Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, with the agreement of the usual channels, I have swapped places in the batting order with my noble friend Lady Andrews. I look forward with great pleasure to the maiden speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, and, in particular, my noble friend Lady O’Grady. She has done a lot for this country; the calm, decent way in which she has expressed common-sense views has raised the stature of the trade union movement in British society. That is one reason why, in the present wave of industrial unrest, the Government cannot pin the blame on the trade unions as they have so often successfully done in the past.

This must rank as one of the silliest pieces of legislation ever to come before Parliament. I was surprised to see the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in his place to defend the Bill, because the strategy it sets out is completely different from what he advocated when he presented the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill to us some time ago. I do not know quite how he justifies this change of position. This legislation is not necessary to get Brexit done. That legislation was. He put forward the withdrawal Bill and we retained in British law the legislative output of nearly 50 years of EU membership, the vast majority of which—with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley—the British Government certainly agreed to. In some cases, such as that relating to the single market, they pioneered and promoted it.

The approach now being adopted is quite different. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said that we would incorporate EU law and take a rational, sectoral approach to trying to change it in the light of what we thought the main challenges of Brexit would be. That rational approach has been abandoned. I would have hoped that this sectoral approach would continue; I am glad that the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, is conducting these studies—that is fine—but to put an atomic bomb, totally irrationally, under what is in our statute is ridiculous.

When we debated Brexit, the Government told us that we would have higher standards in a lot of areas than we had enjoyed in the EU. Michael Gove was adamant on this in terms of environment and farming, and the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, was always telling us how we would have higher standards in employment. However, the fact is that this legislation does not permit higher standards; it allows only a lowering of standards. That is why it is so objectionable.

I am out of time but could go on about this for ever. It is a disgraceful piece of legislation and I hope that this House will tear it apart.

Electric Vehicle Battery Production

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We have constant discussions with UK motor manufacturers and of course, we are always available for further discussions with companies that want to bring forward projects. The noble Baroness, as usual, is completely wrong. Already there have been substantial investments in this country. On 1 July 2021, Nissan and Envision announced a £1 billion investment to create a north-east EV hub. The site will produce a projected 100,000 battery-electric cars each year. Ford has committed a total of £380 million to make Halewood its first EV component site in Europe. Pensana received an in-principle offer of government support for its £145 million factory near Hull to make metal for magnets. So, this investment is coming. Of course, it was disappointing that the Britishvolt project was not successful, but the site remains an excellent one for this investment. Subject to discussions with the local authority and the administrators, we hope it can be taken forward.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, what does the Minister anticipate the future of Jaguar Land Rover to be if there is no battery factory to supply it in the UK?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Jaguar Land Rover has an exciting future. It is an excellent company, providing brilliant vehicles that are exported all over the world. I am sure that it wants to make sure that its supply chain is appropriately robust.

Battery Strategy (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I am no technical or scientific expert in this field, but I did read the report of this committee as soon as it came out, and I found it a very good exposition of the failure of government to work effectively with the research sector and business to develop in Britain the native industries of the future. That is one of my main political concerns.

The second paragraph of the report points out the problem we have here; it says that

“we were astonished by the stark disconnect between the optimism of Ministers and officials that the UK could retain its position in the automotive sector, and the concerns of our other witnesses that the UK is far behind its competitors and faces significant challenges”.

I wonder whether the Minister agrees with that conclusion and, if not, whether he will explain to us why he does not agree with it. This was said 17 months ago, when the report was published, but the situation has become even more desperate in that time. I did a bit of newspaper research with the help of the Library on how things are going. I note, for instance, that this year the

“UK production of cars has tumbled from 1.7 million per year to just 866,000”.

This is in what used to be one of our most successful industries.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred to the same newspaper article that I read in the Times about a week ago. I want to emphasise it again because I would like an answer from the Minister as to whether he agrees that this represents the situation:

“Recent months have been a slow-motion car crash for the nation’s pretensions to become what successive prime ministers have promised would become a ‘global hub’ of the electrified automotive industry.”


We have the examples of BMW and Johnson Matthey, and the fact that Britishvolt is near bankruptcy. Where is there any positive news, other than, incidentally, news of the Chinese-owned battery company that is getting ready to manufacture alongside Nissan in Sunderland, which I welcome and do not see any particular problem with?

