United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in moving Motion B1 in my name, I thank the Minister for his full and comprehensive introduction and make it clear that we agree with his Amendment 15C, which we think is very helpful to the overall operation of the internal market Bill. In particular, it picks up points that we have been making in relation to market access. I have just one point of correction to what he said: the changes set out in my Amendment 8M remove the amendment completely from the main part of the Bill. He said Clause 1, but I think he meant Schedule 1; in other words, even more disguised and hidden than perhaps was the impression he gave when speaking.

In opening this debate, I do not want to spend a lot of time on this issue, which is quite narrow. Indeed, the arguments are very similar to those we have already heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. The Minister’s defence of the current drafting in the Bill depended largely on the often-used threat by Ministers that those who are preparing amendments do not understand the unintended consequences that might flow from their drafting. I suggest to the Minister with some humility that we are not the experts on drafting. If there is an issue here that we should progress a little, we would certainly be happy to work with him and the team of draftspeople in his department to try to make sure that any egregious issues are removed. He drew particular attention to a concern about the phrase used in proposed paragraph 5A(1)(c), which those who wish to bring forward changes to market access would not be permitted to do so if they were disguised restrictions on trade. As I understand it, that comes from the existing WTO regulations and is therefore relatively well understood among those involved in the operation; these are trivial points, however, compared to the main points of principle that he raised.

I want to make three main points. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has already explained in his amendment that the common frameworks issues he talked about require a market access regime as well; the two are interrelated—almost two sides of the same coin. The devolution settlement has to be observed in both the spirit and the letter of the law. We think that the Bill can both honour and enhance the devolution settlement, provided, first, that we emphasise the common frameworks and the coherence that they can bring to the whole process of a devolved settlement and, secondly, that we do not make the market access principles, which operate automatically, too narrow and too prescriptive. That would fatally undermine the opportunities for devolved Administrations to diverge—if they wish and as agreed by all concerned—in a managed and coherent way.

We have a devolved system of government. That must necessarily imply divergence, so it has to be part of the system. In some way, the argument revolves around how it is possible to frame that managed divergence in legal terms. My Amendment 8M uses derogation powers that are already in the Bill to highlight areas of public good that could benefit consumers, workers and traders. The Minister said there was already coverage on these areas within the Bill, so, in a sense, he is making my point that areas such as public health and the ability of people to work in the environmental areas will be public goods if they can be brought forward. Any sensible Government would ensure that the system made it possible for those who wish to make changes that would raise standards —managed and with agreement—to do so.

The amendment therefore enhances efforts to improve environmental standards and public health; I cannot believe that the Government would want to be against that. It amends a schedule, and does not change any of the main clauses in the Bill. We are talking about trying to find a system for allowing divergence to happen in a proportionate way, which will not in any sense damage the ability of traders to trade but will benefit consumers and workers. It is a very small change. As the Minister rightly said, it has been slimmed down in the process of arriving at this point in the Bill’s discussions, and it is very much tied to the amendment that we have just accepted by a majority of over 100 in relation to the common frameworks. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

The question is that Motion B1, as an amendment to Motion B, be agreed to. I have had no notice of anyone in the Chamber wishing to speak—in fact, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this has been a very short debate, but, as the Minister has said, it has been quite interesting, and revelatory in some senses. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for speaking in support. I think that I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his suggestion that “yin and yang” are the words I was looking for in terms of my relationship with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. We are certainly not yin and yang if you consider size or intellectual ability, but, even so, it is a nice thought.

I recognise that the Minister was not going all out to take down the arguments I was making, and I am grateful to him for that; he can sometimes be quite destructive when he does, and it is nice to have the sunny side of him on show today—he does have a sunny side.

I cannot understand why there is such a concern about divergence. For those of us who were born and brought up in Scotland, it is well known that building regulations there are substantially different for not unreasonable reasons: the weather up there is so different from that which one experiences further south. Those regulations were different in Scotland for many years before devolution took place, and have continued to be.

Of course, there are many other areas of difference, right across a range of activity in Scotland: a different legal system, a different religious environment as well as other factors. This has led to different ways in which people operate, trade is conducted, and people shop and carry out their business. The idea that divergence is not already present in the system and not respected as such seems very strange.

I know that the Minister stands by Schedule 1 because he referred to it at length, but those who have read it carefully—I suspect that not many people have read it right the way through because it is dry—will know that, basically, the only real reason for divergence is set out there very clearly. It says that there has to have been a threat to life caused by a “pest or disease”—that is a very wide-ranging thought and a way we can approach it. Nevertheless, that is really the only sure and certain basis under which divergence would be permitted, other than that which already exists.

