CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

On what we can do, we can look for those answers now—not in five or 10 years’ time. These people have suffered enough. They need answers, and they need to be able to draw a line under the stigma that has been attached to so many. That is why the independent inquiry needs to report back, hopefully within around a year, to be able to draw that line for them.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]]

The Minister says he does not want a statutory inquiry. I think many of those affected will be sceptical about his reasons for that. Hundreds of people have been wrongly sued and pursued, with many imprisoned and many more losing their businesses and livelihoods. His Government and previous Governments have been central to an epic scandal. The Prime Minister promised a full independent inquiry. Why is that promise now being broken, like so many others by his Government?

[Paul Scully]

The inquiry is both independent and in full. It is one thing the Prime Minister promised, and it is one thing we have delivered. It has taken too long to get there, but we will get those answers in a few short months.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful for that typically wise intervention. I am happy to provide that confirmation.

Amendment 1 provides absolute privilege against defamation for the Competition and Markets Authority when carrying out its functions under part 4. That will ensure that it can report and provide advice independently without needing to expend resources on preparing to defend litigation, and that businesses with deep pockets cannot sue or threaten to sue the CMA to obstruct it from carrying out its functions.

I shall set out briefly for the House the amendments that will improve the Bill’s drafting. Through amendments 31 to 34, we are taking the opportunity to put it beyond any possible doubt that alcohol minimum unit pricing-type regulation and any other sales requirements are not in the scope of the mutual recognition principle, unless they amount in practice to a total ban on a good being sold. That came up in Committee. We want to make sure that rather than politicking, we can return to a business continuity approach.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The Minister just told us about an amendment to take into account concerns about the minimum unit pricing aspect, but UK Government Ministers have been telling us for weeks that the Bill does not affect that. Clearly, that was a concern until now and we were right. Is it not also true that the non-discriminatory aspects of the amendment make it completely useless anyway?

[Paul Scully]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but the answer is no. To ensure we take that political football totally off the table and return the Bill to what is was always designed to be about—giving businesses in Scotland and all parts of the UK the business continuity and certainty they need without such distractions—the technical amendment dots the i’s and crosses the t’s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Colleagues will see that many Members want to speak in the debate. We simply will not be able to get through everyone unless speeches are brief. My advice would be for Members to limit their remarks to five or six minutes, but if they do not, I will have to impose a time limit. I would rather not do that, but I am keen that we get as many people in as possible. I call Drew Hendry.

[Drew Hendry]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Although I will try to be as quick as I can, this Bill fundamentally affects Scotland, and therefore I have a lot to say about it. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who chairs the Justice Committee. It is always a pleasure to listen to him, to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) and to the Minister, who is an affable and normally very helpful chap. I have great sympathy for him as he tries bravely but barely conceals his embarrassment at having to drag this shabby Bill through the House.

Before I get to my party’s amendments and our reasoned amendment, let me report on the Bill so far. This Bill sets out to break international law. It sets out to break devolution. It sets in train the biggest power-grab since the Scottish Parliament was reconvened and a race to the bottom on health protections and environmental standards. The flood of amendments simply proves that the Bill lacks credibility. It is reckless, and it is absolutely typical of this Tory Government and their entire process.

[Mr Vara]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Drew Hendry]

I will make some progress.

In setting out to break international law, the Government are undermining trust, respect and shared values in a very specific but very unlimited way. The Bill sneers at the words “trust”, “honour” and “obligation”. Because of this Bill, any deal, understanding, commitment, promise or even legally binding treaty is now utterly dispensable—think of that! The questions now must be: what is the next inconvenient law for this Government? What happens to society as the Government embrace lawbreaking? How will international players treat their agreements with the UK? Make no mistake: this is going rogue.

Both the former Prime Minister—the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) still sits in the House and is likely to vote against the Bill—and the former Northern Ireland Secretary have spoken out against this action. The Law Society of Scotland has confirmed that clauses 40 to 45

“would empower Ministers to make regulations that are contrary to the Withdrawal Agreement… and preclude challenge in the UK courts through clause 45”,

and that the Bill, if enacted,

“would breach Article 5 of the Withdrawal Agreement.”

Part 5 of the Bill has triggered international condemnation. As we have heard, presidential candidate Joe Biden warned that

“Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement”—

the Good Friday agreement—

“and preventing the return of a hard border.”

There are already meetings in Washington amid American interest in Brexit’s implications for Northern Ireland. The Government’s amendments to part 5 of the Bill create more problems and unanswered questions. As Professor Mark Elliott, in consultation with Graeme Cowie of the House of Commons Library, points out:

“clause 45(1) provides that regulations made under clauses 42 and 43 ‘have effect notwithstanding any relevant international or domestic law with which they may be incompatible or inconsistent’. How is this to be reconciled with the fact that clause 45 as amended now contemplates the possibility of judicial review?”

