The Union (Constitution Committee Report)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, for securing this important debate on the committee’s report. I also thank her for her speech today; I look forward to reading it again in Hansard. I will consider some further responses to what she has said and will be in touch with her. I also thank the members of the Constitution Committee for their thoughtful inquiry into the union and subsequent report. I apologise that it has been a year before we have had the chance to debate it. I also thank all noble Lords for their contributions today. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame—I probably got that wrong—to this House: he is very welcome, and after his maiden speech, I very much look forward to his further contributions in this House.
We share the spirit of optimism written into much of the committee’s report. As reflected by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, while it may be positive, we do need to consider a modern union and continue to build a better union. That is important. I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, back to the House: it is very nice to hear him, and it is wonderful listen to his speeches—they are excellent, and I cannot say anything more than that. What stuck in my mind was that the noble Lord said that the union still has vitality. Yes, it does. It has vitality, but we need to continue to work on that vitality for the future, as my noble friend Lord Howell said.
However, we do share the spirit of optimism in the committee’s report, which I thank it for. The United Kingdom is the most successful political and economic union the world has ever seen, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and is the foundation on which all our businesses and all our citizens are able to thrive. This is why the United Kingdom is committed to protecting and promoting the combined strength and values we share, building on hundreds of years of partnership and shared history. It is clear that when we work together as one United Kingdom, we are safer, stronger and more prosperous; we are better able to draw on the institutions that unite us, such as the National Health Service, the Armed Forces and our world-class education system. Crucially, as the committee noted, we are able to tackle the big problems, from supporting families with the cost of living, to leading the international responses to the illegal Russian war in Ukraine, and to being a world leader in offering the vaccine to our citizens. I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, that Covid was not a good example of close working. I think that this Government worked strategically with the devolved Administrations to save jobs and support communities and to bring out the vaccine programme that helped our country get through the pandemic. That was at administerial but also at official level. So I actually think it was a good working of the union at the time.
The UK Government are committing to delivering the best possible outcomes for people in all parts of the UK, ensuring that all four corners of the UK feel the benefits of the union. This is what the people of the United Kingdom want and expect. From the £55 billion we are spending this year to help families and businesses across the UK with their energy bills to the ambitious vision that is set out in the levelling-up White Paper to improve living standards and create opportunities in every part of the UK and the spending review in 2021 setting the largest annual block grant in real terms of any spending review settlement since the devolution Acts in 1998, this Government’s commitment to ensuring all parts of the United Kingdom feel the benefits of the union is clear.
As the committee recognised, effective working across all levels of government in the United Kingdom is critical to our ability to deliver better outcomes for our people and our communities. Citizens rightly want their Governments working together to deliver for them. This is why the Government ensure that every department makes it a priority in their work; for example, new structures and processes for engagement—this was brought up by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate—agreed through the intergovernmental relations review provide solid foundations for continued constructive engagement. From January to September 2022, there were more than 200 ministerial meetings between the United Kingdom Government and the devolved Governments on a huge range of issues.
Somebody mentioned the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister made it his priority to speak to the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales on his first day in office. He also chaired the first meeting of the Prime Minister and heads of devolved Governments council on 10 November 2022, just three weeks after coming into office, focusing on critical issues such as the cost of living, the impact of rising inflation and our shared challenges in supporting the NHS.
We have worked constructively with the devolved Governments to deliver practical benefits for people across the United Kingdom. This includes welcoming Ukrainians through the Homes for Ukraine scheme and growing local economies through freeports and city and growth deals, investment ensuring that everyone, no matter where they live in this United Kingdom, has access to opportunities, skills and jobs for the future. We will continue to work together to deliver for all people of the United Kingdom.
As we set out in our response to the committee’s report, we share its ambition for informative, detailed reports on intergovernmental relations. We continue to evolve the regular transparency reports to allow more pertinent scrutiny and public engagement. We welcome opportunities, such as today, to discuss these relationships more. Co-operation across the United Kingdom is valuable in its many forms, and we will continue to support the interparliamentary forum and initiatives which facilitate collaborative working across devolved legislatures.
I welcome noble Lords’ ongoing support in strengthening the things that connect us across the United Kingdom. Our commitment to effective inter-governmental working exemplifies this Government’s commitment to devolution, a sentiment the committee shared in its report. Through devolution, policies can be tailored to support the needs and priorities of the different parts of the United Kingdom within the framework of the United Kingdom. It allows decisions to be taken closer to communities that they affect, all the while still benefiting from the broad shoulders that the union provides by drawing on a shared resources.
The committee noted the importance of the Sewel convention, and we recognise that importance. We remain fully committed to the convention and will continue to seek legislative consent and work with the devolved Administrations on all Bills that engage the legislative consent process. Our commitment is evident through the 28 legislative consent Motions secured across 17 Acts of Parliament during the last legislative Session, including the Health and Care Act 2022 and the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Act 2022.
A number of noble Lords talked about the governance of England, including the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Howell. We are bringing forward the levelling-up Bill—we have had its Second Reading, and we will have Committee after the Recess. Our commitment to devolution and our plans for further devolution are very clear. We have announced the biggest ever transfer of powers away from Westminster to local areas in England in that Bill and in the White Paper that preceded it, with devolution at the heart of our plans to increase economic growth and level up the whole country. We have made significant progress in recent months, including through an expanded deal for the north-east and the first county deals, which will establish directly elected leaders in Norfolk and Suffolk. These deals were not imposed by the Government; they were designed and set up with the local authorities involved. Taken together, deals signed last year will mean that 5 million more people can directly elect a mayor or leader to represent them about local issues in the future.
We are focused on ensuring that devolution works effectively across the United Kingdom, including making sure that an understanding of devolution and the union is core to all United Kingdom government departments. That is why we have progressed the recommendations made by my noble friend Lord Dunlop—I thank him for his positive contribution today—in his review of UK government capability to improve how the UK Government can deliver for all their citizens. For example, we have established and regularly convene a Cabinet committee focused on the union; Sue Gray was appointed as Second Permanent Secretary with responsibility for the union; and each UK government department now has a nominated non-executive director with responsibility for the union. In addition, we have an ambitious capability programme to enhance the devolution knowledge and intergovernmental working skills of civil servants, enabling them to deliver more effectively for the whole of the United Kingdom.
Before I finish, I want to respond to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds. His contribution was extremely interesting, and I would like to think on it further. Young people are the future—and they are the future of the union. Their views must be heard, and we must work with them. I thank him for his contribution, and I will give it some thought.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
In my ignorance, I am not totally sure which department my noble friend is closest to; she seems to answer on every conceivable subject these days. Will she tell her friends in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to give particular attention to the knotty problem of giving Scotland a greater voice in our external affairs, treaty arrangements and international repositioning with all the other countries of the world? That is where a lot of our fate will be decided. One of the most bitter feelings the committee heard from our witnesses was that Scotland was an ancient nation which did have an international footprint but appeared to have no real say in deciding our international position. Could she give a push in that direction, please?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that, and I certainly will. I do not do anything with the Foreign Office, but I will certainly take that back. I am in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but we also do some of the work on the union.
I thank noble Lords once again for their contributions today, and I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for moving the debate and for her speech. I look forward to continuing this important discussion and working collaboratively on all the issues raised by noble Lords today.