United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and so many other noble Lords. I support the thrust of this group of amendments, particularly those in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, who explained her reasoning with such clarity. I also support the aims of the wholly reasonable amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. I particularly support Amendments 116, 117, 121, 128 and 129, echoing the calls for specific representation of all the devolved Administrations in the operations of the office for the internal market. I also support the aims of amendments like Amendment 118, which call for the devolved Administrations to be properly involved in both the OIM and the CMA.

I hope that, when responding to this group, my noble friend the Minister can accept the intention of these amendments and return on Report with proposals to help dispel the impression that the establishment, as currently proposed, of this office for the internal market represents a power grab by the English Parliament, which shows wholly insufficient respect for, and inclusivity of, the Parliaments of each devolved nation in the United Kingdom. As the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Hain, my noble friend Lord Cormack, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, rightly say, surely, representation of each devolved Administration is the minimum that is required to reassure each nation that its own particular interests will be taken into account by a representative with local understanding.

I also agree with other noble Lords that the CMA seems an inappropriate home for this new office for the internal market. Of course, I understand and support the aim expressed by my noble friend the Minister in earlier groups to avoid establishing more arm’s-length bodies if there is a viable alternative to use. However, the CMA does not seem to be a viable alternative for this purpose: it is an organisation sponsored by two government departments, BEIS and the Treasury, and it aims to promote competition for the benefit of consumers, which is primarily concerned with large businesses, competition issues, mergers and oligopolistic power. It does not have experience in monitoring an internal market across all four of our nations, particularly with the interests of so many small firms in each sector being at stake. Therefore, I believe that the office for the internal market does not really belong in the CMA, and, whether or not it is there, it absolutely must have representation from all four nations of our United Kingdom.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and other noble Lords in this very robust but genuine and philosophical debate about the role of the CMA and the office for the internal market. The general thrust of the debate has been that there needs to be a degree of independence in this body but also that it should embrace the devolved legislatures as well as that within Westminster and Whitehall. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, to protect identities and recognise and acknowledge democracies that Westminster and Whitehall put in place with the devolved settlements, it is important that they are recognised. The best way to do that is through membership on an equal basis on the CMA and office for the internal market panels.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Hain, I was intending to address Amendment 131, which is now in the next group, because I agree totally with its sentiments, as well as Amendments 117, 118 and 119 in this group. It is interesting that, in its recent report, the Lords Constitution Committee states:

“The Government should explain why the Competition and Markets Authority is the right body to have oversight of the monitoring of the UK internal market”.


Perhaps the noble Lord will provide reasoning for that —I hope he does—because none of the noble Lords who have spoken this evening, apart from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, have seen any merit in this organisation doing the job that will be required if this legislation is implemented.

The Lords Constitution Committee also states:

“The Government should seek to make the Office of the Internal Market more clearly accountable to the different legislatures in the UK.”


If you want their buy-in—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has said, there is no buy-in in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland—it is going to be an uphill struggle for the Government to achieve that.

In looking at various aspects of this over the last few days, there is no doubt that members should be appointed by all four Executives on an equal rather than proportionate basis, with substantial stakeholder input from the business sector. It should have a dispute resolution capability and sufficient powers of enforcement. Its remit should include measuring additional costs of GB goods to Northern Ireland and the source of the extra cost. Coincidentally, this issue has already been referred to in this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and an information session was given by the Government to Northern Ireland businesses today, which said that there will be 30 million customs declarations on an annual basis between GB and Northern Ireland. That is the extent of the issue and the extent, for some of us, of the problem and the work required.

There is no doubt that the resources and information necessary to monitor the impact of the UK internal market as it relates to the implementation of the protocol could be covered in Amendment 131, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. I also highlight the capacity to be informed by relevant stakeholders and business and consumer groups. There is a view in the wider business and academic worlds that the Competition and Markets Authority is not a natural fit, as it deals with private, not government, business. The proximity of the CMA to BEIS would always leave it open to accusations of political influence, even though it is a non-ministerial department with strategic influence given by BEIS.

In summary, it is important that that overarching authority should be—here I go further than other noble Lords, perhaps—independent of all political and governmental influence. However, there is no doubt that the work, influence and devolution settlements need to be recognised and, as such, representatives from the devolved structures need to be on the overarching body for it to work and bring some sense to this organisation. I am happy to support Amendments 117, 118 and 119.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, this is a characteristically interesting and deep group, and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. Having listened to and thought through all the contributions, I start by asking the Minister a question. Did the CMA respond to the Government’s consultation on their White Paper? If so, will the Government publish that response? Over the years, the CMA, as an independent body, has responded to many consultations on government proposals. What was its response to this? We know, as the Minister has indicated in answers to previous groups, that the Bill was, to put it most kindly, drafted within a constrained period; others may say that it was rushed. It seems there are concerns that the Government have found the CMA to be the appropriate body for a function to identify problems which the Government themselves have not indicated exist yet. It is all to do with future problems.

I will start by reflecting on the very good point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who is frequently wrong in these debates. Her points are excellent, but when she shows the working of her arguments, we often come to a different conclusion. I have struggled to find a recent example of a UK body, operating on UK reserved matters, which has a direct role on devolved Administrations and Parliaments for areas within their competencies. Maybe the Minister can indicate where that has been the case. If that is not common practice, then we are in new territory. The closest that I can think of would be the operation of certain UK regulators that, by virtue of the decisions they can make within the reserved functions, could have an impact on devolved ones. We addressed that in the Scotland Act 2016, under which there are, for example, new requirements, which did not exist previously, for Ofgem and Ofcom to lay their reports to the Scottish Parliament. Interestingly, both Ofgem and Ofcom have a statutory duty under that Act to appear before a Scottish Parliament committee. This is part of an advance recognition that the decisions that they can make in regulating a UK market will have an impact.

In response to the noble Baroness, the role that the Government seek for the CMA is now markedly different, because the CMA is not just a UK body operating under explicitly UK issues of competition and regulatory functions. It will now report on non-UK-wide policy proposals made by the UK Parliament for England only, for Wales only or for Scotland only. That is a very different way for that body to operate; it was not the policy intent when it was formed in 2013. It is worth considering in detail, because it is a deviation from the policy intent in its parent legislation.

The CMA is also, fundamentally, about private enterprises in the market and the protection of consumer interests, but it will now have new responsibilities to report directly on decisions made by one Parliament, within its legislative competencies, which do not have private enterprise relationships or consumer interests at their heart. This goes back to the debate about what legitimate aims are. We are moving from a single market which had a wider scope of legitimate aims—environmental policies for example—to a more restrictive one. However, the decisions that will be made for England, Wales or Scotland alone will be within their existing devolved competencies or, indeed, their new ones. It goes far beyond what we have at the moment.