Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Paul Scully

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend has been consistent in his campaigning in this area, and what I can say is that we will be ensuring that the Post Office provides fair, consistent and speedy compensation within the structures, as will be outlined over the next few weeks and months.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. We will have a three-minute suspension to prepare for the next business.

National Security and Investment Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Paul Scully

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to consider:

Lords amendments 2 to 10.

Lords amendment 11, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 12 to 14.

Lords amendment 15, and Government motion to disagree.

[Paul Scully]

I am delighted that the Bill has returned to this House from the other place and I am delighted to be able to speak to it briefly today following the excellent handover from the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who is successfully jabbing the nation as we speak. As we are at a late hour, I will not take up too much of the House’s time. I will just quickly summarise some of the changes to the Bill.

Lords amendments 1 to 10 and 12 to 14 were all tabled by my colleague in the other place, Lord Callanan. Lords amendments 1, 5, 8, 9 and 10 are what the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel would call minor and technical. Lords amendments 12, 13 and 14 pertain to the annual report as provided for by clause 61, and they reflect the decision to include additional reporting requirements that will provide further value for parliamentarians, businesses and investors. Lords amendments 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 were made to the Bill in the spirit of a shared recognition that the requirements of the mandatory notification regime must be no more than necessary and proportionate for the protection of our national security, and that businesses and investments are not unduly burdened or stifled.

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), who said on Report that we need

“robust powers to guard our national security and…change that backs our best small businesses and our capacity for innovation. Both of these goals are possible; indeed, they are mutually reinforcing.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 1000.]

That is why we have reflected carefully during the passage of the Bill on the 15% starting threshold for the mandatory regime. Lords amendment 2 removes acquisitions between 15% and 25% from constituting notifiable acquisitions under the mandatory regime. The House will recall, though, that the Bill provides the power for the Secretary of State to call in acquisitions of control across the economy. That power remains in place. Provisions in the Bill also ensure that the Secretary of State can amend the scope of the mandatory regime through secondary legislation, which could include the introduction of a 15% threshold if deemed appropriate, although we do not currently anticipate doing so.

I will turn to Amendments 11 and 15—

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Paul Scully

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

I beg to move,

That this House disagrees with the Lords in their amendments 1B, 1C and 1D.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

That this House agrees with the Lords in their amendments 8B, 8C, 8D, 8F, 8G, 8H, 8J and 8K, but disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 8L, insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendments 13 and 56, and proposes amendment (a) to the Bill in lieu of Lords amendments 8L, 13 and 56.

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendments 14 and 52 to 54 but does not insist on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 55.

That this House does not insist on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 44.

That this House does not insist on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 45, and proposes amendment (a) instead of the words left out by the Lords amendment.

That this House does not insist on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 47, and proposes amendment (a) to the Bill consequential upon the Lords amendment.

That this House disagrees with the Lords in their amendments 48B and 48C.

That this House agrees with the Lords in their amendment 50B, but disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 50C.

That this House agrees with the Lords in their amendment 51B.

[Paul Scully]

I will try to be brief in going through the amendments—but with some detail, Madam Deputy Speaker—to make sure that others can speak.

I am glad that, since our last debate on the Bill on Monday, there have been a number of very positive developments. I am delighted that the peers in the other place and the Government have worked together constructively to agree on a number of areas. However, it is clear that there are still a number of outstanding issues, which I will address today. I will set out the Government’s rationale and I call on this House to support the Government’s proposals.

I want to start with some of the positive developments, notably on part 5 and Lords reasons 14B, 45B, 52A, 53A, 54A and 55A. The Government have been clear throughout that they were committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. We were also clear that as a responsible Government we could not allow the economic integrity of the UK’s internal market to inadvertently be compromised by the unintended consequences of the protocol. That is why, through clauses in the Bill, we sought limited and reasonable steps to create a legal safety net by taking powers in reserve, whereby Ministers could guarantee the integrity of the United Kingdom and ensure that the Government were always able to deliver on their commitments to the people of Northern Ireland.

We sought those measures to guard against the possibility of not reaching agreement with the EU at the Joint Committee. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and his EU counterpart have reached an agreement in principle, I am pleased to say that the clauses that provided for the safety net are no longer needed and the Government are removing them from the Bill: that is, clauses 44, 45 and 47.

I am pleased that the other place has now also agreed to clauses 42, 43 and 46 and consequential amendments, which are purely about protecting Northern Ireland’s place in the UK customs territory and internal market, delivering unfettered access in line with the Northern Ireland protocol and codifying in legislation existing practice in terms of the Foreign Secretary notifying the European Commission on state aid.

Alongside that, and in line with the agreement in principle, we have tabled a new clause that will require the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to set out guidance for public authorities on how the state aid provisions of the protocol will work in practice, as well as consequential amendments as a result of removing clauses 44, 45 and 47. Guidance must take account of any declarations made by the EU and the Joint Committee, which would include the proposed EU declaration that forms part of the package agreed in principle by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I call on the House to agree with the Government’s approach in this area.