He goes on to note that Government amendments 12 to 15 would produce an “extremely odd outcome”, and that amendment 13 appears to attempt to “cancel out” the effect of amendment 14. He concludes:

“It leaves us with a Bill that clearly authorises Ministers to break international law”.

[Joanna Cherry]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that Government amendments 12 and 13 may render incorrect the statement by the Secretary of State that the Bill is compatible with convention rights under section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998? Is he aware of any plans the Government have to revisit that statement? I asked the Minister about that, but he did not seem to understand the point I was making.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. and learned Friend makes a telling point. No, of course the Government have not brought anything forward on that, because this is a Cummings-directed Prime Minister and a complicit Tory Government who have sought to justify a law-breaking, democracy-reducing, shabbily produced, lazy and dangerous Bill with a breathtaking factionalism bordering on pseudologica fantastica.

[Mr Vara]

As we go through the process of leaving the European Union, this Parliament will take no powers away from the Scottish Parliament. In some 70 policy areas currently managed by the EU, powers will be handed over to the Scottish Parliament. Can the hon. Gentleman not bring himself just once to be a statesman and appreciate that this will actually be for the benefit of the Scottish Parliament? Just once, be a statesman!

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

If this were not so deadly serious, it would be a comedy, such is the hypocrisy from Tory Members. There is good reason why people in Scotland are now looking at independence as the settled view and the majority view in Scotland. It is because of the reckless disregard that the hon. Member has for the facts. He has not even looked at the fact that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will have, contained in the Bill, the power to overrule anything that the Scottish Parliament decides. I will come back to that point later.

Put simply, this is a bad Bill. It does bad things and no matter how much the Government scramble to justify it, they cannot get away from that point. Let us face it, the Tories have always hated devolution, but even by their standards, the Bill reaches a new level of contempt for the Scottish Parliament and for those of the other devolved nations. Clause 48 is a blatant power-grab, with the UK Government reserving the devolved policy of state aid. In clause 46, powers are given to UK Government Ministers to design and impose replacements for EU spending in devolved areas such as infrastructure, economic development, culture and sport, education and training, and much more, centralising power at Westminster—exactly what the people of Scotland rejected when they voted in 1997 to re-establish the Scottish Parliament. We see in poll after poll that people in Scotland reject it now. That has led, as I said earlier, to the fact that independence is now the majority view in Scotland.

This power-grab not just the view of the SNP, and it is not just the view of those in Scotland. The Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford highlighted the issue, when he said that there are

“some voices in the Conservative government who having found out that devolution exists after 20 years, find they don’t much like it, and think it would be better if we returned 20 years and all the decisions were made in Whitehall and would rather not be spending their time talking to us very much.”

Does not that just capture it correctly?

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Drew Hendry]

I want to make some progress.

Organisations across Scotland are also deeply concerned about the proposals. NFU Scotland has confirmed the attack on devolution. It said that

“it is the clear view of NFU Scotland, and the other faming unions of the UK, that the proposals pose a significant threat to the development of Common Frameworks and to devolution.”

The General Teaching Council for Scotland said that the proposals

“would undermine the four UK nations’ devolved education functions.”

The STUC has warned:

“Johnson is uniting political parties, trade unions and wider civil society in Scotland against a power grab which would see UK Government interference in previously devolved matters and a rolling back of the constitutional settlement we voted for in 1997”.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I have resisted the temptation to ask the hon. Member to give way up to this point, despite the fact that he may be inadvertently misleading the House by pretending that, in some way, this Government are intent on grabbing powers back from Holyrood and taking them to Westminster when nothing could be further from the truth. I will bring him up, however, on his using the National Farmers Union of Scotland and its arguments as a reason not to back this Bill. The NFUS said:

“NFU Scotland’s fundamental priority, in the clear interest of Scottish agriculture…is to ensure the UK Internal Market effectively operates as it does now.”

That is what the Bill delivers. Nothing of what he has said up to this point is any way relevant to the Bill today.

[Drew Hendry]

Of course, the hon. Member is entirely wrong with his selective quoting. This absolutely underlines why the Tories have not won an election in Scotland since 1959. You have to be about 90 years old to remember voting in an election that the Tories won. Why? Because they do not listen to the people of Scotland and they do not have their interests at heart. Using this Bill, they are able to lower standards by holding a veto over Scottish Parliament decisions. The mutual recognition mechanism in the Bill starts a race to the bottom on standards, with the UK Government imposing their will.

