Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Stewart Hosie

Report stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie]

Loth as I am to disagree with the Minister, there was little by way of substantial growth in the Budget and there is almost nothing by way of immediate cost of living support in this Bill. We can only hope—although it is hope over expectation—that the Bill at least delivers some of the growth and some of the investment that the Government’s rhetoric would suggest they expect to see. I hope that happens, even though I doubt it will, and that the forecasts we see at the next fiscal event will be rather better than the ones we have seen over the past three or four years.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am pausing in case there is a speech about to erupt, but there is not. Therefore, I will put the Question.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Stewart Hosie

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The question is that this House agrees with the Lords in their amendment 3B. I am going very slowly in case anybody appears on the Opposition Front Bench—or, indeed, in case anybody currently on the Opposition Front Bench wishes to address the matter. No? Then we will move to the SNP spokesman.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I just have a small point. The SNP supports this Bill and the intention to create the UK Infrastructure Bank, with its objective to help tackle climate change. However, it is worth putting on record very briefly that both the original Government amendment 3 and amendment 3B in lieu from the other place—while the latter does keep “nature-based solutions” in the wording of the Bill—seek to remove

“structures underpinning the circular economy”

from the infrastructure that the Bill is designed to support in its objectives of tackling climate change and meeting the target for 2050.

I am sure people interested in such matters will look rather askance at that. How on earth can we have a UK Infrastructure Bank Bill, with highly laudable objectives to tackle climate change and meet the Government’s own targets, only then to have both the Government and the other place actively remove investment in infra-structure to support the circular economy—which, for goodness sake, must be part of the solution—from the Bill? We are not going to oppose the amendment, because the Lords amendment is marginally better than the original Government amendment, but it is worth putting on record that the removal of the words

“structures underpinning the circular economy”

from the Bill strikes me as somewhat perverse.

Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Stewart Hosie

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. In case the House is not already aware, after the next speaker, we will have a time limit of four minutes on Back-Bench speeches, which, of course, does not apply to Mr Stewart Hosie.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

There are four significant flaws with this piece of legislation: the absence of devolved consent, real protections for the NHS, the preservation of food standards and meaningful parliamentary scrutiny. I believe that our amendment 10 and new clauses 7 and 8 deal with the first three, and that new clause 4, tabled by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), deals with the final issue.

I wish to speak to amendment 10 and new clauses 7 and 8, which are in my name, and I will start, slightly in reverse order, with amendment 10. It relates to the powers of the devolved Administrations, or as I said in Committee,

“more accurately, the ability of the UK Government to make regulations under subsection (1), which makes provisions within devolved competencies, without the consent of Scottish or Welsh Ministers or a Northern Irish devolved authority”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2020; c. 237.]—

granting consent. It strikes me as fundamental that if we are to genuinely respect the devolved settlement in the UK, Ministers must self-evidently gain the consent of the devolved Administrations before making changes to regulations that directly affect them, possibly in a negative way, or in a way that runs counter to those Governments’ policy objectives.

I am aware that in the previous Trade Bill, under consideration between 2017 and 2019, there was a problematic provision for regulation-making powers to be available to the UK Government, but the good news is that those provisions have been removed from this Trade Bill. It is the case, however, that there remains no statutory obligation for the UK Government to even consult, let alone seek the consent of, Scottish Ministers before exercising the powers in this Bill in devolved areas.

I know that the Minister has said that these powers would not normally be used without seeking consent, and his predecessor did offer a number of a non-legislative commitments to the Scottish Trade Minister Ivan McKee in March. I am genuinely pleased that the Minister, during the Bill Committee, committed to honouring those non-legislative commitments. He said:

“I restate the commitments made by my right hon. Friend, when he was a Minister, in his March letter to the Scottish Minister Ivan McKee”,

and that is genuinely very welcome. However, he went on to say, in opposing what was then amendment 8 and similar Labour new clauses that dealt with the same issues:

“In short, we are already delivering the engagement envisaged by proposed new clause, and we have achieved that while continuing to observe the important constitutional principles enshrined in the devolution settlements.”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2020; c. 240-241.]

