United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

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

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will keep my remarks brief and try to avoid duplication—difficult at this time of night. As a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I must put on record, along with the great majority of the 100 or so speakers today, my deep disquiet that, in proposing the Bill, our Government have shown such disregard both for the international reputation of this country and for one of the most fundamental principles of our democracy: the supremacy of Parliament.

I applaud my noble and learned friend Lord Judge on his very powerful speech. I agree with every word of it and will certainly be supporting his Motion. For the sake of Britain’s standing in the world, I implore the Government to ensure that the Bill never reaches the statute book unless Clauses 44, 45 and 47 are removed, along with most, I would say, of the Henry VIII clauses, which have absolutely not been adequately justified by the Government's memorandum to Parliament on the Bill.

For the sake of the health of our democracy, I trust that the Government will respond positively to the appeal, in a letter to Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg, from the chairs of the Constitution Committee, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Secondary Legislation Committee. The letter sets out the considerable concerns of the members of all three committees about the truly extraordinary delegation of powers to Ministers in recent Bills, not just this one—although this one, the internal market Bill, is undoubtedly the most extreme and troubling example of this trend.

Finally, I call on the Government to respect the conclusion of the Strathclyde review of the role of the House of Lords in relation to statutory instruments. The review made clear that,

“it would be appropriate for the Government to take steps to ensure that Bills contain an appropriate level of detail and that too much is not left for implementation by statutory instrument.”

Do the Government really want to completely disregard a report commissioned by a recent Conservative Government? I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, would want your Lordships’ House to challenge the exceptionally pervasive use of Henry VIII clauses in the Bill and, indeed, the terrible Clauses 44, 45 and 47, and I very much hope that we can do this on a cross-party basis.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

I welcome the fact that the Minister has accepted the deep concerns of that committee and the Constitution Committee on Amendment 2. I only ask him to treat Amendment 7 in the same way and agree to the relevant subsections being removed from the Bill. If he cannot accept my Amendment 7, I shall have to seek the opinion of the House when we come to it. For the moment, however, I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in strong support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, to which I have added my name.

As many noble Lords made clear at Second Reading and in Committee, this Bill has plumbed new depths in undermining our democracy through the unprecedented and unacceptable use of Henry VIII powers to sidestep the scrutiny of Parliament and give Ministers extraordinary powers. It is no accident that it was Henry VIII clauses in this Bill, six of which are the subject of this debate, that prompted the chairs of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Constitution Committee and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to write to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Leader of the House of Commons expressing their deep concern about these developments. This Bill using Henry VIII powers unreasonably is of course not a one-off. As a relatively new member of the Delegated Powers Committee—I should declare that interest—I have been very conscious of its growing concerns about this Government’s increasing use of delegated legislation and ever wider Henry VIII powers. It is worth putting on the record a point made by the Leader of the House of Commons in response to the letter from the three committee chairs. Mr Rees-Mogg says that

“there will be times when the Government will still need to rely heavily on delegated powers, particularly if legislation is needed urgently, but I am clear that at all times the Government must fully justify the appropriateness of these powers to both Houses and to your Committee.”

The problem is that in the view of the Delegated Powers Committee, and certainly in my view, the Government simply have not justified the wholesale delegation of powers in the Bill.

We are very pleased that the Government have gone some way towards rectifying the problem through their many amendments. In particular, we welcome the Government’s acceptance that the Henry VIII power in Clause 3(8) should be removed. The arguments for removing that power, as set out in the Delegated Powers Committee report, are overwhelming. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, has cogently spelled out, exactly the same arguments apply to the Henry VIII power in Clause 6. I fully support the position that if the Government are unwilling to withdraw the Clause 6 Henry VIII power then the opinion of the House on this issue just has to be tested. I hope a vote will not actually be necessary—would it not be wonderful if the Government accepted this amendment along with the one on Clause 3?—but if there is one then I will be supporting the noble Baroness.

Our amendments to Clauses 8, 17 and 20 are less broad and the issues are therefore a bit less concerning. However, I have considerable reservations about Clause 10(2), which gives Ministers the power to rewrite Schedule 1 in part or indeed in its entirety. Surely that cannot be justified. Our Amendment 17 would delete that power. I hope the Minister will give the House some assurance that he will take this issue back for reconsideration.

I welcome the Government’s new commitment to consulting the devolved Administrations before making regulations under a number of clauses of the Bill. Whether that goes far enough will be debated at a later stage of Report and I therefore will not comment further on it here. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to review the use of Parts 1 and 2 as set out in the government amendments.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the speeches by the noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews and Lady Meacher, who have spoken with such cogency. I agree with them.

My name appears on Amendments 2, 7, 12, 17, 31 and 42 for two reasons. The first is that I was there at the beginning of devolution in Wales and have watched it develop in ways that were described earlier this afternoon by other noble Lords. It has been successful; it has brought the people of Wales much closer to government and resulted in faster decision-making than we ever had in the old days when the nearest we had to devolution, when I was a Member of another place, was the Welsh Grand Committee.

The second reason why I speak in favour of these amendments is a more general one. I have watched with surprise, and sometimes despair, the galloping tendency of government—and it has been successive Governments—to take more executive power through secondary legislation. Henry VIII must be very surprised, if he is aware of it at all, that his powers are being asked for so frequently and when they are not necessary.

I want to focus on Amendment 7 for I, like the noble Baronesses who have just spoken, welcome the addition of the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to Amendment 2. That is truly welcome. When I first saw it, I thought it showed a thorough recognition of the issues at stake because it is a significant concession. All that we are asking on this side of the debate is consistency with regard to the non-discrimination principle. That principle is of as fundamental importance as the mutual recognition principle for markets to which the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has signed up in Amendment 2. They are plainly legislative siblings—indeed, they are almost identical twins—since they have a great deal of political and legislative DNA in common. Certainly they are equally important, and they are of equal moment in the devolved parts of the UK. I therefore feel bound to say that I am bemused by the lack of logic displayed by the Government’s failure to agree to Amendment 7 having agreed to Amendment 2.

I was talking earlier about the way in which devolution has worked. I can put that point very simply. These days in Wales, about which I know more than Scotland, legislative changes are brought about in real time as decisions become necessary. They are not always right—legislative changes are never always right—but at least there is an understanding by the public, those involved in politics in Wales and public servants in Wales that it is possible to make change. By that process, one has given a new self-respect regarding the way in which Wales is governed to elected Members, public officials and those who elect the elected Members.

What is still in Clause 6, the requirement for consultation without consent, is, unfortunately, a fig-leaf. It does not provide any reality to the role of Wales—on which I speak particularly—in this process because it can be overridden. Yes, reasons have to be given, but it is not very difficult to construct reasons. It relegates the devolved regions to a negligible role on matters directly affecting their interests. If it were necessary to do that, if that relegation could truly be demonstrated intellectually and logically as necessary, then I would be willing to support it, but I see no such explanation. Allowing executive powers in this way goes far beyond what is necessary.