United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Lord German

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for putting forward so much detail behind this amendment, which clearly lays out the course of action that could be dealt with and also talks about the way the Government propose to take these matters forward. I think that my job is to amplify some of his points and perhaps to extend them as well. I refer to the offer from the Welsh Government, which I presume has also been made by the Scottish Government at the same time: that was the indication I received last night, and perhaps the Minister could confirm that this letter from Scotland has been received as well.

This clause proposes a major recentralisation of power. It is a far cry, for those of us who live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, from the cry of bringing back our laws, because state aid is currently not a reserved power, despite the Government’s protestation that it is and always has been. Annexe 1 of the Explanatory Notes for the Bill clearly lays out that it is not a reserved matter, but the Bill, of course, makes it say so. I reiterate at the start that we on these Benches want to see a single state aid regime for the whole United Kingdom, but that regime has to be to a design on which all four parts of the United Kingdom have collaborated. If they are not prepared to do this, as this clause lays out, they will not get a legislative consent Motion from either of the devolved Parliaments or from the Northern Ireland Assembly. In fact, in his letter to the Secretary of State for BEIS yesterday, the Counsel General for Wales said:

“Even if we resolve all the other issues, this alone”—


that is, this clause—

“would make it impossible for me to recommend legislative consent to the Bill as it now stands.”

That is crucial, because it says something about the relationship that this clause makes between the four nations of this United Kingdom. It is not a way to respect our devolution settlement and, importantly, not a way to respect the union we have within the United Kingdom.

EU state aid policy is established through the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and directly applicable regulations following on from that treaty. That was in place of having directives that would have required us to transpose these matters into UK law. In response to the House of Lords report on state aid, the Government said:

“We note that in practice the existing EU rules have always been sufficiently flexible to allow the UK to make innovative aid interventions when necessary.”


So the Government do not believe that there has been a problem in the way that this operated with the EU, and now they are intent on eating their own words, bringing back the rules, converting them into a straitjacket regime and not providing the flexibility that the countries in our union previously enjoyed. They also add that it would be “harmful” if this were dealt with in any other way.

A more co-operative and consensual approach is needed. The clause we are seeking to remove assumes that divergence will happen, and decrees that there shall be no divergence. Blunting and reducing the power of the devolved authorities is deemed to be a price worth paying so that the UK Government alone can determine the route they wish to follow in directing the new regime. Yet we do not know what this regime will look like. There is no sign of the detail or the choices the Government propose to take.

What this clause does, no matter what consultation the Government may eventually engage in, is drive their own agenda—an agenda that primarily has to support England. That, by the way, is no way to provide business with the certainty it is seeking. In fact, the lack of clarity at this stage prolongs the uncertainty; but it need not be like this.

We need to make progress on a UK framework for subsidy control. Again, this is another framework agreement which needs to be put in place. At the moment, without such a framework, it could easily be said that the Government are making it up as they go along. What is needed is a dialogue, not the “take it or leave it” policy that this clause entails—a policy which may well end up in the courts and will certainly amplify the feeling that the union of the United Kingdom is not respected.

Yesterday’s letter from the Welsh Government’s Counsel General, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, referred to, provides the UK Government with a route to a sensible solution. It recognises the ability in the EU to have variance in subsidies where there is an identified need. I must point out to noble Lords that many of us will remember that this was the case before we became members of the EU. I remember the arguments and debates on UK regional aid and regional assistance, and dividing the areas of the country up where aid could be given in greater amounts. That historical message was that there would be differences and distortions; of course, subsidies provide distortions, but they were provided for very good reasons. They were proposing to make a difference where the needs were greatest—where poverty and economic need were greatest—and so it was provided it in that way.

I can say, as somebody who had to operate within that framework as an economic development Minister, having to talk about these matters with Brussels simply to identify the boundaries, the flexibility, as the UK Government themselves say, was great indeed to manage that work. I believe we are seeing this clause put the cart before the horse—devising the policy before putting the legislation in place is what we are looking for, and that is what this amendment does.

All the devolved Governments have made it clear that they are prepared to work at pace with the UK Government to design a new subsidy regime. I would be grateful if the Minister in replying could tell us how the Government will respond to the offer from the devolved Governments. I also note that there must be unease on the Government’s side about this clause, since I have noticed that no other speaker, apart from the Minister, has come forward to support it.

Removing this clause from the Bill provides the opportunity for dialogue and the drawing up of a new subsidy regime for the UK. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said, we already have a replacement in place temporarily until that is put back and the regime determined. I do hope that the Government will accept the offer from the devolved Governments as the right way forward and, as a gesture of good will, I would be grateful if they would therefore consider withdrawing this clause, supporting this amendment and, in so doing, strengthening the relationships between the various parts of our union.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of this amendment, elegantly explained by my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord German, who amplified his points.

Yesterday, as already referred to, the Welsh Government’s Counsel General wrote to the Secretary of State at BEIS about Clause 44. That letter demonstrates clearly that the Welsh Government are seriously committed to trying to save the union of the United Kingdom and recognise the need to secure the internal market. Their offer to work intensively with the Government is clear and unequivocal.

The Welsh Government have consistently put forward imaginative and thoughtful proposals about how to move the constitutional debate forward. Indeed, in Brexit and Devolution in June 2017, the Welsh Government championed the idea of common frameworks, subsequently taken up by Whitehall. If I may quote, they said:

“From the outset of the debate about our collective future outside the EU, the Welsh Government has recognised a need to develop UK frameworks. It is clearly important that no new barriers to the effective free movement of goods and services within the UK are created as a result of EU withdrawal. The development of UK frameworks should be taken forward immediately on the basis of negotiation and agreement among the four UK administrations.”


This paper suggests a qualified majority voting system within a reformed intergovernmental system, where a decision endorsed by the UK Government plus one of the devolved Governments would be sufficient to break any logjam, thus addressing head on the issue of one nation wielding a veto. Last year, the Welsh Government’s comprehensive analysis in Reforming our Union championed shared governance, describing taking responsibility for codesigning legislation and policy where devolved and reserved competences intersect. It asserted that

“devolution is concerned with how the UK as a whole should be governed, with proper account taken of the interests of all of its parts. It is a joint project between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, based on a recognition of our mutual inter-dependence, which therefore requires a degree of shared governance.”

It foregrounded common frameworks, seeking a common approach, shared delivery systems and joint governance arrangements that should be developed on a collaborative and consensual basis. So, the intervention from the Counsel General is not an opportunistic response to this Bill but the continuation of a patient, crystal clear commitment to common frameworks at the heart of intergovernmental relations.

Over these three days of debates, Members across the House have recognised the importance of these frameworks. The Welsh Government and, I believe, the Scottish Government are not arguing to be left alone to design and implement their own rulebooks for government subsidies. They would be mad to do so. In a free-for-all between Governments of these islands to attract and hold on to investment, the UK Government would be bound to win, because they have much more significant financial resources and can set their own budget. Rather than arguing to have an equal role in designing a fair system all can work within, they are committing to do this on a timetable compatible with the one the Government have set themselves and to take no legislative action in this space until at least autumn 2021.

This is surely beyond reasonable doubt. If the efforts to reach agreement fail, the Government will have to introduce primary legislation to define the new subsidy regime, subject to the same constraints there are now, in order to achieve a coherent regime. We have repeatedly been told that this Bill does not diminish the powers of the devolved institutions, yet all we see and hear defies that. This clause explicitly and openly alters the devolution settlement by adding to the list of reserved matters in the Government of Wales Act and the other devolution statutes. I therefore urge your Lordships to support its removal from the Bill.