In that sense, we are on the right track: there could be a better way of formulating that. The schedule contains many other ways of implementing curtailment and restriction that we could use if the wording currently in our amendment is not satisfactory. However, I do not think that the Minister has said anything that would negate our feeling that this amendment, in its essence, is the counterpart to the amendment that we already agreed in relation to common frameworks—and that it would play a necessary part in making sure that devolution continues. I recommend it, and I would like to test the opinion of the House.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

Members taking part remotely have given their voices in support of this Motion, and I will take that into account.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, also wish to speak after the Minister.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

I asked the Minister a specific question on whether the framing of Clauses 38 to 40 was exactly the same, or differed from, the existing powers of the CMA. He did not answer that. I do not want to delay us too much today but perhaps he could write to me about it.

Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, I will be extremely brief—I am sure that noble Lords will be happy about that—in moving Amendment 22 and speaking to Amendment 23. They are two very short probing amendments for the particular circumstances when Ministers do not feel the need to lay a report before the House. Once again, given the importance of trade agreements and the need for scrutiny, this is something that the Government need to consider carefully. Can it really be right for the Government to lay regulations before Parliament without informing us what they are and what impact they might have?

We can deal with the matter fairly straightforwardly. The Government will know in advance of the proposed changes to an agreement, not just at the point of laying it. There is therefore no reason whatever why we cannot be told what the change is at the time, as part of whatever reporting system there is. That is the purpose of Amendment 22.

In relation to Amendment 23, I say that the phrase “as soon as possible” is far too vague. I appreciate that the Government have many issues to consider and to juggle, but they should have the means to tell us what is being proposed. We need to know within a clear timeframe so that we can scrutinise the Government effectively. I have to hear a convincing reason from the Government as to why they need the wide-ranging powers under this clause. I therefore propose these amendments to seek further information from Ministers, and to signal the kind of openness and levels of scrutiny that I am sure Parliament will demand in terms of both these rollover agreements and the new trade agreements. I beg to move.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, once again I support the amendments of my noble friend Lady Henig; I will also speak against Clauses 4 and 5 standing part of the Bill. Counterintuitively, I will deal with Clause 5 stand part first, simply because it follows exactly in the same vein as the reasons I gave for suggesting that Clause 3 should not stand part. Clause 5 deals with reports to be laid with regulations under Section 2(1). In an expanded, more amplified and better and more rounded policy dealing with both the continuity of free trade agreements and the new free trade agreements, we would have a completely different system sitting in place, so Clause 5 would be otiose, which is why I put this forward. I will not press this and I do not need much response from the Minister because we will return to this issue later in group 13.

However, I wonder about Clause 4. It seems at a superficial level to give the Government a “get out of jail free” card in relation to any reports that they might feel obliged to make, particularly if they are expanded in terms of my noble friend Lady Henig’s original proposal under Clause 3. Clause 3 states:

“Before the United Kingdom ratifies the proposed agreement, a Minister … must lay before Parliament a report which gives details of, and explains the reasons for, any significant differences between—


(a) the trade-related provisions of the proposed agreement, and

(b) the trade-related provisions of the existing free trade agreement”.

But Clause 4 states:

“Section 3 does not apply to a free trade agreement if a Minister of the Crown is of the opinion that, exceptionally, the agreement needs to be ratified without laying before Parliament a report which meets the requirements”.


I stress that phrase,

“a Minister of the Crown is of the opinion that”,

and the use of “exceptionally”, which is an interesting word. In other words, you do not have to do it if you have sufficient gravitas and the ability to convince Parliament that you are not of that opinion and that it is exceptional, so you can get away with it. That is not satisfactory drafting.

This is not a good clause to be in a Bill of this nature. It certainly does not meet the questions that we have been raising about proper transparency, accounting and independence of reporting. When the Minister comes to reply, I hope that she will consider taking this away. If she cannot bring herself to agree that this needs redrafting, perhaps she can write to me explaining why it does not.

[Baroness Fairhead]

My Lords, I too will try to give a short response to the amendments before us, and first on Amendment 22 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. Clause 4 creates an exemption from the reporting requirement so that, in exceptional circumstances, the Government may seek to ratify an agreement without having first published the associated report on changes made to it. Let me categorically reassure noble Lords that we intend to draw on the reporting exemption provided for in the Bill only if we are in exceptional circumstances.

