United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

It is an unusual pleasure to speak so early in a debate.

I am delighted to stand to support Government clauses 46 and 47 and to speak against the amendments in the name of the official Opposition and the Scottish national party and the other amendments. I have only been in the House for three years—it sometimes feels like 30, given what we have been through since 2017—but these amendments and the arguments, especially those from the SNP, against the clauses, are among the most remarkable things I have seen, despite what we have been through in the last three years. The governing party of one of the devolved nations in this country is tabling amendments and using arguments that would prevent more money being spent in that nation. It is frankly astounding.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Bowie]

I have only just started, but as it is the hon. Member, yes, of course.

[Chris Bryant]

I agree with the hon. Member about nationalism and separatism and all that, but we are a bit cynical and sceptical about offers from the Government at the moment. I have been trying to get £130 million outside the envelope for the flooding earlier this year in the Rhondda, but so far we have not seen a penny, not even for the coal tip that collapsed into the river at Tylorstown, which needs 60,000 tonnes removing. We still have not seen the £1.2 million. That is a Westminster responsibility.

[Andrew Bowie]

I am reliably informed by a former Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), that that is a devolved responsibility, which is one reason why the hon. Member should vote for the Bill next week and against the Opposition amendments this evening.

Not only are these arguments incredible; they are also based on a complete falsehood: that the powers in the Bill, which will allow the UK Government to spend directly on specific projects in Scotland—I will contain my remarks to Scotland for obvious reasons—for the first time in 20 years, will somehow undermine devolution. This is not true.

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[Alun Cairns]

I will come on to explain in further detail specific cases as to why the UK Government need the power in these clauses to intervene to support those communities that I want to support; I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not seem to want the UK Government to have the capacity to step in.

The current arrangements are confusing and messy, and could easily end up in the courts. Out of respect for devolution, Whitehall has been reluctant to be as assertive in pursuing some policies as the political and economic situations require. Constituents do not understand these arrangements, and businesses are often frustrated by the complexity and the perceived lack of interest in the issues and challenges they face. I said on Second Reading that for someone who is unemployed and living in one of the poorest communities, in a run-down town or village, perhaps with poor qualification levels or few training opportunities, UK Government Ministers’ answer to any call for help is, as it stands, simply to point them to the Welsh Assembly or to a Welsh Government Minister. Someone living in one of those communities in those circumstances does not care where the help comes from. They want the Government to be able to offer hope and opportunity, to play a part in bringing about change and to be relevant to those challenges that those individuals and communities face by helping to fix them.

[Chris Bryant]

I completely agree that my constituents in the Rhondda, which is one of the poorer communities in Wales, in the UK and in the whole of the European Union, would not care less where the money came from if they were seeking support, be it for a new youth service, more police officers, a new health centre or anything else. But for that to be effective, it has to be co-ordinated with other local services. A Government could not suddenly decide to build something in the Rhondda without planning permission from the local authority and without other permissions from the Assembly. This is why some of us are sceptical that the Government need these powers or that they are really serious about them. The Coal Authority is an agency of the Westminster Government, not of the Welsh Government, yet we are still waiting for our £1.2 million. If he can tell me a reason why the Government cannot give us the £1.2 million now, I would be delighted to hear it.

[Alun Cairns]

I am happy to respond to the hon. Gentleman. In relation to the Coal Authority, he is aware—this highlights the point that I made about the complexity of the current legislation—that land reclamation is a devolved function. Therefore, the Coal Authority is an agency of the UK Government, but the legislative responsibility falls to the Welsh Government. That highlights the complexity of the situation and may well be—I do not know because I have not looked at it in close enough detail—one of the root causes of why that community faces such a challenge.

The hon. Gentleman also highlighted flooding as a challenge. Flooding is a devolved responsibility. Therefore, when he calls on Environment Ministers to support funding projects in his constituency, he knows full well that the powers allowed by the current legislative framework to directly support such projects do not exist. Therefore, those calls, all too often, will fall on Ministers who do not have the power to act in those circumstances.

[Chris Bryant]

I think I am agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman in some small measure, which is obviously hurtful for me. He is of course right that flooding in Wales is the responsibility of the Welsh Government. However, there comes a time, if we want to reinforce the Union, when the Westminster Government have to accept that there have been specific events that fall outside the normal Barnett formula—outside the normal envelope. That is why I have repeatedly asked—and the Prime Minister promised this at the Dispatch Box—that we will get the money for the floods that happened excessively in Wales, and particularly in Rhondda, rather than anywhere else in the UK earlier this year.

