Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Bryan of Partick Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bryan of Partick]

16: Clause 3, page 2, line 28, leave out paragraphs (b) to (d)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment and others are consequential to another in the name of Baroness Bryan of Partick to Clause 17, removing Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from the territorial application of the Bill.

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lord Hain, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who, by adding their names, demonstrate the breadth of opposition to the inclusion of the devolved Administrations in the Bill. As noble Lords can see, Amendment 16—and the consequential amendments that I will not bother to list now—would remove Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from the territorial application of the Bill.

We are just 25 days away from the 25th anniversary of the first meetings of the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Those institutions have been around long enough for Ministers to be aware that they are not simply large local authorities. The official advice for civil servants and policymakers on taking account of devolution, as updated in 2020, reads:

“Devolution has fundamentally changed the constitutional arrangements of the UK. Officials need to be aware of how devolution affects the policies they work on or the public services they manage”.


The Government might have been well-advised to consider those guidelines when drafting this Bill.

Intergovernmental relations sometimes feel like one step forward and two steps back. There was the Dunlop review, whose whereabouts were raised in this House numerous occasions before it was discovered in the levelling-up department, where it was somewhat reinterpreted. More recently, there have been a number of important pieces of legislation where the Sewel convention has been ignored. Rather than using the Sewel process as a way of arriving at a shared approach, it has now become common practice to ignore it and take action without legislative consent.

The Interparliamentary Forum report published in January noted that there were

“ongoing challenges of intergovernmental relations including operation of the UK Internal Market Act, and the scrutiny of intergovernmental working”,

and

“substantial challenges in reaching agreement between the governments of the UK”.

Some academics have put this down to the Government having a unitary mindset, even after 25 years of devolution, and not accepting that there has been a fundamental change in the constitution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am not quite sure what will happen about Xinjiang; that is a foreign affairs question. Obviously, although it is not referred to in the Bill, we have made it clear that we will use the Bill, where appropriate, to exempt areas. We have already said we will use the powers in relation to Russia and Belarus. I am going to talk to the Welsh Government, and I am sure this is a question that will come up. As I said, I hope to meet them in the coming weeks to discuss further how we can gain support for the Bill and what would be the right approach.

In Northern Ireland we have been formally seeking consent from the Northern Ireland Assembly since the restoration of power sharing and will continue to do so. The noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, asked for reassurances that we have engaged with the Northern Ireland Executive. Officials have discussed the Bill’s provisions with officials in Northern Ireland and have been actively pursuing engagement with the Northern Ireland Executive now that power sharing has been restored. I hope to be able to meet Ministers in the Executive to seek their consent for the Bill soon.

In response to the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, about what would happen if a public authority does not pay a penalty, we would advise public authorities to reconsider before refusing to pay a fine as the enforcement process, which I think we will come on to discuss on subsequent days, makes it clear that it could end up being enforced by the respective court system of the devolved area. The enforcement authority can apply to the court for the enforcement of an information notice. A failure to pay a fine is a civil debt, to answer the point that was made in an earlier group by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, under Clause 10(3). This will be through the courts in the relevant devolved jurisdiction, so if a Scottish council was subject to an information notice or issued with a fine, that would be enforced by the Scottish courts.

I am conscious it is late. We have had a lively conversation on this subject. I hope that for the reasons I have set out the noble Baroness will be willing to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her response and everybody who has participated in this discussion. The Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, believe that there should be one voice in all international policy, but procurement is a devolved issue and, as we have heard, Clauses 1 to 4 require legislative consent. The worry is they require it, so they can ignore it, but I hope not.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, put his finger on the issue of subsidiarity versus centralisation. Are we going to have one centralised procurement body for the whole of the UK that will choose which procurement is in line with the Government of the day’s international policy? I do not think anybody wants to go down that route. There is strong concern about the backpedalling, as it was described, and the resentment that this will cause. Remember that 50%-plus of voters support independence in Scotland. They might not be ready to vote for it at this time, but give them a push further along, and we might find that that happens. More Welsh voters are coming to support independence, and Northern Ireland is being held together by constant vigilance. I hope that the concerns raised here are taken seriously and that the Government engage properly with the devolved Administrations, discuss their trade plans with them and do not treat them as a minor inconvenience that gets in the way of the big issues of government. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 16 withdrawn.