I disagree. Giving the UK Government the ability to directly effect devolved powers without the statutory requirement to even seek consent is not observing the devolved settlement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Hosie]

Yes, and I made that point. It is wrong for these provisions to be available only to investors in the way that has just been described. If we want a supranational body that adjudicates, arbitrates and works, let us have the UK Government put some pressure on their friends in the United States and get the WTO appellate body back up and running and functioning again. That would be the best thing for trade around the world.

New clause 8 would also instruct that there should be no changes to drug pricing mechanisms, which could also happen through intellectual property and non-patent exclusivities. That would be bad news for patients, taxpayers, health boards and trusts around the country, and our view is that trade deals should not be used to facilitate it.

In opposing a new clause like this one in Committee, the Minister said that

“the NHS is not, and never will be, for sale to the private sector”.

Fine. He said:

“We have always protected our right to choose how we would deliver public services in trade agreements, and we will continue to do so.”

Fundamentally, his argument was that “however laudable” the new clause was, it was “unnecessary”. He went on to explain that the UK already had

“rigorous checks and balances on the Government’s power to negotiate and ratify”

trade agreements

“via the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010”.––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 315.]

There are two big issues that jump out, given what the Minister said—and I have it in full if he wants to re-read it. First, there is absolutely no practical reason why protections for the NHS demanded by the public should not be included in the Bill. Secondly and more importantly, because the so-called “rigorous checks and balances” in CRAG amount to little more than a take-it-or-leave-it choice at the end of the negotiations, the need to protect the NHS from the outset in legislation is paramount.

I commend amendment 10 and new clauses 7 and 8 to the House, and I hope—time permitting—that we can press new clause 7 and amendment 10 to a vote.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We now have a time limit of four minutes.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Stewart Hosie

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I am grateful to him for making that point at this stage in the debate. I am glad to say that he is something of an expert on this subject, having been steeped in it for many years. He is absolutely right; it is also very important, for the reasons he has just stated, that we keep the Barnett formula. That is the way to protect the people of Scotland not from the effects of the Conservative-led coalition but from the effects of 13 years of Labour mismanagement of the economy.

[Stewart Hosie]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who is sadly wrong, as is her hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). Barnett is of course a convergence formula and, far from protecting in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests, it squeezes. More importantly, the hon. Lady was making the case that we should not do things differently, but of course that is the nature of devolution. If the Scottish Government had proper fiscal and economic control, they could well take steps different from those taken throughout the UK to protect and grow the economy. What would be so wrong with that?

[Mrs Laing]

That is exactly why the provisions of this Bill, which give more accountability and power to the Scottish Parliament, are absolutely right. The hon. Gentleman makes a good argument in favour of the Bill.

Until a few moments ago, I was going to say that it is good to see such cross-party consensus on the Bill. Of course, we have cross-most-party consensus, but not consensus with those in the Scottish National party. We understand that however much they seem to be stepping back from their long-held belief that we ought to move towards an independent Scotland—I do not understand why they do not have the courage of their convictions and go ahead and ask the people of Scotland—they want to go on a different path from the rest of us on protecting and helping Scotland, and giving it the best chance for the future.

I want to pay tribute to Donald Dewar, who did a wonderful job in setting up the Scottish Parliament. That was not what I said in 1997 and 1998 as we debated the original Scotland Bill for hour after hour, day after day and week after week. It was strange that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said at the beginning of his speech that this Bill would not be properly scrutinised. I can assure him that those of us who spent weeks and months scrutinising the Bill that became the Scotland Act 1998 will find this nice little Bill a piece of cake in comparison. Of course it will receive proper scrutiny.

Back in 1997 and 1998, we properly scrutinised the Scotland Bill. Many of us said over and over again that the devolution settlement that was being created would not work in the long term and would have to be amended and improved. I am very pleased to see this Bill make the improvements that some of us have thought necessary for a long time.