When you look at what is happening in Britain by comparison with overseas, it is a worrying situation. The Faraday Institution, which noble Lords have referred to, counts 41 projects in western Europe that are under way. Only three of them are in the UK and the only one that is going well is the one that I referred to: the Chinese company operating beside Nissan. We are in a weak position. Germany has 12 gigafactories opened or planned, while Hungary, France and Italy are making strong preparations. We are losing the Mini from Oxford.

Something has to be done and I would like to know what the Government are planning to do about this crisis. Do they recognise that there is a crisis, because there is? When Greg Clark was Secretary of State, we had a certain consistency and coherence in our approach to industry for the years of Mrs May’s premiership. In the last three years, we have had five different Secretaries of State for Business: Andrea Leadsom, Alok Sharma, Kwasi Kwarteng, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Grant Shapps.

What sort of chaos have these changes produced? What grip do Ministers have on what is going on in the department? What leadership are they offering in this field to try to rescue us from impending disaster? That is the question that I want the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to answer at the end of the debate. I do not think that they have done very much, because they do not have an ideological approach that is about working closely with businesses to develop new growth opportunities and new businesses of the future.

This was not the approach that Mrs Thatcher adopted in the 1980s when she led the renaissance of the British car industry. She saw the opportunities of the single market and the opportunity to bring overseas companies into Britain to re-establish this great industry. We are in danger of losing all that now. It is not that the Government have not had some successes—I would give them high marks for the Vaccine Taskforce and how it worked—but what is the barrier to Ministers rolling up their sleeves, getting on the telephone and trying to sort out the mess that this report has detailed? If the Minister can answer that question, I will be very happy.

Energy Prices Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and its impact on global energy markets have affected families and businesses up and down this country. As we approach winter, this Government have made bold decisions so that homes are kept warm and businesses are kept open. On 8 September, the Prime Minister set out a comprehensive package to tackle rising energy prices. As part of this, she announced that we would bring forward emergency legislation, which is before noble Lords today.

I thank the Opposition and the whole House for their constructive engagement to expedite the Bill. Providing support to those who need it is a shared value across all parties, as seen in Monday’s proceedings in the other place. I also thank the DPRRC for its report on the Bill, published this morning. I welcome its constructive comments on ensuring that the powers in the Bill are appropriately drafted and justified. We will of course be responding to the committee shortly; however, it is important that we remember the context of the Bill and ensure that consumers are able to benefit from the Bill as intended and as I will set out.

The Energy Prices Bill means that consumers will pay a fairer price for their electricity and that no one is left behind. First, the Bill provides the legislative footing for the energy price guarantee, which will protect UK households from soaring energy prices. By reducing the unit cost of electricity and gas, the typical household will have the equivalent of an annual bill of £2,500. Effective from 1 October this year to the end of March next year, the energy price guarantee will provide domestic consumers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland with crucial support in the winter months.

To ensure that support is available up and down the country, an alternative fuel payment will provide a one-off £100 payment to UK households that use alternative fuels for heating. Heat network consumers will also receive a one-off £100 payment. We are exploring delivery routes for the alternative fuel payments in Northern Ireland as well.

The energy bills support scheme was announced earlier this year to provide £400 to support households. I confirm that, through this Bill, households in Northern Ireland will be able to receive equivalent support to those in Great Britain.

The Bill also provides support for non-domestic consumers, such as businesses, charities, schools and hospitals. The energy bill relief scheme will enable the Government to provide financial assistance to all eligible non-domestic organisations in Great Britain and Northern Ireland over the coming winter period. Bills will be reduced by a new government-supported price, which is less than half the wholesale prices anticipated this winter. Discounts apply from 1 October 2022, with an initial period of six months.

In three months, the Government will publish a review to consider how to continue support for non-domestic users, particularly those most vulnerable to energy price rises. The Bill provides that the scheme may be extended to those deemed eligible for up to four consecutive six-month periods. For non-domestic consumers who use heating oil or alternative fuels instead of gas, the Bill will also introduce a non-domestic alternative fuels payment. This support will likely take the form of a flat-rate payment delivered via electricity bills.