As we heard, clauses 2 to 9 contain sweeping powers on animal welfare, food safety, environmental protections —every single aspect of Scottish life: the water we drink, the food on our table, the buildings we construct, and even our NHS. We know that chlorinated chicken is on the table and that it will be bloating our tables as a result—[Interruption.] They groan, but Donald Trump said that

“everything is on the table”—

and that means products from the States, including that and hormone-injected beef. What else will be presented to us while the UK Government desperately scratch around for a trade deal, leaving no stone unturned regardless of who or what is underneath it?

The Bill hamstrings the Scottish Parliament from protecting the highest standards of food safety, from protecting Scottish farmers’ livelihoods, and from protecting the highest standards in our environment and our building control. It hampers the Scottish Government’s ability to keep public companies in public hands, including preventing attacks on the NHS. Worse still, as I said earlier, it puts the power to overrule Scotland’s Parliament in the hands of one Tory Minister. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has the

“power to alter these exclusions”.

Professor Michael Dougan has warned of the impact of the mutual recognition principle and the effect that it will have on Scottish produce:

“The impact in practice of this Bill in many of the proposed exercises of devolved competence in relation to trading goods or services is to effectively penalise domestic producers or traders and not be able to enforce the same standards against imported goods or service providers.”

As I mentioned earlier on the teaching council, Scotland requires secondary teachers to have a relevant degree in the subject that they teach. However, part 2 of the Bill, on professional qualifications, forces Scotland to accept teachers with lower qualifications. The chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland, Ken Muir, said that

“our key concern about the Bill is the extent to which we ourselves, and parents, and users of the education system would feel that”—

it—

“would be watering down the teaching profession in Scotland”.

The Minister mentioned that the Government have tabled a new technical amendment, amendment 32, with the purpose of

“further clarifying the freedoms of all parts of the UK to regulate pricing and manner of sales policies as long as they are non-discriminatory.”

Of course, that is the key line—

“as long as they are non-discriminatory”—

and they say that “we have now acted to provide increased legal certainty around this point”. The Minister conceded earlier that that was in relation to alcohol minimum unit pricing. I remind hon. Members that Ministers had told us that that was not affected by the Bill and did not come into account in it, and now they are admitting that it does and they have put this absolute sham of an amendment in place to cover that. All it does is leave this open to be overridden by the non-competitive clause.

We heard about financial assistance. In case anyone is seduced by the spending promises, I have been calling for clarity on the so-called shared prosperity fund since 2017 along with my SNP colleagues. As the Financial Times reported, an individual close to the discussion said:

“The current plan is an odd combination of reserving state aid [for control from London] but then agreeing to a free-for-all. They just want to be able to bung money at things and do not want UK internal market legislation cutting across that.”

That is odd, or is it just convenient?

The Tories’ Communities Secretary has spent millions of pounds from the towns fund on 61 towns, 60 of which happen to be Tory marginals, including his own seat. In the highlands, we understand that directly, because in 1992, Prime Minister John Major took money from the highlands to shore up flagging support in the south-east of England. We have experienced the altruism of Tory Governments.

The flood of amendments to fundamental aspects of the Bill, including from UK Ministers, shows that it is completely bad and shoddy. Clause 5 transfers the CMA functions to the OIM. Drafting errors abound throughout. Amendment 15 actually attempts to further undermine the rule of law. It says:

“No court or tribunal may entertain any proceedings for questioning the validity or lawfulness of…section 42(1) or 43(1).”

That is dangerous and toxic stuff. That follows an absolutely useless and terrible consultation that failed to include and engage the devolved Governments on aspects of the Bill that see the Government strip powers from Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff. The legislation was shared with the devolved Governments only hours before publication.

The recklessness of the Tory Government only creates more uncertainty. When their reasonable worst-case scenario is two-day delays to freight on the channel and 7,000 lorries in Kent, with an estimated 275 million new customs declarations each year post Brexit that will cost about £15 billion, they can add the words “absurdly” and “tragically” to reckless.

Poll after poll now shows that people in Scotland understand that the only way to protect their democratically elected Parliament, to protect standards and to keep their waters and NHS safe is through Scotland becoming a normal independent nation and taking its place in the international community. This Bill insults Scotland. We will not vote for this Bill.

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The First Deputy Chairman]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendment 90.

Amendment 89, in clause 2, page 2, line 8, leave out from “requirements)” to end of line 10 and insert

“must meet the relevant requirements of the part of the United Kingdom with the highest level of standards for that sale of that good.”

