United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Lord Bruce of Bennachie and Viscount Trenchard

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

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am speaking in support of Amendment 75, and I recognise the constructive intentions behind Amendments 73 and 76. I want to be clear that I have not been persuaded in any way of the case for this Bill. It is wrong in almost every respect, and that is why it has been substantially amended: I think the House takes a similar view. Of course, I have supported amendments that mitigate its worst effects, but I view with growing despair the failure of the Government to grasp just how negative and dangerous is the thrust of this Bill.

The Bill is clearly driven by an ideological and deluded belief that the UK Government can negotiate trade deals more far-reaching and radical than have been achieved within the EU and that, in doing so, they do not wish to allow the existing devolution arrangements to account for any friction in the process. Of course, however, Part 5 of the Bill destroys the negotiating capacity of the Government, who have had no experience of negotiating trade deals in more than 40 years, by advertising in advance their preparedness to set aside unilaterally any agreements that they might sign. The trouble is that the Government seem completely oblivious to the friction that will result from unilaterally overriding decision-making under the devolution settlements.

It has been argued repeatedly that decisions involving the devolved Administrations should be based on seeking agreement. The principles behind the common frameworks have been met with wide support and approval, and I welcome their inclusion in Amendment 76 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. However, there is still a serious lacuna in the process for reaching agreements across the four nations, and Amendment 75 addresses this. The amendment also seeks to utilise the joint ministerial committee, which, in practice, has not been used enough, but which could be an effective means of producing a dispute-resolution process.

The problem at the moment is that the default position leaves it to UK Ministers—who, of course, are also English Ministers—to have the final say. It is not desirable for any one of the four nations to have a veto on achieving agreement. We are quite clear about that. That is why a premium should be placed on seeking agreement wherever possible. Where it is not possible, however, there needs to be a mechanism that is seen to be fair and collaborative and not one-sided. That might involve qualified majority voting, which I have advocated on a number of occasions. However, this amendment proposes not a solution but a mechanism for finding one. My noble friend Lord Purvis, in previous contributions, alluded to the Australian example where the mechanism was unanimously agreed by all the state premiers, but decisions relied on qualified majority voting.

This Bill will do immense damage to the union and to what is left of Britain’s good standing in the world, which this Government seem determined to destroy. Amending it is only damage limitation, but Amendment 75 would go a long way to help. I support it: it is a mechanism by which we can find solutions to disagreements among our four nations that do not allow for veto but do seek consent and will have the support of all the component parts of the union, apart from those who have no desire to maintain it. Many of us want this union to survive and to be effective: this kind of amendment is a way to try to ensure that.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern made some powerful arguments on this subject in Committee. As he said, the UK internal market is not a fixed law, like the law of the Medes and Persians. He made a great contribution, together with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, in bringing the common frameworks programme into being in 2017.

I believe that the nationalist-led Administrations in Scotland and Wales, by arguing that powers that have been held by the European Commission in maintaining common frameworks at a European level should not return to Westminster but should be returned to the devolved authorities, are acting against the economic interests of their stakeholders. They might want to increase the powers of the institutions of which they are members, but they do not give enough consideration to the damage to the UK internal market that their power grab threatens to cause.