The Supreme Court has upheld the High Court’s judgment that an Act of Parliament is needed to trigger Article 50.

With a majority of 8 to 3, the Supreme Court accepted the respondents’ case that the triggering of the Article would effect a fundamental change to UK law and withdraw rights from citizens. The Government must now gain the approval of the House of Commons and House of Lords before starting the process of leaving the European Union.

The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill 2017 has now been presented to Parliament by the Government. The Bill is expected to have its Second Reading debate on Tuesday 31 January 2017 before being considered in Committee on Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 February 2017.

This follows Prime Minister Theresa May delivering her anticipated Brexit speech, setting out the Government’s key priorities for negotiations over the UK’s relationship with the EU, to take place once Art. 50 is triggered. The speech was the first time that the Government explicitly confirmed its intention that the UK give up its membership of the single market. Instead, the Prime Minister spoke in favour of some form of partial customs union agreement – though one that would not hamper the UK’s ability to negotiate its own trade deals with other nations. Regarding participation in EU budgets, the Prime Minister said that while the UK might continue making payments on a small scale to ensure access to specific programmes, the massive annual contributions would be abolished.

CTG is maintaining a watching brief on the implications of Brexit and has been approached by the Brexit teams in HMRC and HM Treasury to make representations on the priorities for charities. You can read an article by CTG Chairman, John Hemming, here and a presentation by CTG Technical Advisor, Graham Elliott, here.