Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)
Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie. As a newish member of the committee, it is with some trepidation that I rise to speak in this debate. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that, at this early stage, I will keep my remarks relatively brief.
I commend the committee on its report. It is a shrewd analysis of the challenges faced by people and businesses in Northern Ireland, and it provides sensible solutions to help them navigate their way through the situation they now find themselves in. As others can speak with far greater insight on the report than I can, I will focus on a couple of reflections—the things that I have been most struck by since joining the committee three months ago. They are all symptomatic of the problems identified in the report.
The overriding issue, which has been mentioned, is the way in which the Windsor Framework affects so many aspects of day-to-day living. I am slightly embarrassed to say that in the present company, but the truth is that I had vastly underestimated just how pervasive it is. I suspect the same goes for the majority of the GB population. I am not talking about the high-stakes policy areas, such as CBAM or the deforestation regulations, although they are obviously significant. What has struck me is the constant drip feed of impositions that chip away at businesses and, in turn, affect consumers in terms of price, choice and availability.
For example, even in my short experience we have seen explanatory memoranda on everything from the school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme to possible labelling changes for poultry meat, unique device identifiers for spectacle frames and handling charges on parcels. The memoranda themselves are telling because some are very thorough and pay proper attention to the possible impacts, but others are cavalier as to the potential costs and burdens. If it were not for the work of the previous committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, the scrutiny of the current committee and its dedicated chair, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the exceptional secretariat, which must get another mention, one cannot help but wonder how much worse things would be.
On that note, the £16.6 million commitment is welcome, and the increased support for businesses, but I am afraid that, like others, I am now going to mention the one-stop shop. Everyone agreed that it is essential that, as per its name, all the information is gathered in one place. However, it is not just about what information and the information itself, but about how people can access and interpret that information. Obviously, this is crucial for small businesses because they do not have the resources to employ specialists in the Windsor Framework.
As the Minister knows, I am a big fan of the new interactive public inquiries recommendations dashboard, and I applaud the Government for implementing it; we tried and tried and failed—so well done. I just want to ask the Minister this. We do not know who will set up the one-stop shop—whether it will be Cabinet Office in-house or whether it will be contracted out—but can the Minister ensure that that very same, very user-friendly, easy-to-access approach will be employed for the one-stop shop? It has now been proved that it can be done, so it can be done again.
I will very briefly repeat a point made by others about the fact that the onus seems very much to lie solely on Northern Ireland businesses when, in fact, it is equally incumbent on Great Britain to get to grips with the current trading landscape. Trade associations have repeatedly highlighted the major lack of understanding on the GB side. Will the Minister therefore also make sure, in rolling out the one-stop shop, that it is not just focused on Northern Ireland, and not even just that it is UK-wide, but that there is appropriate engagement early enough, and that takes place where it is most lacking, which is in Great Britain?
Talking of user-friendly approaches, I agree: EUR-Lex—no. The Government say that we do not need a new tool because EUR-Lex can be used to
“read and consider detailed legal texts”.
That is slightly disingenuous because it simply cannot be used to “read and consider”. If it is the Government’s view that such a database is not necessary then just say so, but if they believe that such a database is important then they need to provide one that is in an accessible form. As it stands, EUR-Lex is just no help at all to anybody.
Finally, I know that the Minister is a strong advocate for Northern Ireland, and the Government should be credited with trying to ease some of the frictions of the framework, which in turn tried to ease some of the frictions of the protocol, but this really comes back to the reality of life for the people of Northern Ireland. The truth is that there is no getting away from the fact that there are real and present dangers in the current trading environment, and there are consequences to that. Even just in my short time on the committee, the businesses and the people of Northern Ireland have shown great forbearance in the many frustrations that they face on a daily basis, but ultimately, they have an absolute right to be on an equal footing. This report, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, says, does not fix everything but it helps to mitigate that inequity. I therefore hope that the Government will perhaps just give further consideration to some of the very good recommendations in the report.
Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]
My Lords, this is the third version of a public procurement EU transition SI since January 2019. Later this afternoon, we will be dealing with the third version of a parallel exit SI on data transparency. My colleagues tell me that they have also been responding to the third version of a whole succession of EU exit SIs in many other areas. This looks like indecision and incompetence across government, with Ministers failing to provide clear direction to their officials or to decide what the hard detail of our future relationship with the EU will be.
The impression of confusion and indecision is heightened by the references in the Explanatory Memorandum to the not yet enacted Trade Bill, which means, as has been explained, that there will be an unavoidable gap in the legislative framework from 1 January. As the Minister knows, the delays to the passage of the Trade Bill are due to government hesitation, not parliamentary obstruction. We are now well over four years since the EU referendum and two years since the passage of the withdrawal Act. I can easily imagine the scorn that Conservatives in opposition would be expressing about any other Government that had drifted like this.
We are also being asked to approve this SI without having certainty about the nature of the UK’s future relationship with the EU. Can the Minister explain what differences in the applicability of this SI will follow from the absence of any deal with the EU, rather than a continuing legal framework for our relationship? Will UK companies and service providers retain any rights to compete for public procurement contracts within the EU in the event of a breakdown in relations? Will they retain such rights if there is some sort of minimalist deal?
In this case, an instrument that refers repeatedly to previous amendments and to the further amendments now proposed is deeply obscure, and will no doubt provide good fees for lawyers as they struggle to interpret it. Worse, it includes repeated phrases such as, “The Minister for the Cabinet Office may make further regulations”—combining legislative complexity with excessive executive powers.
I note that the SI provides for
“the continued application of the general principles of Union law applicable to the award of public contracts”.
That is very sensible, since the principles of Union law on public procurement were negotiated by UK Ministers and officials under previous Conservative Governments, including when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. But that of course does not fit in with the absolutist definition of sovereignty that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, now expounds every week. There are continuing international obligations, as the SI recognises, which cannot easily be ignored when the UK Government wish.
I also note that the intention in this SI
“is to treat non-UK economic operators on a level playing field.”
That is also an abrogation of UK sovereignty, of course. Are we refusing to accept the concept of a level playing field in our future relations with other European states but reasserting it in our relations with contractors from Turkey, the Middle East and China?
The SI also touches on delicate questions about the relevance of international agreements in environmental, social and labour law. The EU is moving ahead in developing policies on how to include calculation of the embedded carbon in imported goods and international contracts. Will this also be a factor in calculating the value of bids for UK public procurement from foreign contractors? And on “social value”, will the Government take into account the political, labour and social conditions that contractors tolerate in their own home countries?
Several noble Lords have mentioned recent concern about public procurement by this Government. That raises wider questions about the outsourcing of public services and the management of public procurement. On another occasion, we must debate the contracts awarded without open competition to contractors linked to the Conservative Party through personal links or donations, or to overseas companies without relevant expertise or experience.
I was particularly struck by the award of one of the first test and trace contracts—
Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but we will have to move on. There is a three-minute time limit.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]
I was particularly struck by the award of one of the first test and trace contracts to a multinational company with its headquarters in Miami to manage a service that self-evidently depended on detailed local knowledge within England. But there have been many other surprising awards, which demand further scrutiny.
I have one last question, on which the Minister may wish to write to me. These SIs frequently refer to the United Kingdom and Gibraltar but rarely, or never, to the UK and the Crown dependencies, which of course were not members of the EU. I note that companies headquartered in Jersey or Guernsey are frequently awarded UK government contracts. Are UK companies also guaranteed a level playing field in return? Do the Crown dependencies follow and observe UK practice in this field? If not, should the UK Government not take back control of that aspect of British sovereignty?