United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Ben Lake Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

I am not pursuing a hard Brexit; I am pursuing the independence of our country which was voted on all too many years ago and which this Parliament, in a previous guise, deliberately blocked, delayed and diluted. I am very proud to belong to a Parliament that is now clearly charged, yet again, by the electorate of the United Kingdom to get on with it and deliver Brexit. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that Mrs Pelosi is not the President of the United States of America. It is the President who leads the negotiating teams for trade deals, and, as I understand it, President Trump and his International Trade Administration are very keen on a trade agreement with the United Kingdom and still negotiating on it. I suspect that the Democrats in the House of Representatives, who will have their own political reasons for what they are doing at the moment, have not quite understood just how important this Bill is for the future of the United Kingdom single market and customs union—because who would want to do a trade deal with the United Kingdom if we did not have this Bill and could not guarantee that we were pledging the whole of our market in the market opening that such a free trade agreement would require? This Bill is fundamental to any success in negotiations that we have with Japan, the United States, maybe the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in due course, and so forth.

This is a vital piece of legislation to implement the independence of our country in a true Brexit. It is an entirely legal piece of legislation that reflects important statements in the withdrawal agreement and, above all, reflects a sovereignty clause in the EU (Withdrawal) Act that some of us supported and put in with the express purpose in mind that if there was no good faith from the EU we would need to make unilateral arrangements for our future trading. It is crucial for a country that wishes to have much more positive trade relations than the EU has had with a wide range of countries outside the European Union space.

I look forward to the state aid regime and investment regime being used in the interests of the whole country, with the United Kingdom being able to spend more of its own money on its own priorities, with good guidance and advice from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as we go along, but not forgetting the importance of England and the need for us to have good English projects as well. I hope that it will be twinned with an exemplar state aid policy for world trade purposes that may indeed be different from that of the European Union.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and, in particular, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), whose assessment of the Bill’s deficiencies was exemplary—I very much agree with it. I am conscious that a great many Members wish to contribute to this debate, so I shall keep remarks brief, confining them to clause 46, which extends the powers of UK Ministers to act in policy areas that have been devolved to Wales.

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[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman followed the debate surrounding the valleys and the Vale of Glamorgan line. A settlement had been reached between the Department for Transport, the Wales Office and the Welsh Government, where an additional sum over and above the Barnett block grant was presented to the Welsh Government to deliver that purpose. No progress has been made, so I think his argument makes a point that is very helpful to the clauses in place.

[Ben Lake]

Unsurprisingly, I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. These are competences and responsibilities of the UK Government and the Department for Transport, and they have not fulfilled them. We might also think of the powers that UK Ministers have over Welsh agricultural exports and question whether they are being exercised effectively. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recently failed to submit an application to the World Organisation for Animal Health for Welsh beef—and English beef, I should add—to be listed as a negligible bovine spongiform encephalopathy risk, so that status will now not be possible for our exports before May 2022 at the earliest, along with all the benefits that that status would bring.

In conclusion, in opposing clause 46, I simply say to UK Ministers who bemoan devolution and Wales’s Parliament: stop scrambling for pitiful excuses for your own failures, take your responsibilities to Wales seriously and start using the powers that you already have.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I rise to speak to amendment 19, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) and for North Down (Stephen Farry). Before I get into the meat of it, I wish to pick up on something the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) addressed, as I think that he is confused about how the American political system works. As much as he would like to be, Donald Trump is not a dictator; he does not get to make all the decisions. If there is to be a proposed trade deal between the US and the UK, Congress will have to approve it. I can tell Members, as I did the other day, that we have lots of very good friends on Capitol hill—I have been speaking to them this week—and I am shocked at how angry they are about what this British Government are proposing to do to the protocol and the withdrawal agreement. They will not have any violence done to the Good Friday agreement or this protocol.

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[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I rise both to reflect on today’s debate and speak to amendments 14, 15 and 16, which are tabled in my name and those of my hon. and right hon. Friends. In doing so, I hope to strike a similar tone to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), because our amendments, quite contrary to some of the things suggested about them, are intended to strengthen the Bill. That is because we want a successful internal market for all four nations of the UK when we leave the transition on 31 December, just as we want the Prime Minister to deliver the oven-ready deal with the EU that he promised the British people in December, with the promise of tariff-free and barrier-free trade.

For those who have suggested otherwise, we are a party of the Union; we simply think that the best way of protecting the Union is by respecting the devolution settlement. That is what our amendments seek to do, by correcting two fundamental flaws in the Bill as drafted: the way that it gives the Government powers to dish out financial assistance in whatever way they like, with no policy framework to provide accountability; and the way that it gives powers to the centre at the expense of the devolved Administrations, while marginalising local authorities and local communities in England, too.

