United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Lord Howarth of Newport

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I add my warm welcome and congratulations to my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock. Despite the case just made by the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness, it is a puzzle to me that the Government have introduced this Bill, given the commitment agreed in the Joint Ministerial Committee—of Ministers of the UK and the devolved Governments—to develop by consensus common frameworks for the UK internal market. We are told that good progress has been made on that yet, with perfunctory consultation, the Bill has been brought in.

The Bill contains no mention of common frameworks. It takes powers to override devolved legislation by means of regulations passed at Westminster and to spend money in areas of devolved competence. It contains only patchy and vague provisions for future consultation on the exercise of the powers that it creates. It has provoked indignation in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and legislative consent is highly unlikely to be forthcoming. The Bill is disrespectful to the devolved Administrations. When the union is under great stress from Brexit and Covid, it is also reckless.

The Bill is disrespectful towards this Parliament. It contains egregious Henry VIII clauses, most notably Clause 53(2), which says:

“Any power to make regulations under this Act includes power … to amend, repeal or otherwise modify legislation.”


The Bill is disrespectful towards our treaty partners. It authorises breaches of the Northern Ireland protocol and the withdrawal agreement. The Government offer as justification that the EU may intend to interpret ambiguities in the withdrawal agreement—ambiguities that the Government were happy to write in a year ago—to the detriment of the UK’s internal market and the Good Friday agreement. Ministers may see this as a suitable tactic in the Brexit negotiations. It may also be a reckless reminder to other countries not to trust perfidious Albion.

The brutal declaration in the House of Commons by the Northern Ireland Secretary that the Government are deliberately taking power to break international law sounds a loud alarm. The Bill is disrespectful to the rule of law and the judiciary. In this regard it echoes thinly veiled threats to the judiciary in the Conservative manifesto, the notorious remarks in Conservative Home by Suella Braverman shortly before she was appointed Attorney-General, and attacks on lawyers by the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister at the Conservative Party conference.

The Government make the case in self-exculpation that their defiance of international law is legal under domestic law. They also insist that they are not precluding judicial review, although in Clause 47 they go to extreme lengths to insulate regulations made under the Bill from challenge. The Government cannot justify what they are doing by quibbling. Constitutionality entails acting in a spirit of respect towards the rule of law, including both international law and, in our domestic jurisdiction, the effective ability for persons to have redress in court for the misuse of executive power.

It consists in respecting conventions which, though uncodified, ought to be binding on Ministers and on Parliament. These conventions include respect for the role of other institutions which form part of the constitution, among them the devolved Administrations as well as the judiciary, and therefore acting with restraint towards them. Proper government keeps the convoy moving along together. It shows itself to be trustworthy. The doctrine of the omnicompetence of statute, undoubtedly valid, is gratifying to the vanity of parliamentarians and convenient to Governments, but such ill-judged deployment of statutory power as we see in this Bill risks imposing intolerable stresses on the cohesion of the constitution and of the United Kingdom.

The Bill is an expression of a loutishness that characterises this Government’s political dealings. Where will this debasement of our democracy take us if we collude in it?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I remind the noble Lord of the advisory speaking time. We cannot go beyond midnight, and if everybody goes over, some Lords will have to wait until tomorrow to speak.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

In this House we must do all we can to limit the damage that the Bill causes, starting by supporting the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge.

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Lord Howarth of Newport

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

My Lords, if I might take just a couple of seconds of your Lordships’ time, we have 10 minutes left to finish this group. I encourage people to make their comments as short as possible, so that we at least finish this group.

[Lord Howarth of Newport [V]]

My Lords, I will follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and make my comments in reference to Amendment 129 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. I begin by commending him on the very strong statement of principle he made in the debate on the first group about the constitutional impropriety of too many aspects of this Bill.

His amendment dealing with the “relevant period” provides us the opportunity to touch on the constitutional principle of retrospectivity. The Bill’s provisions are backdated, altering the law on winding-up petitions as it stood after 1 March in some aspects and after 27 April in others. I do not in any way dissent from the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, to bring in a further measure to protect vulnerable businesses. None the less, we ought to recognise that it is generally held that retrospective legislation undermines the rule of law.

In this Bill, a legal right that people relied on is ex post facto wiped out, to the detriment of persons who relied on it. Provisions in Schedule 10 operate retrospectively to invalidate winding-up petitions made by creditors, albeit creditors exercising a statutory right. They could even be deprived of the benefit of a favourable court judgment previously made, as the noble and learned Lord just said. It allows the court to undo the effect of winding-up petitions and even to require petitioners to be liable for costs. This is a remarkable provision and appears to be incompatible with the rule of law.

Retrospective legislation should be very rare indeed. It is constitutionally objectionable in principle, so, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, I ask: how does the Minister justify it? If he considers it necessary to deal with abuses by creditors, how widespread are these abuses? How many instances have been reported? Why is a change in the law needed to deal with them, and why a retrospective change in the law?