This amendment would ensure that any good produced, or imported, into the United Kingdom would have to meet the level of standards for sale of that good in the part of the UK with the highest level standards.

Government amendment 91.

Clause 2 stand part.

Amendment 34, in clause 3, page 3, line 24, leave out “consult” and insert “gain the agreement of”.

Clause 3 stand part.

Amendment 73, in clause 4, page 3, line 35, leave out “not”.

The intention of this amendment, linked to Amendment 74, is to ensure that mutual recognition applies to existing legislation as well as future legislation.

Amendment 74, page 3, line 36, leave out from “principle” to end of line 10 on page 4.

The intention of this amendment, linked to Amendment 73, is to ensure that mutual recognition applies to existing legislation as well as future legislation.

Clauses 4 and 5 stand part.

Amendment 35, in clause 6, page 5, line 22, leave out “consult” and insert “gain the agreement of”.

Clauses 6 and 7 stand part.

Amendment 86, in clause 8, page 6, line 40, at end insert—

“(c) the promotion of environmental, social and labour standards.”

This amendment would expand the definition of “legitimate aim” that could permit discrimination against incoming goods to include the promotion of environmental, social and labour standards.

Amendment 36, page 6, line 41, after “State” insert

“, after obtaining the agreement of the devolved administrations,”.

Clause 8 stand part.

Amendment 76, in clause 9, page 7, line 4, leave out “not”.

The intention of this amendment, linked to Amendment 77, is to ensure that the non-discrimination principle applies to existing legislation as well as future legislation.

Amendment 77, page 7, line 8, leave out subsections (2) and (3).

The intention of this amendment, linked to Amendment 76, is to ensure that the non-discrimination principle applies to existing legislation as well as future legislation.

Clause 9 stand part.

Amendment 78, in clause 10, page 7, line 17, at end, insert—

“(2A) In making these regulations, the Secretary of State must have special regard to the need to maintain the integral place of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom internal market.

The intention of this amendment is to ensure that further exclusions from the application of the access principles have regard to safeguarding unfettered access of NI businesses to the UK Internal Market.

Clause 10 stand part.

Government amendments 5 and 6.

Amendment 79, in schedule 1, page 44, line 40, at end, insert—

“(6A) In the case that there is one REACH authorisation process for Great Britain, an authorisation that is lawful for the Northern Ireland market will be valid for the Great Britain market.”

The intention of this amendment is to apply the non-discrimination principle to the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) regime.

Government amendment 7.

Amendment 80, page 45, line 2, at end insert—

“(8A) The United Kingdom market access principles do not apply to fisheries within the jurisdiction of Scottish Government Ministers.”

This amendment would exempt fisheries in Scotland from market access principles.

Amendment 87, page 45, line 23, at end insert—

“11 The United Kingdom market access principles do not apply to (and sections 2(3) and 5(3) do not affect the operation of) any legislation so far as it relates to public procurement.”

This amendment would include specific reference to public procurement within those areas of regulation that are exempt from market access principles under Schedule 1.

Schedule 1 stand part.

Clauses 12 and 13 stand part.

Government amendments 93 to 95.

Amendment 40, in clause 14, page 9, line 26, at end insert—

“(8A) A reference in this Part to “regulations” must take into account the requirements of section (Maintenance of minimum standards).”

Government amendment 92.

Clause 14 stand part.

Government amendments 97 to 107.

Clause 15 stand part.

Government amendment 108.

Clause 16 stand part.

Government amendments 112 and 111.

Schedule 2 stand part.

Clauses 17 to 20 stand part.

Government amendments 109 and 110.

Clause 21 stand part.

Amendment 81, in clause 22, page 13, line 33, after “23)” insert “or frontier worker”.

This amendment would accord to frontier workers the rights accorded to qualifying UK residents under this clause, to have experience or qualifications awarded in one part of the UK to be recognised in another part.

Amendment 82, page 13, line 34, after “resident” insert “or frontier worker”.

This amendment is linked to Amendment 81.

Amendment 83, page 13, line 39, at end insert—

“(3A) For the purposes of this Part, “Frontier worker” shall have the meaning given in Article 9(b) of the Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community.”

This amendment is linked to Amendment 81.

Clauses 22 and 23 stand part.

Amendment 84, in clause 24, page 15, line 2, after “resident” insert “or frontier worker”.

This amendment would accord the same rights to frontier workers as to qualifying UK residents under this clause.

Amendment 85, page 15, line 9, leave out “, the resident” and insert “or frontier worker, the resident or frontier worker”.

This amendment is linked to Amendment 84.

Clauses 24 to 26 stand part.

Government amendment 96.

