.

If that motion fails the Bill is defunct; that’s it. More damaging would be if it passes.

The Bill is silent as to when the PM has to ask for an extension of time. And if she will not contemplate extending beyond 22 May 2019 but Parliament has forced her to ask for one until 31 December 2019, what then? Could she sit on her hands? In practice she could.

But assume she makes a request the next day, Tuesday. The EU Council is not actually meeting until 10 April 2019. But it might agree to hold an emergency meeting and get back to us on Wednesday: “Yes you can have an extension – but we think you need time to get over your national psychodrama and so we’ll extend until when the transition period would otherwise have extended – 31 December 2020 – and only if you hold European Parliamentary Elections.” What then?

Well, the Bill is completely silent as to what happens if the EU imposes – as it has signalled it would – conditions for such an extension. Inexplicably the Bill makes no arrangements for dealing with that scenario. And even if the EU came back to us without any conditions for an extension – highly unlikely because EU law seems to require that we hold those elections – but just offering an extension to a different date to the one we’d asked for the Bill completely falls apart. All it says is that the PM has to move another motion in which the House again agrees to the Prime Minister seeking an extension of time – which makes no sense at all.

At this stage we’re at Thursday and we leave the EU without a deal on Friday. How on earth – in practice – do we resolve these unanswerables in two days? And what happens if the EU says a flat ‘no’ to an extension – or the conditions are unacceptable to Parliament? What happens in either of those worlds? The Bill maintains a lofty silence.

It’s not uncommon for Parliamentarians to put forward poorly drafted Bills. Legislative drafting is a difficult exercise. But the real problem with this Bill is not that it has some gaping holes in it. The real problem is that it’s a sideshow.

We’ve taken almost three years to fail to decide what we want – how are we going to move forward? If we want a referendum, what is that referendum on – a question that the confirmatory public vote motion turned a blind eye to? If Parliament won’t agree to a withdrawal agreement then the only options left are No Deal and Revoke – who gets to make that decision (a question this alternative to the Cooper-Letwin Bill seeks to answer)?

These are the real questions. The country we once were – and the Parliamentarians they once were – would have faced up to them. But the Cooper Letwin Bill is an awful, awful distraction. I suppose I should find it poignant. But instead, when I think of the consequences for millions of people whose lives will be profoundly damaged by No Deal and who are betrayed by the incompetence of those they trusted, it makes me furious.

What follows is a draft Bill to ensure that Parliament – rather than the Government – controls the key remaining questions governing the United Kingdom’s proposed departure from the European Union.

Please add your suggestions for drafting with comments. I will monitor those suggestions and make changes accordingly.

***

European Union (Parliamentary Sovereignty) Bill

A

BILL

To

Make provision in connection with the United Kingdom’s proposed withdrawal from the European Union.

BE IT ENACTED by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same as follows:—

1          Obligation to seek an extension of time

(1)        Subsection (2) applies if, at midday on the second last Day before the relevant day, no withdrawal agreement has been ratified in accordance with section 13 of the Withdrawal Act.

(2)        Her Majesty’s Government shall immediately seek the agreement of the European Council under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union to extend the date upon which the Treaties shall cease to apply to the United Kingdom

2          Duty to seek the consent of the House of Commons to leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement

(1)        Subsection (2) applies if, at midday on the last Day before the relevant day, no agreement has been reached (pursuant to section 1 above) to extend the date upon which the Treaties shall cease to apply to the United Kingdom

(2)        Her Majesty’s Government shall immediately put a motion to the House of Commons in the form set out in subsection (3) following.

(3)       The form of the motion for the purposes of subsection (2) shall be:

“the House agrees to leave the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement.”

(4)        If the House of Commons does not approve the motion at subsection (3) above, Her Majesty’s Government must immediately notify the European Council that the notification given by the United Kingdom under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, of its intention to withdraw from the European Union, is revoked.

3          Duty to hold an Inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005

(1)        This section applies where the notification given by the United Kingdom under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union of its intention to withdraw from the European Union has been revoked pursuant to section 2(4).

(2)        Where this section applies a Minister of Her Majesty’s Government shall cause an inquiry to be held under the Inquiries Act 2005 into the question whether a model of a future relationship between the United Kingdom (outside the European Union) and the European Union would be likely to be acceptable to the European Union and could reasonably be expected to have majority support in the United Kingdom.

(3)        Where the result of the Inquiry is that there is such a model, Her Majesty’s Government shall make all necessary arrangements for the holding of a referendum on the question whether the United Kingdom should leave the EU and negotiate that model or remain in the EU.

(4)        The Inquiry under subsection (2) shall commence within three months of any revocation pursuant to section 2(4).

4          Exit day in the Withdrawal Act

Section 1 of the Withdrawal Act shall not have effect until the earlier of:

(a)        the ratification of a withdrawal agreement in accordance with section 13 of the Withdrawal Act; or

(b)        the passing of a motion under section 2(3) above.

5          Continuing effect

The obligation in section 1(2) – and the consequential obligation under section 2 – shall apply on every occasion on which the condition specified in section 1(1) is satisfied.

6          Interpretation

For the purposes of this Act, references to:

a ‘Day’ are to a House of Commons sitting day;

the ‘relevant day’ means the day when, by virtue of Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union, that Treaty and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union would cease to apply to the United Kingdom in the absence of the entry into force of a withdrawal agreement;

the ‘Treaties’ are the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union;

‘withdrawal agreement’ has the meaning given in the Withdrawal Act; and

the ‘Withdrawal Act’ means the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

7          Extent, commencement and short title

(1)        This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

(2)        This Act comes into force on the day on which it is passed.

(3)        This Act may be cited as the European Union (Parliamentary Sovereignty) Act 2019.