I turn now to amendments 1B, 1C and 1D. Yesterday, noble Lords in the other place once again commended the importance of the Government’s continuing co-operation with the devolved Administrations on the common frameworks programme and reiterated their support for it. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the noble and learned Lord Hope for his considered intervention yesterday, and for all his thoughtful work on the Bill. However, while his new amendments would clarify the interaction between divergence agreed under common frameworks in the market access principles, they would still potentially undermine the certainty that the market access principles are designed to provide for business, because of the possibility of differing interpretations of what is permitted under an agreement. Moreover, as I set out on Monday, the amendments could create a broad exclusions regime. In itself, that denies businesses and consumers much needed clarity about the terms of trade within which they operate.

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind the House that common frameworks are processes for negotiation and reaching agreement, and are not in themselves a policy outcome. Wholesale exclusions from the market access principles of agreement reached through the common frameworks process could therefore lead to the unacceptable risk of harmful trade barriers being erected across the UK. Such barriers could not be erected under the EU system unless justified and notified to the Commission, and they are undesirable in our own UK internal market. For those reasons, I respectfully suggest that the approach put forward in the amendments is not appropriate.

I have said previously that the Government are committed to completing the delivery of the common frameworks programme and protecting these areas of co-operation to the benefit of jobs, people and livelihoods. We welcome the support of hon. and right hon. Members here in achieving that. However, amendments 1B, 1C and 1D have considerable drawbacks and I therefore call on the House to disagree with them.

Let me turn to Lords amendment 8L. I remind the House that, in drafting the Bill, and clause 10 specifically, the Government designed an exclusions approach that achieves a careful balance. It sits within the fundamental framework of the market access principles, which protect the UK’s highly integrated internal market, but allows the Government to remove very targeted and specific policy areas from scope, so it can continue to operate for the particular conditions, where they are needed, under the bespoke constraints that are relevant to those circumstances. Let me repeat the point for emphasis: we agree that there is a need for an exclusions regime, but one that is carefully drafted and provides certainty for business.

I am therefore disappointed that the other place has again voted to upset that careful balance with an altered, but still fundamentally flawed, expansive list. It would render the protections and benefits of the internal market proposals under part 1 meaningless. This would allow unnecessary trade barriers and unjustifiable costs to businesses and consumers.

Amendment 8L captures all kinds of public policy objectives and only requires a new regulation to make a contribution to any of the aims in the list. That means that almost any regulation that the UK Government or the devolved Administrations propose in the future could be excluded from the scope of the market access principles. I therefore call on the House to disagree with amendments 8L, 13 and 56, and agree with the Government’s amendments in lieu.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Paul Scully

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendments 2 to 7.

Lords amendments 8 to 19, and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendment 20 to 29.

Lords amendments 30 to 34, and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendments 35 to 41.

Lords amendment 42, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 43, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) to the words so restored to the Bill.

Lords amendments 44 to 57, and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendments 58 to 60.

Lords amendment 61, and Government motion to disagree.

[Paul Scully]

This Bill has generated a lot of debate in both Houses, and rightly so. It is a Bill that is vital in providing certainty for businesses and for protecting the Union. It is a Bill that allows the continuing smooth functioning of our UK internal market at the end of the transition period. Our approach will give businesses regulatory clarity and certainty and ensure that the cost of doing business in the UK stays as low as possible, and it will do so without damaging and costly regulatory barriers emerging between the nations of the United Kingdom.

In the other place, the Government and peers had good discussions and debates on the principle behind the Bill, and they have come to very reasonable proposals in some areas. It is right that both Houses work constructively to scrutinise and improve legislation, and the Government are therefore accepting a number of Lords amendments. That is why the Government are disappointed that in some cases amendments put forward by the other place would do the opposite and generate more ambiguity and uncertainty. Other amendments put forward go further, in hampering the Government’s ability to protect the Union and our internal market, to level up the country and to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the end of the transition period. That is why today the Government are disagreeing with a series of amendments, to which I will now turn.

Regarding Lords amendments 1, 19 and 34, the other place and Her Majesty’s Opposition in this House have been clear about their strong support for common frameworks. I am pleased to hear that, because the UK Government are strongly committed to them as well. Joint work with the devolved Administrations to develop common frameworks is progressing well, and the first three frameworks are currently undergoing parliamentary scrutiny. The common frameworks programme represents successful joint working, ensuring that our shared objectives of making coherent policy, upholding high standards and supporting the distinct needs of each part of the UK can advance as one. They are evidence of our mutual respect for devolution.

I am pleased that work is well under way on the 33 frameworks that we expect to conclude jointly with the devolved Administrations. Thirty of those will be provisionally agreed by the end of 2020 and will then be scrutinised by Parliament and the devolved legislatures. A small number are likely to clear scrutiny by the end of the transition period, at which point they will become full frameworks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

I have not heard those words, so I will not comment on them. There has been a lot of commentary, but what is important is the reality. Northern Irish businesses want the certainty offered by this Bill and the unfettered access to the GB market.

I emphasise that the Government has been reasonable, and will continue to be reasonable, in discussions on this Bill. We have made many positive changes to the Bill and they are on the table, but the Government need to balance this with the need to deliver a Bill that provides the certainty that businesses want and need to invest and create jobs, to maintain high standards and choice for consumers while keeping prices down, to ensure that the Government can continue to continue to level up the whole of the United Kingdom and strengthen our precious Union, and, ultimately, to preserve the UK internal market that has been an engine of growth and prosperity for centuries.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Colleagues will see that there are a large number of right hon. and hon. Members who want to contribute to this debate. If we have any chance of getting them in, I will have to start with an immediate five-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, but that may well have to go down.