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[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has just said that Storm Dennis should be recognised as a UK responsibility, yet we have not had a single penny in Wales from the Westminster Government in relation to Storm Dennis. He also referred to the shared prosperity fund. That does not exist. The Government have not yet even produced a consultation document on it. We do not know what it will look like at all. We would look on these clauses with far more interested eyes if we had all that in the Bill.

[Marco Longhi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention, but I refer him back to answers previously given by more learned colleagues than myself on those specific points.

I hold Scotland close in my heart, with many fond memories of holidays—and how could I not mention the excellent whisky, as I think about Laphroaig and the Macallan still in my cupboard? It is a worldwide export from the United Kingdom. We are our own biggest trading market between whole nations, and I want to see Scottish businesses and businesses in my constituency of Dudley North continue to have unfettered access to each other’s markets—something that simply would not happen, were the SNP to have their own agenda, with their separatist approach.

So far, all we have seen and heard from Opposition SNP Members is this damaging rhetoric that champions separation instead of growth and jobs through trading in our Union. They criticise this Government and, by default, ordinary British people who voted to leave for, as was stated yesterday, unpicking 60 years of European jurisprudence; yet they want to unpick over 300 years of a Union much closer to home that has proven to work for everybody. For all their claims to be defending the Scottish people and devolved powers in Scotland, it seems utterly bizarre and ironic that the SNP would want to return those powers back to Brussels, because not only will sovereignty be lost, but as the former SNP Minister Alex Neil admitted, there would have to be a customs barrier between Scotland and the UK, and no doubt a separate currency. I cannot for the life of me understand why SNP Members would actively advocate to suppress their whole nation and damage their local economy.

The Bill strengthens the Union, so it is no surprise they seek to oppose it, but they should all be held to account for not wanting to stand up for all the British jobs that the Bill would support and protect.

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[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Evans. Of course I will focus the majority of my remarks on amendment 22, but I hope you will permit me a little latitude to work around our amendment. [Interruption.] Well, I hope Mr Evans will; I do not really care about the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) as he is not in the Chair, so I will listen to you, Mr Evans. I say that with all affection and kind regards for the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Bryant]

That is a fib.

[Gavin Robinson]

It is, no doubt about it.

I have been here for the guts of four hours during this debate, which has been going for four hours and 45 minutes, and at times I felt I had entered a parallel universe. For Government Members, this Bill is an important and necessary step: it is a safety net; it respects the internal market of the UK; and it is something prudent and expedient to do in the circumstances in which we find ourselves in the current negotiations. From Opposition Members I hear that it is the most egregious and outrageous power grab, driving a coach and horses through everywhere—England, Scotland and Wales. This coach and horses is very tired. Yet I find it difficult to get Members on both sides to focus on some of the fundamentals that affect us in Northern Ireland.

I have heard Members from across the Chamber say in all sincerity that they believe there are elements in this Bill that protect the single market of the United Kingdom, that talk about the customs union of the UK. Let us be under no illusion: the single market of the UK, as we know it, was gifted away at the time this House passed the withdrawal agreement and the associated Northern Ireland protocol. Let us reflect on the financial assistance provisions in this Bill and clause 46 in particular. When I raise this with the Government, they say clearly that this is a power that extends right throughout the UK. That in itself is true, but there is no recognition in this debate, save in the contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), that that unrestricted power to offer financial assistance is hugely curtailed. It is curtailed by article 10 of the Northern Ireland protocol associated with the withdrawal agreement.

Article 10 says that we in Northern Ireland remain under the single market regime of the EU; that the state aid rules, no matter what this financial assistance provision says, will apply to Northern Ireland; and that any decision on financial assistance from this Government to businesses in Northern Ireland that fall within the EU state aid rules will not only be subject to challenge by EU member states, but will bring with it the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. I struggle when I hear Members in this House say that this Bill protects the integrity of the UK single market—it does not. That is why I ask that people sincerely look at amendment 22, because it would allow the people of Northern Ireland to benefit and would mean that the provisions on direct and indirect discrimination actually mean something to businesses in Northern Ireland. We will spend a lot of time on Monday considering the things we can do that will appropriately protect businesses in Northern Ireland to trade with their biggest market in Great Britain, but we also need Members of this House to consider the implications of the regime passed at the start of this year, the restrictions that there will be on trade from GB to NI, and the costs associated with the regimes in place through GB and NI. I know that those negotiations have not concluded and that we do not have a full picture of how that will be, but here we are, three and a half months from the end of the transition period, and yet businesses in Northern Ireland have no clarity as to how they are going to trade with their main market.

I struggle fundamentally with the arguments advanced by some Members about the Good Friday agreement. I listened very carefully to the contributions of the hon. Members for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), neither of whom are here now, and I make no criticism of that at this stage. Throughout the course of Brexit, there have been claims ad nauseam—in this Chamber, within the Northern Ireland political context, in the United States of America, which has been referred to today, and elsewhere—that taking sovereign decisions within a political entity is in some way injurious to peace in Northern Ireland. That is wrong.

