United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Colum Eastwood and Ben Lake

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.