I am sure the Committee will agree that we may find ourselves in exceptional times. We cannot predict the speed with which continuity agreements will be ready for signature. Moreover, the exemption is narrow. It does not remove the requirement for a report to be laid. It simply provides a little leeway to enable a trade agreement to progress to avoid a cliff edge. The Government would still be required to lay a report as soon as possible following ratification. I hear the noble Lord, and will reflect on the drafting, but in a sense it was because of the uncertainty about the speed.

Amendment 23 would ensure that, if this exemption is invoked, the report would have to be laid no later than 10 days after ratification. Again, to be clear, we have drafted this exemption for use in only the most urgent of circumstances. If we were to need to rely on this, it would be necessary to ensure that we could continue to operate in the most uncertain of contexts, and avoid that cliff edge.

Clause 5 will ensure that the Government lay their report 10 days in advance of using the Clause 2 power to implement any obligations of a continuity agreement. That will ensure that Parliament is wholly informed about how we intend to deliver continuity for an agreement before it is required to consider implementing legislation. If we removed Clause 5, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, suggested, the Government would not be bound in any way to report, so we should set that aside.

Before I conclude on this point, I would like to inform the Committee about an amendment that the Government will bring forward on Report. As the Committee is aware, the purpose of the Government’s trade continuity programme is to seek continuity of the effects of existing EU free trade agreements as far as possible as we leave the EU. The vast majority of these existing trade agreements, which we are part of as an EU member state, are already in operation and have been scrutinised by Parliament. Let me make it clear to the Committee that we do not expect to need to change existing domestic equalities legislation as part of this programme. In the unlikely event that we choose to make minor or consequential changes to this legislation, we will aim to ensure that this does not result in reduced protection against unlawful discrimination or diminution of equality rights.

However, to ensure suitable transparency and accountability on this particularly important issue, we intend to provide that a ministerial Statement is made alongside any draft statutory instrument laid under the Clause 2 power. The Statement would outline whether the statutory instrument repealed, revoked or amended any provision of the Equality Acts 2006 and 2010 or any subordinate legislation made under them. In addition, I am happy to confirm that the reports under Clause 3 will explain any changes that would be required to equalities legislation as a result of our shift from an EU to a UK agreement if, and I stress if, any changes are needed. My officials have agreed to work together with the Equality and Human Rights Commission—and I put on record our thanks for its efforts in helping us to design the process so far—on designing the content and templates for these reports.

I hope that that reassures the Committee and I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. Additionally, I commend that Clauses 4 and 5 stand part of the Bill.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I will link what I say to Amendments 231, 231A, 231B, 234ZA and 234ZB in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. They effectively seek to ensure that the British Transport Police has the same powers and authority as geographical police forces. For reasons that I hope will become apparent, we support these amendments, which seem to make good operational sense.

Additionally, in this group are a number of amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Henig and Lord Beecham, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that require police forces in the scope of the Bill, when enacted, to have particular regard to co-operation and collaborative working arrangements. Again, we support those amendments. Amendments 83ZA and 83B in the names of members of our Front Bench cover much of the same ground, but additionally require these working arrangements to be independent and impartial, and included in the memorandum of understanding.

A memorandum of understanding has an important role to play in policing, irrespective of the Bill. In last week’s Committee debate, the Minister encouraged us to regard as a first draft the memorandum of understanding circulated earlier this month by the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice. She invited comments and we should very much like to take up her offer of a meeting at an appropriate point to discuss the text in more detail. Although the MoU was referred to in our Committee discussions last week, it was not given much detailed consideration. I should therefore like to spend a little time on it, in the spirit of constructive debate, before arguing that the MoU, once agreed, should apply also to all UK police forces and, in particular, to the British Transport Police.

What do we want from a memorandum of understanding? The model that comes to my mind is in part the military covenant and in part the BBC royal charter. Like the military, the police put themselves at the service of their country and have to endure risks on a daily basis, sometimes paying the price of such service with their lives. Like the military, this ought to be recognised in a compact with the state. As with the BBC, the police clearly need to be independent and be seen to be independent. Therefore, there needs to be a document setting out the high-level principles that we think should apply to policing, defines the aims and objectives of policing, guarantees the independence of the police operating within those parameters, indicates how the success of police operations will be measured, and defines how accountability will be discharged—accountability that should surely be to Parliament.

It should, in short, be adjudged to be part of our constitutional writings, as is acknowledged in the draft. Much of it already exists in other documents and in legislation. The task, therefore, is one of bringing the material together in a readable and appropriate form. It is a pity that that has not been the approach taken to date. The draft which has been circulated does not achieve those aims. It ought to be an authoritative disquisition about the operational independence of the police, a clear statement about what we, the people, want our police to do and defining how they may do it, putting flesh on the bones of that admirable construct, policing by consent.