Clause 46 sets out the powers being given to Ministers for the disbursement of funds in an extraordinary range of areas—economic development; sports and cultural activities, projects, events and infrastructure; education and training activities and infrastructure; capital investment in water, electricity, gas, telecommunications, sewerage, railways, roads, transport, health, prisons, courts and housing. These are massive potential spending powers, yet we have no details of how they will be exercised, allowing Ministers to award financial assistance in any way, and to anyone, they like.

These powers go further than replacing EU structural funds, but the need to replace them was the starting point for this part of the Bill. EU structural funds were of huge importance to many parts of the UK, acting as a redistributive mechanism and taking from the rich and giving to the poor, based on the principle of levelling up—long before the Government had ever stumbled across the idea, and forgetting the role of their predecessors in making sure that so many parts of our country were left behind. Structural funds led to real social and economic development, improving opportunities in areas that were previously held back. Crucially, the priorities were set locally: money was drawn down for use within the agreed criteria of the funds, which were primarily focused on need, but set by those engaged in developing the programmes at a local level.

Dame Rosie, you and I both saw the benefits of structural funds in South Yorkshire after our coal and steel industries were decimated by Margaret Thatcher. Objective 1 funding over seven years helped to grow our economy by over 8%, from the advanced manufacturing park to community skills projects, supporting business growth and creating new jobs. Crucially, all those projects were conceived, planned and delivered locally.

How EU structural funding is to be replaced has been an important issue since we took the decision to leave the European Union. The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), in the smaller part of his contribution earlier, identified the problem here. Colleagues on both sides of the House have been pressing the Government for answers on how the funds will be disbursed. The response was: “We’re going to have a shared prosperity fund”, but to this day there has been no detail on how it will work. The Government promised a consultation as early as 2017, in the Conservative party manifesto. They proclaimed that they would “consult widely” so that the fund would be

“targeted where it is needed most.”

Nothing happened. Under pressure, there were some engagement events to “seek views”, but they stopped in the middle of last year. There has not been a single engagement event or consultation event since this Prime Minister took office.

The Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto says of leaving the EU that

“we can take back control of the money that was being channelled via its Structural Funds.”

But who do they mean by “we”? Ministers, without reference to anyone? It is no surprise that Members have talked about this being an open door to pork barrel politics. Funding for skills training, bus stations, sports events and theatres, directed to meet the political needs of the Conservative party. More contracts, perhaps, to party donors and friends—or perhaps the latest project from Dominic Cummings and his team of what he describes as “weirdos and misfits”.

Amendment 14 should reassure Members on both sides of the House, because it simply proposes what the Government promised: a clear policy framework for the distribution of funds. We are talking about very large sums of money. The UK would have received £13 billion over the next seven years from structural funds. The Government have pledged to match that, but how it is spent matters to everyone in this House and those we represent. Parliament must agree it. Amendment 14 would empower us to do that, and we should do so after comprehensive engagement with the devolved Administrations, local authorities, elected Mayors and those who speak for our communities.

There are other fears about the impact of the Bill on the devolution settlement—fears that amendments 15 and 16 seek to address. As others have explained, the Bill allows for money currently spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland through the devolved Administrations to be directed from the centre. Given how this Government operate, there are real fears that existing funds to those Administrations could be top-sliced and redirected for spending in those nations by UK Ministers. The powers handed to Ministers through part 6 of the Bill could be used to serve their political agenda and to undermine the devolved Administrations.

[Ben Lake]

I am very interested in amendments 14 to 16. Will the hon. Gentleman clarify a little further the role that he envisages the devolved Governments playing in the formulation of the policy frameworks that he has just referred to?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am happy to take that point, because I would have imagined that the consultation that the Government promised but have failed to deliver would have at its heart real engagement with the devolved Administration, but also with local authorities across the nations of the UK and with our elected Mayors. I would have imagined that all those critical stakeholders would shape the framework, which we as a Parliament could then agree.

Amendments 15 and 16 would provide transparency and protect the decision-making powers of the Senedd, Holyrood and Stormont by making clear that, in relation to all the areas of spending set out in clause 46, funding is allocated to the devolved Administrations, and that all financial assistance related to devolved matters is delivered through the devolved Administrations. That would prevent the Bill from creating a back door through which Ministers could undermine devolution—a power grab in which spending decisions previously made in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast would be made in London, and that would also marginalise local authorities.

We debated on Monday, and next Monday we will debate again, those parts of the Bill that have dominated the headlines and shocked people around the world, but today’s debate has demonstrated that there are other deeply concerning aspects of this Bill. We heard about some yesterday, and they were echoed in the issues raised today. They are concerns about where power lies and how we make the decisions affecting our communities. Labour’s amendments seek to ensure that we hear local voices, spend money where it is needed and protect the Union. I commend them to the House.