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European Union Bill

I said that I had some sympathy with the amendment, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me. To my mind, that was an example of a practice coming into effect which could then be claimed was an existing practice that simply needed to be codified. I am not a lawyer, but if something can be done under an existing competence, why does it need to be codified? The EU already has the power to do what it needs. If something is then codified, the danger is that it creates a new base, or ratchets up the base, from which we can then have further ingenious development in practices. I am therefore very nervous about allowing codification of this sort to take place when, if the EU is already doing it, codification does not seem to be needed. I would very much welcome the Minister explaining and perhaps thinking again about whether that exemption is required in the Bill.