United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I reflect from the debate so far that the leadership of the main political parties at Westminster would do themselves a favour if they studied the speech of my noble friend Lord Foulkes. I will not go over the detail, but there were sufficient warnings there from someone who has had experience of the Scottish Parliament, the House of Commons and the House of Lords that really need to be listened to.

The first four speeches, from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, were masterclasses in argument in favour of the union, going well beyond this amendment. To be honest, I must tell the Minister that this is not a modest amendment, as far as I am concerned; no way is it a modest technical adjustment of the Bill.

This Bill, as was said earlier, destroys policy divergence. It is a one-size-fits-all Bill; to that extent, it is a rejection of devolution. I well remember the examples that my noble friend Lord Foulkes gave, as will the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. Take the 1974-79 Parliament; it was always at 10 o’clock at night that we got Scottish business, on housing and education, and we were on a three-line Whip, with slender government majorities or, most of the time, no government majority. We always thought, “Why can’t Scots deal with this themselves? This is a different legal system, which most of us do not understand.” Moreover, there was never enough time for those representing Scotland, who did understand it, to debate the matters fully. Born out of that was devolution.

My experience, which I will not go into in detail, was as a Minister at the ODPM and MAFF—which had massive contacts with the devolved Administrations simply because of the devolution of food, farming and agriculture—and then at the Food Standards Agency. At the time, the Scottish Government were in effect forced to set up their own food standards agency, as they were entitled to do by the legislation. Wales and Northern Ireland may well do the same—the legislation allows them to do it—because they will be forced into the situation as a result of issues such as this Bill.

I do not quite understand this issue of complementary arrangement. I spent a bit of time while listening to everybody’s speeches going through my dictionaries, thesaurus and everything, and I still do not understand it. There seems to be no connection between the common frameworks set-up and the Bill. If that is the case, I cannot for the life of me see how there can be any complementary arrangements. The Bill overrides the other processes; there is no connection whatever to that extent. Amendment 1 puts in a connection, which is crucial.

In terms of divergence over what is required with imports, the UK Government will take no account of what happens in the common frameworks process if the Bill goes unamended. Again, it will be one size fits all. The trade department will do the trade deals and take no account whatever of any desired or agreed policy divergence between the four constituent parts of the UK.

The Prime Minister has made the position crystal clear. It does not matter how much spin he puts on it or how many weasel words come from him and his acolytes; the fact is that he said that

“devolution has been a disaster north of the border”.

That is a fundamental attack on devolution; it would not matter who was in charge north of the border. He said it was a fundamental mistake of Tony Blair, but he later tied it to the actions of the current Government in Scotland; he did not say that to start with. He was fundamentally opposed to devolution. You cannot compare the devolution of the Mayor of London with what happens in the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The union is at stake. Ministers seem to gloss over this. I think we are on our way to a federal Great Britain. I give full support to this amendment, which is fundamentally required. This is nothing personal, but I have never seen a spark of conciliation from the noble Lord, Lord True—I am sure he will take that from me as an absolute compliment—and I do not expect him to be at all conciliatory to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has said, and in due course I expect to vote for the amendment.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his fellow signatories on these amendments. Amendment 1 neatly turns this Bill on its head, so that market access principles will not apply to any decisions to diverge that are agreed through the common frameworks process. That means that common frameworks come first, and it is only when they do not provide complete cover that the provisions of this Bill need to come into effect.

The Government have maintained throughout these debates that they remain committed to common frameworks, despite their determination to avoid even mentioning them in the Bill. They have insisted that all they want to do is fill the gap left by our leaving the EU and that they have no intention of attacking devolution. The mask slipped on Monday when the Prime Minister called devolution a “disaster” and “Tony Blair’s greatest mistake”—which makes it a greater mistake than the Iraq war. The cards are now on the table.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I have received only a single request to speak after the Minister, so I am going to call the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, to ask a short question of elucidation.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

The Minister cast doubt on warnings about the impact on devolution. Has he looked at opinion polls in Wales tracking support for independence? That is a country that only 20 years ago very narrowly accepted devolution. It is a country that voted for Brexit, and one that is governed by a Labour-Lib Dem coalition—two unionist parties. You can see in that country the clear feeling about the way in which this Government are behaving.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure that is directly relevant to the subject matter of the Bill. I thought I had in fact made the point that imputation of motive and intent is a political choice that should be exercised wisely. This Government’s intention in this Bill is in no way to undermine the devolution settlement and I have restated, from this Dispatch Box, our commitment to the common frameworks. As for opinion polls, if I were a Liberal Democrat I would not live by them.