Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Hain and Viscount Trenchard

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

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking in support of both these amendments, in a way I am dealing with the points I raised with the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, which she did not respond to—inadvertently, I am sure. Maybe both she and the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, could consider writing to me about this. As I described at the last sitting, it gives rise to concern that we will see an action replay of the power grab that Whitehall tried to pull on the devolved Administrations in the course of the withdrawal process. There was an attempt by Whitehall to repatriate to London those policy areas—for example, the environment and many others—that were devolved but held at a European level because of our membership of the European Union. That caused great aggravation with the devolved authorities, particularly—in the absence of Northern Ireland’s Government—with Wales and Scotland, which in the case of Scotland is festering on. An agreement was belatedly reached with Wales.

In this process, particularly when making regulations, we will potentially see these same issues arising. There is therefore a strong argument for the proposal put forward by my noble friend Lord Stevenson in Amendment 17 for the joint ministerial committee or some equivalent body to be given the overall supervising authority here. Having been a member of the JMC at various times in government, I was never very impressed with it. It was a bit of a talking shop. Since 2010, under the coalition Government and now, I hear from successive First Ministers of Wales and individual Ministers for Wales, with whom I am in direct and regular contact, that nothing has changed.

Yet the issues over Brexit are even more serious and of even more constitutional and policy importance than prior to this whole sorry horror show unfolding. The Government need to consider putting in place, preferably in this Bill and in the form specified by these amendments or some equivalent form, procedures that are recognised and have to be abided by, before we run into the same kind of problems that arose earlier in this whole Brexit saga.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, surely it is not necessary to set up a joint ministerial committee for this purpose. Insofar as the novation of FTAs affects devolved powers, the Government will in any event be bound to consult. Surely a joint ministerial committee, such as the amendment proposes, would make the process of rolling over the EU’s FTAs much more cumbersome and time-consuming, especially if the EU persists in refusing to enter into a reasonable, equitable agreement without a backstop.

On Monday, in the debate on the GPA, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, referred to this matter, and has just spoken again in similar vein. He referred to a power grab by Westminster but actually, if the powers being returned to the UK from the EU relating to devolved matters were all to go immediately to the devolved Administrations, that would represent a power grab by the devolved Administrations. Surely the powers that were devolved relating to matters that are partly or wholly EU competencies preserve the need in many areas to maintain a UK-wide market; while we have been in the EU that has meant an EU-wide market. We are shortly to recover our sovereignty over our own UK market, I trust, but that in no way obviates the need to maintain the UK-wide market in many sectors. Furthermore, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, also pointed out, the amendment requires membership of the joint ministerial committee by a representative of the Northern Ireland Executive, which suggests that they might not be operational for some time.

[Lord Hain]

May I clarify a number of points? First, the original Bill, over which there was the power-grab tussle, was actually amended by the Government in response to the Welsh and Scottish Governments’ complaints. They recognised that the original procedure, which the noble Viscount seems to want to wave through again, was the wrong procedure and that it was not right to set out on the course on which they originally set out. I hope that he will accept that point, because I was rather worried about the tone and the content of what he said.

Secondly, since the joint ministerial committee exists already, and its machinery is in place and operates already, the amendment is saying that these regulations under the umbrella of the Trade Bill would formally have to go through the JMC. It need not be a complete convening of a meeting which, I accept, is time-consuming and resource-consuming, but I recall well from my days in government that cabinet committees sometimes operated by a process of written consent and amendment between the different Whitehall departments. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and many others will remember that operating in that way. It could operate in that way for the purposes of these regulations, but there would be a statutory obligation to process these regulations in that fashion. As I understand it, that is the point that my noble friend Lord Stevenson is seeking to get cemented in.

[Viscount Trenchard]

I thank the noble Lord for correcting my ignorance about the joint ministerial committee already being in existence, although there is obviously no Northern Irish representative on it at present. On the other matter, I still do not understand why it can be sensible in the case of powers that are EU competencies today but which are also devolved. If those powers are repatriated to the UK, it is still necessary to maintain a UK-wide market because, by virtue of being members of the EU market, we have had a UK-wide market within the EU. Therefore, if the entire powers are delegated to the devolved Administrations, we effectively break up our single UK market.