United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Deidre Brock and William Cash

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I suppose it is good to see that the Government have finally admitted that they have to listen to the concerns being raised about their appalling ignorance over devolution and how the UK currently works. Is it not bizarre that the unelected bunch along the corridor had more appreciation of the democratic deficit at the heart of the UK than the Government of “reclaiming sovereignty” fame?

It is appalling too—I have to say this—that the loyal and spineless Opposition betrayed generations of Scottish Labour activists and politicians who fought to establish devolution and battled their own party sometimes, but who learned to work across civic Scotland to deliver it. I think they must not have heard the warnings of Scottish Labour Action that a powerful devolved Administration in Scotland were not a frippery, but an absolutely essential counterpoint to Westminster and Whitehall blindness to issues anywhere outside the south-east of England. I expect nothing better from the Tories, but the Labour party has betrayed its own members and the activists who spent so long on the Calton Hill vigil. This desperate attempt to appeal to Tory values to try to bury the incompetence of the previous leadership might seem a decent old political strategy, but it renders the existence of the Labour party utterly meaningless.

In any case, we finally have a nod to the devolution settlement, even if it has been forced by the House of Lords. In yesterday’s debate, the Minister said this legislation was about devolution, demonstrated that it was about dismantling devolution and failed to answer any of the questions raised during the debate. It seems that Ministers in this UK Government no longer seek to engage in discussion, but instead merely fling pre-written barbs that they clearly think are clever. It is not clear whether they know how to debate and choose not to, or do not actually have command of their brief. Either way, it is unfitting for a Minister and no way to run a Government.

Instead of offering amendments to this elected Chamber yesterday or at any point during the passage of this Bill, the Government arranged their business in the unelected Chamber—somewhere it clearly feels most comfortable, among the privileged and away from the bother of the concerns of the people we represent. Those amendments, I will grant, go a little way towards addressing some of the concerns that have been raised, but I suggest that they were driven more by a desire to mollify cantankerous Lords than by the need to create decent legislation. They are tiny baby steps in the right direction at the time we needed giant strides and they leave, as we have already heard, reams of unanswered questions—how disputes between Governments will be resolved, for example, and how consumers can be protected from unthinking and uncaring Prime Ministers, for another.

The amendments will also embed an imbalance in the framework of a post-Brexit UK that will see England’s Government outweigh the other Governments in any negotiation, as the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) pointed out. He put his finger on the exact nub of this problem. England’s Government will outweigh the other Governments in any negotiation, because it continues to claim overlordship as the supposed Government of the UK. Labour might be interested in looking at that, because it echoes the democratic deficit that drove the creation of the devolved Administrations in the first place.

[Sir William Cash]

I personally have always believed that there should have been a referendum of the whole United Kingdom over the devolution question. I put down my own amendment back in 1997, and half the Conservative party went against a three-line Whip and followed me into the Lobby. That is the real way to get consent. I believe in the Union, and I believe that there should never have been devolution other than through a United Kingdom referendum, if it was going to happen at all.

[Deidre Brock]

I do not want to be rude to the hon. Gentleman, but he presents us with a glorious example of exactly why many on the SNP Benches want to get away from this House of Commons.

Scotland faces the same situation as we did in the last quarter of the last century: a UK Government of a hue that we did not vote for and would not support are riding roughshod over the interests of the Scottish people and will ignore them if they can. This Bill will pass today, but the debate will continue, and we have not yet begun to fight.