Amendment 27, in clause 27, page 19, line 42, after “training” insert

“that has been agreed and approved by the devolved ministers”.

Clause 27 stand part.

Government new clause 12—Guidance relating to Part 1.

New clause 5—Maintenance of minimum standards—

“Regulations under this Part must not result in lower food or environmental standards applying in any part of the United Kingdom than apply in the European Union.”

New clause 10—Environmental derogation for market access principles—

“The United Kingdom market access principles do not apply to (and sections 2(3) and 5(3) do not affect the operation of) any legislation or other requirement so far as—

(a) its purpose is to protect the environment, and

(b) it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.”

The purpose of this new clause is to provide for exceptions and derogations that allow all four UK nations to put in place proportionate measures to protect the environment and improve environmental standards.

Amendment 72, in clause 48, page 38, line 49, at end insert “or

(b) has the effect of making Northern Ireland businesses less competitive in the Great Britain market.”

The intention of this amendment is to include within the definition of distortive or harmful subsidies a subsidy which has the effect of making NI businesses less competitive in the GB market.

Clause 48 stand part.

Amendment 88, in clause 49, page 39, line 2, leave out subsection (1).

This amendment would prevent the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 from being inserted into Schedule 4 of the Scotland Act 1998, meaning that this Bill would not become a “protected enactment” under that legislation.

Clauses 49 and 51 to 53 stand part.

Amendment 4, in clause 54, page 41, line 24, at end insert—

“(2A) The relevant sections of this Act come into force in accordance only if—

(a) a Minister of the Crown has moved a motion in the House of Commons specifying on which date a relevant section comes into force, and

(b) that motion is approved by resolution of the House of Commons.

(2B) The relevant sections for the purposes of subsection (2A) are sections 42, 43 and 45.”

This amendment would prevent any of sections 42 (Power to disapply or modify export declarations and other exit procedures), 43 (Regulations about Article 10 of the Northern Ireland Protocol) and 45 (Further provision related to sections 42 and 43 etc) coming into force before the House of Commons had approved by resolution the date from which they would take effect.

Amendment 9, page 41, line 25, leave out subsections (3) and (4) and insert—

“(2A) The other provisions of this Act may not come into force (and in particular no additions may be made to Part 2 of Schedule 7A to the Government of Wales Act 2006 (specific reservations), Part 2 of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 (specific reservations) or Schedule 2 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (excepted matters)) until the Prime Minister is satisfied that resolutions have been passed in Senedd Cymru, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly in favour of those provisions coming into force.”

This amendment would ensure that no additional powers are reserved to Westminster through this Bill unless the devolved legislatures of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland give their consent.

Government amendment 66.

Amendment 39, page 41, line 26, at end insert—

“(3A) Regulations under subsection (3) may not be made before a legislative consent motion relating to this Act has been approved by the each of the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.”

This amendment would require the remainder of the Act to have gained consent of the devolved legislatures before coming into effect.

Clause 54 stand part.

New clause 9—UK Council of Ministers—

“(1) The Secretary of State must publish no later than three months from the date on which this Act is passed a framework for a UK Council of Ministers to be agreed by resolution of each House of Parliament.

(2) The responsibilities of the UK Council of Ministers must include—

(a) considering the UK Government’s use of financial assistance for economic development in terms of section 46 of this Act;

(b) considering the terms of any reports prepared by the Competition and Markets Authority in terms of section 29 of this Act;

(c) considering the extent to which its members have acted in a manner consistent with the devolved settlement;

(d) reviewing and considering the impact of any aspect of the internal market of the United Kingdom on any part of the United Kingdom;

(e) requesting that the Secretary of State take specific necessary action to facilitate policy objectives in an area within the competence of the Secretary of State.

(3) The membership of the UK Council of Ministers must include representatives from all parts of the United Kingdom and its devolved administrations.”

This new clause establishes a UK Council of Ministers to ensure the effective functioning of the Internal Market and to examine spending under this Bill.

New clause 11—Review of the Act—

“(1) Within three months of the date on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay a report before each House of Parliament on the dates on which each section—

(a) was commenced; or

(b) is planned to be commenced.

(2) The Secretary of State must arrange for a review to be carried out within three months of the date on which this Act is passed, and thereafter at least once in each calendar year on the operation of this Act.

(3) The Secretary of State must invite the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to contribute to the reviews in subsection (2).

(4) The reviews under subsection (2) must make an assessment of—

(a) the functioning of the United Kingdom internal market;

(b) the effectiveness of market access principles;

(c) progress towards agreeing common frameworks with the devolved administrations;

(d) progress towards drawing up a shared prosperity fund framework; and

(e) progress in resolving issues through the Joint Committee machinery in the Withdrawal Agreement.