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[Sally-Ann Hart]

No.

Faced with a choice of supporting our Union or the European Union, I know whose side I am on; do you?

[Chris Bryant]

There is nothing like a dame, Dame Rosie.

This debate today! I remember sitting in the theatre a few years ago—do you remember the theatre?—and there was a couple in front of me who had had a terrible row. The woman turned to the man and said, just as the curtain was coming up, “The worst of it is that you’re so bloody ‘paytronising’.” and he kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s ‘patronising’, dear.” If I am honest, I feel we have all patronised each other to death today. Actually, there are lots of areas where there could be some common ground, if we chose to try to find it, which is what I shall try to do in my speech.

Let me start with principles, because they should inform all the legislation that we support. The first principle must surely be—I say this as a proud socialist; I have never run away from the word “socialist”, even when Tony, whom I much admired, was leader of the Labour party—that any country performs best when it is most equal. When it is most equal, a country is happier, more successful economically and a better country to live in.

Secondly, decisions about policies and, for that matter, about funding are best made closest to the people that they most directly affect. I was a Government Minister for around 20 minutes, and my experience was that it is all very well coming up with all these grand ideas, sitting in an office in Westminster, but if they cannot be delivered because they do not fit alongside other policies, is just a waste of time—someone would just be wasting their own energy dreaming up legislation, and although they might buff their fingernails at the end of the day, they would not have actually got their hands dirty and achieved anything.

Thirdly, no single policy area stands alone. I have tried to do a lot of work on acquired brain injury over the past few years; it is an issue that affects every single Government Department—the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice and so many other policy areas, including the Treasury, of course. My experience is that unless we manage to devise policies that fit with other policies, we are not going to achieve what we could possibly achieve. Perhaps that is just because I believe that we achieve far more by our common endeavour than we do by going it alone.

All that is why I am afraid to say to the people with whom I am often in the same Lobby, but not so much this evening, that I believe in the Union. I believe that Wales is stronger in the Union and—I hate to say this to the people I disagree with in many ways—but I am also still a Unionist when it comes to the European Union. I know that I am not meant to raise that decision anymore, and that that battle is meant to be done, but—[Interruption.] Yes, I did not get the memo, but I will doubtless be sent it later.

I say all these things because I represent one of the poorest constituencies in the UK, one of the poorest constituencies in Wales and one of the poorest constituencies in the whole European Union. I was proud when we kept on getting structural funds in Wales. One of the things that I thought was clever about structural funds was that the funding had to be matched. It always had to sit alongside decisions made locally and money that was raised locally, so there was a degree of devolved decision in there.

I hate to say this, Dame Rosie, but I have a list of things that the Rhonda needs. We need to finish the Rhondda Fach relief road. I would like to improve the railway so that people can get into work much quicker, with bigger trains and proper toilets. I would like to unblock Stag Square in Treorchy and, for that matter, the roundabout outside Asda. I would like to rebuild the powerhouse in Tonypandy, which is falling apart. I would like proper cycle routes up both valleys. I would like a fully funded youth service which, unfortunately, has been cut in pretty much every part of the UK over the past 10 years.

This year has been—there is a four-letter word for it, but I am not allowed to use it—not very good in the Rhondda. We have had terrible flooding. A quarter of all the floods in the whole of the UK were just in my constituency, and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) has experienced similar. One of the culverts will cost £300,000 to be mended, and about £140 million-worth of work needs to be done to ensure that people’s homes are safe. I do not think that that should be met within the normal envelope of the Barnett formula, because I think that is part of us being a Union of four nations. I have repeatedly asked the Prime Minister for that money, and the Prime Minister has actually said at the Dispatch Box that we will get it, but it has not come and, of course, that makes me worried, because if Rhondda Cynon Taff has to do that work and has to find the money from elsewhere, there is a real danger that lots of other budgets will be slashed to the bone, and, if I am honest, things are already pretty threadbare—if I am not mixing my metaphors.

The one issue that I have had rows with the former Welsh Secretary about—he is not here—is that Wales and many mining constituencies across the UK have former coal tips. They are the responsibility of the Coal Authority and, of course, the problems that stem from them today predate devolution, because nearly all of them were closed long before devolution came to pass—certainly all the ones in the Rhondda. I gather that the Coal Authority, which is an agency of the Westminster Government under the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has produced a new report, or is in the process of doing so, which is likely to suggest that a lot of those tips need a lot of investment to be made safe.