In fact, what we have been given is somewhat polemical in approach, containing as it does a rehash of the arguments for the Bill and, in particular, a case for the role of the police and crime commissioners. It states:

“The election of Police and Crime Commissioners is at the heart of the Government’s plan to cut crime”.

Perversely, it starts off in a negative mode and is full of warnings about what it does not contain. It states:

“This Protocol does not supersede or vary the legal duties and requirements of the Office of Constable”,

instead of positively defining what those duties are.

These documents are not easy to get right, and I sympathise with Ministers struggling with them. I hasten to add that there are some very good sections in the MoU but, to my mind, they come much too late in the document and lose their impact because of what you have to read through to get to them. The section on the chief constable and what, to us, seems to be at the heart of the memorandum, the section on operational control, need to be considerably expanded and should come up front so that, for example, the sections on relationships with local interests and with the Home Office have a context.

I make two other points. The document would be much improved if more attention was paid to the inevitably complex lines of accountability and control in policing. For example, the assertion that the chief constable holds office under the Crown but is appointed by the PCC needs to be unpicked and given much more detailed consideration. There also needs to be much more in the memorandum about the assertion:

“The PCC and Chief Constable must work together to safeguard the principle of operational independence”,

but the sentence continues,

“while ensuring that the PCC is not fettered in fulfilling the role set out above”.

Those two aspirations pull in opposite directions and seem irreconcilable.

Amendment 30 is intended to ensure that the citizens of the United Kingdom and our visitors can be assured that the standards of policing in this country are broadly comparable wherever they are and whatever they are doing, not only across the geographical police forces, which are in scope to the Home Office, but the non-geographical forces, listed in our amendment, which are in scope to other departments such as the Department for Transport and other departments of state.

Surely we should be striving for a commonality of approach while respecting local and operational differences. My concern is that a memorandum for one set of police forces will exacerbate the present differences between the geographic and non-geographic forces. Where the Bill has to introduce new structures, they should support a seamless policing environment from the citizens’ point of view.

I declare a past interest in that I was for several years an external mentor for the excellent senior management development scheme in the British Transport Police. I confess that I knew next to nothing about policing or even the existence of BTP, but I soon came to recognise that BTP was, and remains, a very special police force. I have a high regard for its ethos, its approach to policing, the quality of its senior management and its overall operation as Britain's only national police force.

BTP's history can be traced back to 1826 and the origins of the police service in Britain. The railways and high-speed rail in particular are a unique policing environment with a unique set of needs. BTP's 2,835 police officers and 1,455 support staff exist to provide a specialist policing service to meet those needs. The officers and men of BTP police the tracks and provide a service to rail operators, their staff and passengers across the whole of the country, including the London Underground system, Docklands Light Railway, the Midland Metro tram system, Croydon Tramlink and Glasgow Subway. BTP safeguards about 6 million people every day. Railway passengers do not recognise the boundary between the railway and the community more generally. Crime and the fear of crime know no boundaries. Criminal behaviour is promiscuous and it crosses areas and networks. It is surely vital that our policing services do likewise with the minimum interruption from the structural concerns. At present, the systems and structures, pay and conditions, training, the use of HM inspectorate, the uniforms and the rest ensure that the BTP is seen by the public as an integral part of our policing system. Senior officers of the BTP, for example, regularly serve as gold commander at public events such as sporting occasions and state visits.

Our amendment seeks to ensure that, when the memorandum of understanding is introduced, the Bill takes account of any danger that it might separate the non-geographic from the geographic forces. We think that the way to do that is to require that the memorandum of understanding, once it is finalised and approved in accordance with Section 155(2), is applied to non-geographic police bodies in the United Kingdom. Only in this way, I believe, can we guarantee that visitors coming to London through our ports, via the Channel Tunnel or by using our motorways, can be sure of parity of service provision, or that people attending the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games can be confident that the police service will match the highest standards found in the community and that our commuters and their families will be sure that they are as safe out and about as they are at home and that the standards applied are equivalent. I beg to move.

[Baroness Henig]

Amendment 77 is in my name, so perhaps I may say a few words about it. Before I do so, I did not declare my interest on the previous occasion and perhaps I may seek clarification. Do I need to declare my interest at the start of every Committee day, or does the fact that I did so on the first day mean that I do not need to do so again?