(5) The Prime Minister must arrange for a report of any review under this section to be laid before each House of Parliament as soon as practicable after its completion.”

The intention of this new clause is to provide Parliament with information on the working of this Act in the context of developing common frameworks.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Rosie. This Cummings-directed Tory UK Government are breaking international law, and they are breaking devolution. Behind the innocent-sounding mutual recognition mechanism, the Bill simply starts a race to the bottom on standards with the UK Government imposing it against our will in Scotland.

The Bill will see the Tories mount an assault on devolution with the biggest power grab since the Scottish Parliament was re-established. People in Scotland are seeing through the contempt that the Tory Government and Westminster have for their democratic choices. They are not daft. They know that this shabby, illegal, dogmatic Bill is not designed to fix anything, but it is designed to game the system for vested interests.

It is a fact that existing mechanisms and simple changes to Standing Orders could have worked with consensus instead, but this Government do not believe in consensus, just in getting their own narrow ideological way.

The UK Government’s approach—the diktat—is the opposite of the democratic European single market approach. The development of the EU single market has been based on the principles of equality, co-operation, co-decision, subsidiarity and, of course, consent. Crucially, it sets a baseline of minimum agreed standards with which all member states’ own rules must be compatible. What a contrast with this hasty, badly written, contemptuous Bill. The Government are even having to amend their own Bill as they go along, so shabby is it. Government amendment 109 is necessary to remove clause 20—how slapdash is that?

On the mutual recognition mechanism, clauses 2 to 9 contain sweeping powers to compel Scotland to accept lower standards, set elsewhere in the UK, on animal welfare, food safety and environmental protections, among a host of other areas.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a very important point. One issue raised by the General Teaching Council for Scotland is that teachers in Scotland must adhere to certain professional standards. That is not the case in England. If professional qualifications were accepted across the United Kingdom, Scotland would potentially have to accept teachers with lower professional standards. That is a real concern for the GTC in Scotland. Does he share that concern?

[Drew Hendry]

I do indeed. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. As I mentioned in my speech last week, the Bill affects every aspect of Scottish public life. These powers radically undermine the ability of the Scottish Parliament to serve the people who elected it.

The UK Government want to ditch high regulatory standards. They continually refuse to confirm whether the UK will keep pace with EU standards after 31 December. They will not even rule out chlorinated chicken being forced into our marketplaces. The question has to be asked: why keep that prospect on our tables? It is because they are betting all of our farms on a US trade deal. They have put everything on black, hoping for a Trump victory. The irony is that if it comes up red, with a Biden win, the Bill puts any trade deal in trouble, because the presidential candidate has said that he will not put up with anything that undermines the Northern Ireland-Ireland peace process.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The hon. Member is absolutely right that there will be no trade deal if any damage is done to the Good Friday agreement or the protocol. It is also the case that the Houses of Congress have to ratify any trade deal, so no matter who wins the White House, it is clear that Congress will not support a US-UK trade deal after any damage is done to the Good Friday agreement.

[Drew Hendry]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. His point that the Good Friday agreement is being put in jeopardy is absolutely spot on. That is why the Government are betting on a Trump victory. President Trump has declared that when it comes to doing business with the UK, as far as he is concerned

“everything is on the table.”

The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has said of the trade talks:

“We need to make sure that we don’t use food safety as a ruse to try and protect a particular industry.”

The Government have even voted against their own Back Benchers’ amendments to protect high standards. They voted five times against amendments to the Agriculture Bill, and five times against food standards amendments to the Trade Bill.

The effect of clauses 2 to 9 would be to prevent the Scottish Parliament from requiring goods or services to meet the standards that it decides. The UK Government’s White Paper outlined examples of this. Page 77 has a case study on deposit return schemes, page 78 has one on food labelling and pages 79 to 82 cover food manufacturing, including hygiene, recycling and animal welfare. On page 82, it specifically mentions minimum pricing as a regulatory restriction. Page 85 talks about building regulations and construction permits. As Professor Michael Dougan of Liverpool University observes, Scotland’s minimum price controls could be

“characterised as a form of product requirement”,

making them

“fully subject to the principle of mutual recognition.”

This would mean that

“imported English alcohol would not have to comply with any new Scottish requirements. Once the mutual recognition obligation applies, there is virtually no scope for Scotland…to justify applying its new rules to English imports: mutual recognition can only be set aside on the basis of serious health threats arising from the internal movement of pests/diseases/unsafe foodstuffs.”

