European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and Mike Gapes

Committee: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman]

I encourage Ministers to listen very carefully to what my hon. Friend says. Like me, he has a deep concern about what clause 11 may mean for the devolved Administrations. We watch with alarm the statements being made today. We hope the position is clarified very quickly.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend refers to Donald Dewar. The basis for the devolution process came about via referendums in Scotland, Wales and both parts of Ireland to agree the frameworks under which we now operate. Is it therefore not a contempt, an insult, to the people as a whole—not just this House—for the Government to undermine the Good Friday agreement and the devolution settlement, which was endorsed by the people in referendums?

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend is right. People voted for these powers to be devolved and it is wrong for the Government to attempt to use Brexit as an excuse to bring them back to London.

The historian Professor Tom Devine called Scottish devolution and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament

“the most significant development in Scottish political history since the union of 1707.”

The Conservative party may have been opposed to devolution in the 1990s, and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Administrations may not have been conceived of in the early ’70s, but they are now an important and respected integral part of the constitutional architecture of our country.

The Good Friday agreement could never have succeeded without devolution to Northern Ireland, and, in the view of many of those involved at that time, the fact that devolution to Scotland and Wales took place at the same time as the Good Friday negotiations helped to ease some misgivings about the process.

Two nations of our Union voted to remain in the EU and two voted to leave. Our nations are run by different parties with different views about what Britain should look like after Brexit. The challenge for the Government therefore is significant. Just because it is challenging, however, does not mean the Government should attempt to take shortcuts that undermine the credibility, autonomy or sharing of decision making that are now an accepted feature of our democracy.