Scottish Devolution and Article 50

Debate between Deidre Brock and Tommy Sheppard

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Deidre Brock]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I will address that later in my speech.

Now we find ourselves about to leave the European Union, the Prime Minister is making the threat of removing competencies from Holyrood as they come back from Brussels; other than that, we do not really have any idea of what she is planning. Leaving the European Union means that the Scotland Act 1998 must be revisited, because it compels Scotland to comply with EU law. The clawing back of powers and competencies from Holyrood to Whitehall, as suggested by the Prime Minister, would also require amendments to that Act.

If Members want to understand exactly how much disentanglement there will be, they should ask the Commons Library, as I did. They will be told that there is a huge number of directives and regulations to look through and that to come up with a definitive figure, list or even idea of what is reserved and what remains devolved is, to all intents and purposes, a fool’s errand.

To give an example, there are 527 regulations under the environment, consumer and health sections alone, and there are a whole host of environmental regulations under other headings such as “energy”. I do not know whether the Scotland Office has been working to draw up a list—or the Wales Office or the Northern Ireland Office for that matter. It would be good to be told, but it is clear that there is an enormous amount of work to be done and an enormous amount of legislation to comb through. Sifting that, considering it, deciding where to lay it and working it out will need a new Scotland Act.

It is true that the Government could use section 30 of the 1998 Act further to reserve powers over those areas currently under EU control, but that would seem frankly perverse if the Act has to be amended in any case. That seems simple, but when I asked the Prime Minister last week whether she would consult the people of Scotland properly and seek the consent of the Scottish Parliament before making changes to the legislation that frames devolution, she seemed perplexed. Her answer to me was that she undertakes

“full discussions with the Scottish Government on…reserved matters and…where we are negotiating on behalf of the whole of the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 808.]

However, we discovered on Monday that that is simply not true. Scotland’s First Minister was clear that none of the devolved Administrations had heard a peep from the UK Government before the announcement that we are all being dragged out of the single market, in spite of that being the major part of the Scottish Government’s compromise proposal on Brexit.

There is a sweetheart deal for Nissan, but no discussion of Scotland’s needs—far less any movement to accommodate those needs. Membership of the single market is vital for Scotland’s exports, and essential to the exercise of the economic competencies of the Scottish Parliament and to the future of many Scottish businesses. An immigration system that offers EU citizens the right to come to Scotland to live, work, study and settle down is essential to our continuing to grow a population that is economically active and demographically sustainable, as was discussed in the recent Scottish Affairs Committee debate. Academic research and the excellent record of Scotland’s universities is under threat, because Brexit will cut them off from an enormous research funder and from the universities they co-operate with on the continent, not to mention the academics who come to Scotland from elsewhere in the EU.

The implications for Scotland of triggering article 50 are enormous and deep-seated and, whichever way things go, they will have a long half-life. We have heard the glib “Brexit means Brexit”, that it will be red, white and blue and that there will be no running commentary, but I am beginning to suspect that there is no running anything behind Whitehall’s firmly closed doors. It is time that the Government started to lay out what Brexit actually means in terms of implications for the people who live on these islands, rather than continuing use of tautology.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Does she agree that those people—the minority—in Scotland who voted to leave the European Union did so hoping that they would see a transfer of powers back from Brussels to Edinburgh and that they will be dismayed that they are getting a transfer of powers from Brussels to Westminster? Does that not do a disservice to those no voters in Scotland as well as disrespecting the entire country, which took a different view?

[Deidre Brock]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point that I completely agree with. The National Farmers Union of Scotland shares many of his views. It has told me that Brexit is the biggest challenge to Scottish food producers in generations. Farmers, food processing companies and hauliers need migrant workers, access to European markets and guarantees on future financial support. Many of Scotland’s farmers depend on that financial support to remain solvent.

The NFUS is clear that the issue should be in the purview of the Scottish Government, and that the cash should follow that competency. That would be around £600 million a year, or £3.5 billion over the current seven-year cycle. More than 20,000 businesses in Scotland receive common agricultural policy payments, and more than 3,000 of those receive less than £1,000 each; that is subsistence, not luxury. We have no idea what the Government intend to happen—whether the cash will be ponied up for our farmers or what other support is in the pipeline.

We all know that the Government are sick and fed up of having to think about the fate of European citizens here and want it tied to UK citizens abroad—the very definition of bargaining chips. We know that because the Prime Minister keeps telling us. Scotland needs those citizens. Half of Scotland’s population growth in the past 15 years has come from EU citizens, who have come and made a huge contribution to the country. Four fifths of them are of working age, and four fifths of those are employed. They drive Scotland’s economy and contribute taxes, which are of course to be collected for the Scottish Government from April. Scotland cannot hang on and hope that we get something for those people. We need it now because they need it now, so that they can plan ahead rather than planning to leave.

We do not need warm words and vague hopes that a deal can be done, but straightforward action, and now. Scotland needs the UK Government to make the necessary changes now to give EU nationals continuing legal rights—of residence, movement, economic activity and study—that would need legislation to be removed, not a promise to look at it sometime in the future. That is what Scotland needs, what the Scottish economy needs, what Scotland’s public sector workforce needs and what the devolution settlement needs.

If the UK Government want to make a decent fist of Brexit, they have to start being honest. The Prime Minister has to stop telling us that she is consulting with the devolved Administrations when she clearly is not.