This legislation strengthens previous action by requiring, rather than expecting, landlords and other intermediaries to pass on the energy price support they receive to end-users, such as tenants, as appropriate. This applies to the energy price guarantee, to the energy bills support scheme and to the energy bill relief scheme. The Bill will also ensure that heat networks benefiting from the energy bill relief scheme pass through cost savings to their consumers. The Bill will provide for the appointment of an alternative dispute resolution body to handle complaints raised by consumers against their heat network if it has not complied with those pass-through requirements.

Finally, we must protect consumers from paying excessive amounts for this low-cost electricity, while ensuring that no firms are unduly profiting from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Wholesale electricity prices are currently set by gas-fired generation, which is the most expensive form of generation. This means that consumers are having to pay over the odds for cheap low-carbon generation. The powers in the Bill will allow us to introduce a temporary cost-plus revenue limit for low-carbon generators that are not currently covered by a contract for difference. This will allow generators to cover their costs and receive an appropriate revenue that reflects their investment commitment and risk profile. The precise mechanisms will be subject to a consultation to be launched shortly, ahead of it coming into force from the start of 2023.

I stress that this is not a windfall tax; this is a targeted intervention to deal with a specific problem that has occurred in the wholesale electricity market. It will help to break the link between abnormally high gas prices and the cost to consumers of low-carbon electricity. We are also legislating for powers that will allow us to offer a contract for difference to existing generators not currently covered by the Government’s existing contracts for difference scheme.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I raised this point about a windfall tax last week, so I thought I would be justified in intervening today. There is an argument that a windfall tax, which is predictable because the suppliers of electricity know what bills they are going to have to pay, is better in terms of promoting long-term investment in renewables, which we desperately need, than this cost-plus arrangement, which is also variable, as I understand it, by ministerial order. That provides no certainty for potential investment.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am not sure the noble Lord is correct. The reason we have selected this mechanism is that it is a complicated picture; of course, many suppliers would no doubt argue that they have sold ahead their production to energy retailers, et cetera, and therefore the precise circumstances of every individual supplier will determine the arrangements that will be appropriate for them. It is not a windfall tax because a windfall tax would be levied on profits and would go to the Exchequer. This money clearly does not go near the Exchequer; it will go directly to consumers in the form of lower bills.

I mentioned that we will also introduce a contract for difference to existing generators that are not currently covered by the Government’s existing contracts for difference scheme. We hope that many of these suppliers will move voluntarily to contracts for difference payments, which will provide them with secure long-term revenue, and therefore there will be no need to impose this cost-plus mechanism.

The voluntary contract would grant existing generators longer-term revenue certainty and safeguard consumers from future price rises. This Bill is part of the swift, decisive action we are taking to deliver affordable and secure energy in the UK. There are no cost-free actions, but I think the whole House agrees that it would be wrong to do nothing. This Government will always act decisively to support households and help businesses grow. The consequences of not acting now would mean worse economic outcomes going forward; this Bill will provide certainty, reduce inflation and support economic growth. I would welcome the support of noble Lords in ensuring the Bill becomes law and therefore commend it to the House.

Economy: The Growth Plan 2022

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know that there has never been a tax that the noble Lord does not want to increase even further, but it is already a very high level of tax. I think I saw a figure of £170 billion mentioned by the Opposition. That is worldwide profits. The UK cannot tax profits made in other jurisdictions; we can tax those that are made in our country, that we have control of. I remind the noble Lord that we also want those companies to invest in renewables, as they are doing. There are many renewable projects—offshore wind projects, hydroelectric projects, et cetera—in which we need additional investment. So the calculation made by the Treasury, which I have never seen to be shy of raising taxes in the past when it could, is that, on the one hand, of course we want to secure a fair return for taxpayers, but we also want to make sure that the profits are there to enable the massive sums that we need to invest if we want to move to a green transition in future.