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman shares my concern that Professor Dougan also draws attention to the fact that policies that already exist under the auspices of the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, if they were to be adapted, might then fall within the scope of this Bill. These are popular policies that we have made to cut our own path in the past, and yet this now threatens their future.

[Drew Hendry]

Indeed—I agree. In fact, Professor Dougan has said:

“I do not share UKGov’s apparent assumption that regulatory divergence is inherently problematic and must be strictly controlled, by imposing extensive limits (in effect) on the ability of devolved institutions to make different choices from Westminster”.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his very carefully crafted amendment 89, which would mean a race to the top as opposed to the race to the bottom that he has alluded to.

[Drew Hendry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. Of course, that is where we all should be aiming—a race to the top. That should be the principle that is being set by elected Members in the Parliaments that they are elected to represent, yet we find here a complete travesty of that.

Devolution has proved that the market can successfully operate across the UK with variations in standards. This Bill’s proposals work against the interests of our high-quality producers and our consumers. As the National Farmers Union of Scotland explained in its submission to the UK Government’s White Paper consultation, the proposals for the UK internal market, in the absence of effective common frameworks, could trigger a race to the bottom. In a Scottish context at the very least, they could force a choice between upholding high standards of production or maintaining the competitiveness of agricultural businesses.

The existing common frameworks were designed to manage cross-UK divergence where EU law and competences intersect. They do not need to be supplemented or undermined. Scottish Environment Link is clear that the UK Government’s plans could

“force Scotland to follow the lowest common denominator, especially where countries negotiating bilateral trade deals with the UK demand lower standards seriously undermining efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity decline.”

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I am interested in why the hon. Gentleman seems to assume that any standards legislated for in this Parliament would inherently always be lower, as he puts it. Why would that necessarily be the case?

[Drew Hendry]

Perhaps you should ask your hon. and right hon. Friends on your Back Benches who voted against your own Back Benchers’ amendments to protect—

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he should not address another hon. Member directly. When he uses the word “you”, he is talking about me, and I am sure he would not want to do that.

[Drew Hendry]

You will notice, Dame Rosie, that it is a very uncommon mistake I have made, in that case. I take the scolding in good grace. Thank you, indeed.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to ask his colleagues why they voted five times on the Trade Bill and the Agriculture Bill against protecting these standards. We know—the Scottish public know—what this is all about. They are not daft; they see this. They see that this grubby attempt to make sure that we can get a deal—any deal as long as it is not with the EU—is the reason these things are being sacrificed.

This Tory UK Government do not care about the views of the experts that we have quoted here today or of the groups that are concerned about these issues. They do not want to hear those views. They simply want to oversee the biggest power grab in the history of devolution.

Clause 48 reserves state aid. We know that state aid provisions will mirror those of the World Trade Organisation, making an already diminished deal option with the EU even more difficult. Incidentally, Tory claims about the constraints imposed by EU state aid rules are inevitably always exaggerated. Automatic approvals applied to nearly 95% of state aid last year, and this year the EU acted swiftly to sign off on a raft of Government help to aid industry during the pandemic.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the manner in which authorisations are given? Stating that it has been approved is one thing, but the way in which it has been arrived at—behind closed doors and without anybody knowing how it has been done—is a really big problem.

[Drew Hendry]

It beggars belief that this kind of intervention attacking EU procedures is being made when the Bill will directly give powers not only to the UK Government to overrule devolution, but to the Secretary of State himself to overrule essentially anything that he wants to. I will return to that point in a moment. The Bill directly undermines the Scottish Parliament’s ability to protect Scottish farmers’ livelihoods. Cheaper meat will drive out quality production. The ability to choose the highest standards in environmental protection and in building control and the ability to keep our NHS and water in public hands will all be affected. The UK Government want private companies to be given a guaranteed right to trade unhindered in Scotland. The UK Government claim that there are exclusions from the principles of non-discrimination, but that is absolutely blown out of the water by the fact that the Secretary of State will retain

“a power to alter these exclusions.”

The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) wants a backdoor deal. Well, there is one for him; he can do it in the Cabinet Room.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Drew Hendry]

No, I will make some progress on this.

That is regardless of the views of the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It does not matter what the devolved Assemblies or Parliaments are saying, that is the ability that the Secretary of State has.

The Law Society Of Scotland warns that clause 8(7) empowers the Secretary of State to amend by adding, varying or removing an aim in clause 8(6). This is a very wide power, and regulations are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Unlike other order-making powers earlier in the Bill, the Secretary of State is under no obligation to consult the devolved Administrations before making such regulations. The Government should explain why clause 8 adopts a different approach from the earlier clauses in this respect.

