United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Sarfraz, a dynamic entrepreneur, on a very fine maiden speech, and also the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. I look forward to the noble Baroness boosting the parliamentary choir and hearing a bit more about that Welsh farm.

I rise to pursue two points. First, I want to address the operation of the internal market provisions. Secondly, I will comment on the great issue of the day and provide some much-needed support for the Government’s position.

The Bill makes a great deal of sense. We need the internal market to function smoothly. As we leave the EU single market, our own UK single market will be even more important. As an economist by training, I believe in the theory of comparative advantage, and that applies across the UK. We need to avoid protectionist measures so, for example, the Scots and English can exchange Scotch whisky and London gin without hindrance or charge. I apologise for resorting to GCSE economics, but the point is a very important one, and it is equally valid for services—80% of the economy. I declare my interests in the register.

That does not mean small variations in law need to be prevented. The Scots have different rules on minimum alcohol pricing and the Welsh were early regulators on plastic bags—both areas in which I am interested—and that has worked fine. However, devolution can only go so far, or it will harm the common interest immeasurably.

I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on producing an impact assessment, and his help with getting the promoters of the agriculture and fisheries Bills to do the same. However, it is disappointingly light on numbers. I think a better effort could have been made at economic assessment and the dynamics of growth—or lack of it, without a proper free market—and that this would have shown how vital the UK internal market measures in the Bill in fact are.

I also have a question for my noble friend. Why has the Competition and Markets Authority been chosen to gather information and monitor the new arrangements in a fancy new Office for the Internal Market? I can see the advantage in terms of recruitment and retention at the CMA. However, the CMA is much more focused on the consumer than on business success and, at a time when we face grave economic difficulties, I find this worrying. It is also a politically charged area, so does it really make sense to delegate these vital powers to a supposedly independent body? PHE and Ofqual spring to mind as not wholly satisfactory analogies.

Much has been said about Part 5 of the Bill. I agree that in principle this approach is undesirable. However, there is at least a theoretical possibility that EU action could place the UK in an impossible position as regards the coherence of its own internal market. If that came to pass, we would be presented with a very unpleasant choice. I am sorry to say this, but the real problem stems from the nature of the withdrawal agreement which the present Prime Minister inherited in an extremely unsatisfactory state from the previous Administration. As my noble friend Lord Howell hinted, the UK-EU joint committee has not stepped up to the mark in resolving the issues for whatever reason, as it would have done had everybody acted in good faith.

So having a safety-net provision in the Bill for use in extremis, and only after a special parliamentary vote, is probably the least damaging way forward. The fact is that treaty requirements sometimes conflict with each other and some member states fail to observe important treaty provisions, such as the Maastricht criteria, as my noble friend Lord Lamont reminded us so eloquently earlier today.