On the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, of a briefing on energy markets for interested Peers, I say to the noble Lord that, as he knows, this is a complicated subject. Exactly who is making the excess profits under which particular regime is a complicated issue. He will be pleased to hear that we will shortly be debating the legislation to implement the support policies I have mentioned, and I am sure that these matters will be raised further in the debate during the passage of that legislation. I look forward to discussing it further with him then.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made the point that we need to get onshore wind moving—a matter I know is dear to the heart of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and she will no doubt agree. The British Energy Security Strategy recognises the range of views on onshore wind across the country and, as I said before, we will be consulting on developing partnerships with a number of supportive communities that wish to host new onshore wind infrastructure, perhaps in return for guaranteed lower energy bills. The growth plan went further, with specific changes to accelerate delivery of infrastructure, including bringing onshore wind planning policy in line with other infrastructure policies to allow it to be deployed more easily in England. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has asked many times about that; I am sure she will be pleased to hear that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, meanwhile noted the need for green innovative growth. We have indeed established a Green Jobs Delivery Group, headed by Ministers and business leaders, to act as a central forum for driving forward action on green jobs and skills. Our plans for net zero and energy security are driving an unprecedented £100 billion-worth of private sector investment by 2030 into new British industries, supporting about 480,000 green jobs by the end of the decade. To return to my earlier point, many of the companies investing in the UK are those that the Opposition wish to tax to death.

The noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria, Lord Eatwell and Lord Fox, alongside my noble friends Lord Lamont, Lord Lilley and Lord Bridges of Headley, all commented on the Government’s plans regarding taxes. The plain truth is that the Prime Minister promised that this would be a tax-cutting Government and we are keeping that promise.

A number of noble Lords also raised the overall approach of the growth plan.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

As I understand it, the Government are at present in negotiation with renewable energy suppliers, including companies running onshore and offshore wind farms, to persuade them voluntarily to accept a lower price than they are presently getting. This is effectively restricting their profits without any benefit to the Government in terms of tax.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

This goes back to the point I made to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, earlier: we will indeed be debating these matters further when the legislation arrives. It is a complicated subject. There are two types of renewables certificate. The earlier renewables obligations were given before 2015, and it can be said that some of those operators are indeed making considerable profits. They are perhaps the ones that the noble Lord is talking about. Then there are those that have been on the contracts for difference scheme since 2015, which are now, I am pleased to say, paying back into the system, such is the success of the CfD regime. But, as I said, we will be debating that when the legislation comes to this House.

Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I believe there were some documents that were published in error, but they have been withdrawn. Fundamentally, we do not believe in telling people what to eat or how to live their lives. Our focus is on helping people, incentivising them to make green choices, and to make those choices easier and cheaper. As we transition to net zero, we will be tech- led using British technology and innovation, just as we did in the last innovation revolution. I appreciate that the Greens want to lecture people and instruct them; I believe that carrots are much better than sticks.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this Statement. I have not had the opportunity, as yet, to read all the documents. I fear the criticism that I made in the debate on levelling up on Thursday is relevant. There is a clarity of destination about the Government’s policies, but no viable plan to get there. The thing that stuck in my mind is that when we are looking at the necessary move away from gas central heating, the incentives being offered for heat pumps—the £450 million over three years—is clearly inadequate, in comparison with the huge scale of the challenge.

I have always understood the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to be a Conservative who believes in the use of market mechanisms—they are what Conservatives normally support. Can he tell me the Government’s estimate of the rise in gas prices that would be necessary to persuade the public, under market mechanisms, to install heat pumps?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord will be pleased to know that I do believe in market mechanisms. His question is impossible to answer, and let me explain why. Heat pumps are three to four times more thermodynamically efficient than existing gas boilers. At the moment, because of the costs of various policies on the production of electricity to successfully decarbonised the electricity sector, there is an imbalance in pricing. The Treasury and the Government have accepted that we need to do something about rebalancing gas and electricity prices. Now is clearly not the time to do this, when we are experiencing record gas prices. In the longer term, and bearing in mind that this is a 15-year strategy, we need to change the balance of these costs. We are committed to do so. There are other market mechanisms of which I could speak in favour. We will consult on a market mechanism for gas boiler manufacturers to have a certain proportion of their sales be in heat pumps. I repeat what I have said before: the boiler upgrade scheme is not the only support mechanism we offer for installing heat pumps.

Future UK-EU Relationship on Professional and Business Services (EU Committee Report)

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and her committee on the quality of this report. It is about a crucial sector of the British economy that has been sorely neglected in the EU negotiations. I find it extraordinary, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, will try to explain why it is so, that so much attention was paid to the British fishing industry, where the gain in catch as a result of Brexit is something like £25 million a year, when the needs of the business services sector, worth £224 billion to our economy, were so neglected in negotiations. Did the Government simply get their priorities wrong?

