Sewel Convention

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of occasions that legislative consent has been rejected by the devolved legislatures since December 2019; whether they still intend to abide by the Sewel Convention; and if so, what steps they are taking to ensure that consent is secured to legislation in future.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

The UK Government have legislated without consent on 11 occasions since December 2019, most of which relate to our exit from the European Union. These were not decisions that we took lightly, but we considered them necessary to implement the referendum result in exceptional circumstances. We are fully committed to the Sewel convention and will of course continue to seek legislative consent, take on board views and work with the devolved Administrations on future Bills.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

I am glad that the Minister noted that the Government fully support the Sewel convention, because Minister for the Economy, Vaughan Gething, confirmed in writing last week to the UK Government that the Welsh Government are unable to endorse the approach the UK Government are taking on the shared prosperity fund. They will not deploy their own resources to implement UK Government programmes in Wales, as they have been doing with EU funding for 22 years; they consider them to be flawed and undermining of the devolution settlement. Does the Minister therefore agree with me that last week’s latest development is a further significant undermining of the Sewel convention?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Unsurprisingly, I do not agree with that. We will of course continue to seek legislative consent, take on board views and work with the devolved Administrations, but the legislative consent process did not change and never was intended to change the sovereignty of this Parliament.