United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

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

[Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Lab)]

I am pleased to join others in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, whom I have known for a number of years, and the noble Lord, Lord Sarfraz, whom I met this evening, on their maiden speeches. I hope they enjoy their time in this place.

We have had a number of powerful speeches focusing on various technical features of the devolution aspects of this legislation, but I am not going to focus on specific provisions on whether it will still be possible for the devolved institutions to regulate on issues such as single-use plastic, or indeed on the state aid provisions. I am going to focus on the politics of the situation, and I do that as a former Labour MP in Scotland and as someone who was heavily involved in the independence issue in the lead-up to the 2014 referendum. The constitutional debate in Scotland completely dominated Scottish politics, both during the lead-up to that two-and-a-half-year-long referendum and increasingly as the referendum went on. Indeed, the issue has not gone away, and it is still centre stage in Scottish politics.

As the House is aware, the Scottish Parliament voted 90 to 28 against giving legislative consent to this Bill, and it was suggested earlier on that that was the SNP. I want to make it absolutely clear to this House that the only Members of the Scottish Parliament who voted in favour of giving legislative consent were the Conservative Members. Every other political party and every other MSP voted against giving legislative consent.

The Government will no doubt say again when they sum up—as they did at the beginning of this debate—that further powers are being devolved as part of the changes taking place, and that some of the powers coming back from Europe will be devolved to the devolved institutions. I respectfully say that that is not really the point; the issue is that certain powers are being eroded without consent, and certain powers of the devolved institutions are being eroded when the direction of travel should be transferring powers to those institutions. I was really interested in listening to the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who considered whether it was a power grab or not.

It is absolutely clear that in Scotland in particular—and I will focus on Scotland, because that is my background—there is a genuine view that this legislation undermines the devolution settlement. The backdrop is that, since the 1950s, a significant divergence has taken place in the political views and voting of people in Scotland from those south of the border. To put it simply, Scotland has tended to vote for social democratic-type politics, while nationally we have had few Labour Governments elected in that period. Those political differences, and the differences in voting habits, have had a major impact in Scotland over many decades. It has thrust the constitutional debate into the centre stage of Scottish politics. Most people in Scotland simply believe that decisions affecting Scottish people should be made in Scotland, and they do not think it is fair if they get policies they feel they have not voted for.

It is often said that it was Margaret Thatcher’s Government who delivered devolution. The behaviour of this Government is again having a big impact on the constitutional debate, so I very much hope that they think again.