When we are looking to the future, as I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is right to suggest we have to, on some issues we may be able to make progress. We might be able to make progress on short-term mobility, which is particularly important for the creative sector, our musicians and all the rest; but we will have to recognise that such progress will require reciprocal action on our part. If we take an ideological approach, as I believe the Government do, to ending freedom of movement, they will find an agreement on this difficult to negotiate. If we set aside the ideology, we might get somewhere on mobility.

On mutual recognition of qualifications, it is going to be a very hard grind. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, says, we have to demonstrate that we have something to offer. We have a trade surplus with the EU on services. It has always been difficult within the EU to get progress on services liberalisation and, to the extent that there has been progress, it is because we were in a single market where the Commission drove member states to open up with the backing of the ECJ. We have lost that by not being in the single market, and it is a very big loss for us indeed. In future years, if the gains of Brexit are as minimal as they appear at the moment, we will have to reconsider this question of single-market membership.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

We seem not to be getting the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, so perhaps we should move on and come back if we can.

Free Trade Agreement Negotiations: Australia

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to answer my first question from my friend and noble friend Lord Udny-Lister from this Dispatch Box. He is right: we are making extraordinary progress on negotiating these free trade agreements, and the free trade agreements we hope to strike not just with the Trans-Pacific Partnership but with the GCC, Canada, Mexico, India and a number of other countries around the world are designed entirely to benefit the British consumer. I welcome his support for that.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, now that we are out of the EU, I welcome trade deals we do with the rest of the world, though I have concerns about the agricultural dimension of this. I have great respect for the Minister as a highly intelligent and objective man. If he reads the Statement delivered in the other place, does he not agree that it is hyperbolic and propagandist? It is hyperbolic in the sense that it talks about “huge benefits”. Most economists estimate the benefit to UK GDP of this agreement to be about 0.2%. It is propagandist in that it talks about how we are no longer

“hiding behind the same protectionist walls that we had in the EU”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/21; col. 453.]

He must recognise that in the new Pacific world to which we attach so much importance, Germany—a member of the EU allegedly held back by those “protectionist walls”—is able to export two or three times as much as we do at present.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord for his kind comments. It is the case that politics sometimes enter into these matters in the other House. Maybe that is not a surprise, given the importance of these agreements. I hope the noble Lord agrees that when I comment on these matters in this House or in front of our very well-run IAC, I try to give my answers in a measured and constructive way.

National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will associate myself with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Empey, Lord Bradshaw, and my noble friend Lord Hendy, who have all emphasised the need to stop abuse of the national minimum wage and to have better enforcement. However, I welcome the fact that the Government have decided to accept the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission. This is a tribute to the success of the arrangements that Labour put in place when the national minimum wage was introduced. The commission is an example of tripartism and independence, and that is something that we would cast aside at our peril.

When the minimum wage was introduced over 20 years ago, the Government then recognised that it was not in itself a solution to the problem of poverty. What it did was to try to provide a safeguard against exploitation by unscrupulous employers. The approach of the Labour Government in the early 2000s was that, in order to tackle poverty, one had to have effective social support on top of the statutory minimum, essentially through very generous tax credits. We have seen how in the past decade the problem of in-work poverty has grown. One of the reasons for that is the cuts that have been made in tax credits because you will never eliminate family poverty simply by pushing up the minimum wage.

On approaches to reform, I read a very interesting paper by the Learning and Work Institute on The Future of the Minimum Wage, financed by the Carnegie UK Trust, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and his civil servant colleagues will look at it. It recommends moving to a sectoral approach to tackle where low pay is a very serious problem—sectors such as social care, hospitality and retail. There cannot be collective bargaining in these sectors at the moment, despite what my noble friend Lord Hendy says, because the trade unions have been abysmally unsuccessful in recruiting low-paid workers, particularly in the private sector. Therefore, there needs to be some statutory intervention—some public intervention—if those workers are to have dignity and respect.

I am glad that the Government do not intend to abandon the objective of raising the living wage to two-thirds of the median. However, on top of that, we need a mix of something like the old wage councils and training boards, sector by sector, to try to raise pay in those sectors by raising skills. Fundamentally, it is through improving the productivity of the workforce and its skills that employers will be able to afford to pay higher wages.