Just like those in Nottingham or Durham or wherever else in the UK, including in Scotland for that matter, I think that the coal tips in the Rhondda are a UK responsibility—a moral responsibility, even if not a legal responsibility—and we need to ensure that they are safe. A tip in Tylorstown collapsed in the floods earlier this year, and 60,000 tonnes of material needs to be moved, which is a phenomenal job of work for a relatively small local authority to undertake. It is doing it because it has to be done, otherwise there is a real danger of further slippage if there is much more serious flooding later this year. However, we still have not had the guarantee from the Westminster Government that the £1.2 million, which would seem a tiny amount to most people, will come our way.

Now, I actually think that clause 46 is both unnecessary and impotent. It is unnecessary because the Government could do every single thing in clause 46 without it. I do not think it is needed at all, but, equally importantly, I think it is impotent. Let us say for the sake of argument that the Government decided, having heard my pleas for a youth service in the Rhondda and to do up the powerhouse in Tonypandy, that they were going to spend money on a brand-new youth service facility in Tonypandy in the powerhouse. “Hurrah!”, I would go. They would not be able to do it without the local authority agreeing to it because they would have to get planning permission and work with the transport facilities. They would have to make sure that people were available to work in it and that it was sustainable, so it would be impossible to implement that simply on the basis of clause 46. I say gently to some of my colleagues that I think they have slightly over-egged the argument that suddenly Westminster will descend and plant things in constituencies, because I do not think it will be able to. I think this is very poorly drafted legislation, as it happens.

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[Alan Brown]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I know that the hon. Member has spoken a bit. I would normally give way, but I am not going to on this occasion.

There would be a better process available. We have been waiting for a very long time for the shared prosperity fund structure to be announced. That should have been here long before we got to this point. I have a terrible feeling that what the Government will introduce is something that will either try to bypass the Welsh Government or the Scottish Government, or will try to set up a competition between different local authorities. I do not think that that will mean that the money goes where it is most needed and where it can be most effective. I urge the Government to think hard about introducing a shared prosperity fund and the outline of that as soon as possible.

Of course, money should be spent in relation to need—it is a very old principle for all of us Opposition Members: from each according to his ability, to each according to his or her need—and that is all I really want. I am never going to say no to money for the Rhondda. I will constantly ask for it and I am very hopeful that the Minister, when she answers, is going to say, “Yes, Chris—or yes, Dame Rosie, Chris can have his money for the flooding, the tips and the youth service.” Incidentally, as chair of the Rhondda arts festival in Treorchy, RAFT, I declare my interest—I have no financial interest; I am not remunerated for it. We would also quite like some money for that as well.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and I thank him for his courtesy in rejecting an intervention and giving me and the people of Newcastle-under-Lyme a few moments at the end of this debate.

This debate is focused on part 6 and I believe that the commitments that we are making demonstrate the seriousness of the Government’s intent to deliver on the promises of the Vote Leave campaign. We will match what happened with the EU structural funds in each home nation through the new UK shared prosperity fund, and we will continue to co-operate across the UK to overcome coronavirus together. Coronavirus has demonstrated the true value of the Union, with the devolved Governments working together with Westminster to help people and businesses through the pandemic. The Bill will facilitate more of that joint working to the benefit of everyone across the UK.

We have heard a lot today and yesterday about power grabs. If there is a power grab, it is from Brussels, because having won our independence referendum, we are quite rightly restoring the powers that used to reside in this place. The UK’s internal market is centuries old and has never needed to be recognised in statute in this way before. However, that is necessary now to provide legal certainty to businesses and consumers across all four home nations as we exit the internal market of the EU.

This Bill and these clauses are needed to protect jobs and prosperity across the United Kingdom and to prevent new burdens and new barriers restricting the historical unfettered right to trade. In fact, it is SNP Members who are trying to grab more and new powers for the Scottish Government through these amendments. At the time of the Scotland Act 1998, which created the Scottish Parliament, it was never envisaged that the devolved Assemblies would be endowed with the powers that they now seek. All the talk we have heard of the Sewel convention and the rest of it is, therefore, anachronistic, because the convention was after the fact of our being in the internal market. We are restoring the situation that existed prior to the EU. These powers were never promised to Scotland at the time, and we have heard many arguments about that this evening. I understand why they seek these powers—they know they are a necessary part of independence—but I remind them that the Scottish people have already had their say on that. Indeed, I think that this is once again an attempt by the SNP, regrettably, to disrupt the Bills that seek to legislate in the national interest and make this debate about independence, which is a pity.

To wrap up, I will quote my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), who spoke earlier: when did devolution become about stopping this place from acting in the best interests of the whole UK? This is the right place. Westminster has Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish representation in it. This is the right forum for these discussions and these issues. I commend these clauses to the House and urge hon. Members to reject the Opposition amendments this evening.