It may be that we have to give incentives to employers through national insurance and other means to get them to upgrade and upskill their workforce. This is a sensible approach, which the Government should examine. I understand the horror of what we have been through and how dreadful it is, particularly the lack of respect that low pay brings—I very much agree with my noble friend Lady Clark on that. However, we need new, innovative ways of tackling the problem.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I share the feeling of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, that the Government have come a long way on this Bill, and I thank my noble friend the Minister for that. Noble Lords will recall that I had reservations about locating the Office for the Internal Market within the Competition and Markets Authority. I believe that it is the wrong place with the wrong culture, a point just echoed by noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. There is a practice of aggressive enforcement that is hardly suitable to some of the sensitive issues that it will be asked to investigate. I am concerned in particular that small businesses in those sectors that are not lucky enough to be excluded will be fearful and suffer relative to the way they are being treated at present in the EU single market. A formal discrimination is now being introduced between services that are in and those which are not included within Schedule 2. I therefore very much welcome the review being proposed in the government amendment. It is an idea that featured in an earlier amendment to which I added my name.

However, I have a question on the wording. Could that review look not only at the track record of the OIM panel and its task groups, which are mentioned in Clause 30, and its constitution as set out in Schedule 3, but also at the location of the OIM itself and whether it should be within the CMA or somewhere else? I ask this obviously without commitment, but it would certainly be helpful to know that the review would be suitably wide-ranging.

I rise also to express doubts about Motions L1 and L2. Many of us have been clear in the endless debates on this Bill that we should avoid a situation where a particular nation can veto important new measures that are in the national interest. The Government have, of course, wisely conceded that the devolved Administrations should be included as a statutory consultee and, of course, the views of all the four nations will be properly taken into account in that process. But I agree with my noble friend the Minister that we should not accept Amendment 50C. It risks a delay of up to three years in implementing a UK subsidy control regime because of the need for agreement with the devolved Administrations. The existing arrangements for spending decisions on subsidies under the devolved settlements will continue, so I strongly support the Government on this matter.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I make a brief intervention in the hope that the Government will listen to the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the particularly wise words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. We are at a delicate moment in our constitutional history. The future of the United Kingdom, with Brexit, is now in doubt. This will be the great issue of the next two years: can we keep the United Kingdom together? In that context, these are detailed matters, but the UK Government should go out of their way to ensure that those who want to break up the United Kingdom are not given just cause. I think that elements of the Bill and the Government’s position on it will be used in this way.

First, in the argumentation, I recognise that the Government have tried to strengthen consultation with the devolved Administrations in the amendments that they have put forward. So well done to the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, on that—we are to be thankful for that. But the line that state aid is a reserved UK matter and the devolved Administrations have never had any power over it will not go down well in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Wales and Scotland have had their development agencies. To tell the Welsh and Scottish people that these bodies have had no rights or independence to make decisions that promote economic development in their nations is very odd. To them, it looks as though the Government are taking away powers that they presently have. That is how it looks. The noble Lord shakes his head but, honestly, it is how it looks. Therefore, I think the Government should be bending over backwards to carry the nations of our United Kingdom with them.

I cannot understand the reasoning behind rejecting the proposal that has come from both Cardiff and Edinburgh to see if we can sort out, by consensus, a regime of state aid through a common framework. I do not understand how the Government can arrogantly say that this is something that we must control ourselves. It seems that the consensus for the future of the United Kingdom is much the best way forward.

The same applies to the argument about appointments to the body that is going to administer the new regime. The devolved nations should be treated as equals in this process. They should be able to nominate their own people to this body, not just be consulted. That is on the principle of equality between the nations and not appropriating to the UK Government, who, in my part of England, northern England, are seen as a London Government. That is how people look at it; it is not seen as a United Kingdom Government. I am sure that in Edinburgh and Cardiff it is not seen as a UK Government, particularly because of the Prime Minister we have. We have to bend over backwards to bring the nation together. Here is an opportunity, and I am very sorry that the Government appear to be wasting it.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

Does any other noble Lord in the Chamber wish to speak? No noble Lord does, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Fox.