The real threat to trade comes not from what could have been agreed on common frameworks across the nations of the UK, but from this Tory Government’s incompetent handling of the process to agree a deal with the EU. Their lofty ambitions are now, at best, low deal or no deal following their decision to remove Scotland against its wishes, and of course the rest of the UK, from the EU, a prosperous and highly integrated market no less, with an integrated trade and regulatory partnership of 450 million customers, along with the associated social vandalism that this has inflicted.

By the way, we hear that we should trust this Government. Just in case anybody is under the illusion that we can rely on the altruism of Westminster, they should listen to the words of Tory Luke Graham, who lost his seat in this place in December. Even he could see that it is foolish to do so. He said in this very Parliament:

“To reiterate my point and the frustration that I have felt since I have been in this place, sometimes…it appears that the Treasury is not so much a British Treasury but an English Treasury, which becomes incredibly frustrating for people trying to fight for projects in Scottish constituencies.—[Official Report, 15 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 368WH.]

That was a Tory MP who was in this House until December last year.

The UK Government are breaking international law and devolution. The mutual recognition mechanism fires the starting gun on a race to the bottom on standards, with the UK Government imposing those standards on Scotland against our will. This Bill oversees the biggest power grab since the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament. As I said earlier, the real threat to trade is the looming no deal or low deal that the Government are railroading through with the EU. It is now clear for all in Scotland to see that the only way to represent the public needs and to protect our way of life and our hard-won Parliament is through becoming an independent nation, taking our own place as an equal partner within the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

I am always extremely aware of other points of view—I have been subjected to them for the past 35 years in this House, but so far they have not prevailed. I am clear in my mind about the benefits of the United Kingdom as a whole, on all these matters—there are so many aspects that we do not have time to go into today—but state aid is central to the whole question of maintaining our spirit of enterprise. It is central to the degree to which we can provide tax incentives to facilitate and encourage UK jobs for the whole UK, including Scotland. It is central to our ability to encourage competitiveness, based on our own laws, and level up throughout the entire country, including Scotland. This is fundamental stuff.

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman discussed the situation in the 1950s and ’60s, and I know that he likes to dwell on that era. I note that he conveniently airbrushed Margaret Thatcher out of the demise of the coal industry in Scotland. For his information, we have trust ports in Scotland, too. Does he get the irony of arguing about another body’s interference in an elected Parliament’s ability to make decisions while he is making this argument? That is exactly what is happening to the Scottish Parliament through the Bill.

[Sir William Cash]

That is interesting, because the counterpoint to that—the hon. Gentleman would expect me to come back with this—is to ask why on earth the people of Scotland would want to subjugate themselves to the European Union system, which we are escaping from, when it has such deleterious and tragic consequences for so many people and jobs in Scotland, as well as in Wales and England. He argues that Scotland can do this better, but I tell him that the consequences of staying in the European Union would be extremely damaging.

We have made it clear that the laws would continue under the protocol, as we discussed yesterday. I know that from the advice and analysis that we are doing in the European Scrutiny Committee, and the Cabinet Office Minister is coming to see the Committee very soon to discuss all these questions. Given the manner in which the European Union functions—as I have said, behind closed doors and without even a transcript—and with the wholly unelected European Commission making the authorisations, the system is very bad news for Scotland. It will be no substitute for having these things handled in an objective and down-to-earth way by the Minister; I have no doubt that he will ensure that the people of Scotland are looked after properly.

This is a bread-and-butter issue for those who work in our economy. It is about putting food on the table, into the indefinite future, for all voters, whether they are Conservative, Labour, DUP, SNP or others. It is similarly important for those voters’ representatives in this House. If Members vote against the Bill, they will have to explain to every one of their constituents, including those in Labour constituencies—I am not looking at anybody in particular or making a point about that, because we represent the whole country through different political parties—why our economy and voters’ jobs and businesses have continued to be undermined by unfair and discriminatory EU state aid and other uncompetitive lawmaking.

The Bill will ensure, among other things, that the UK escapes unfair discrimination under the EU state aid regime, which I mentioned yesterday in relation to the steel industry. The voters in the red wall know this, as do their parents, including those in coalfield communities. I became vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coalfield communities—this is going back five or 10 years—because I understood, as did many Labour Members from Mansfield and all over the country, how important those communities are. I even got up the other day and spoke in the House about pension arrangements for coalminers. We need to take account of the fact that the state aid rules cause total misery and tragedy, and ultimately the destruction of our coal and steel industries.

--- Later in debate ---

It is claimed that the Bill is needed to protect British producers, but clauses 2 and 5 refer also to goods that are “imported into” or that “pass through” any part of the UK. This is not about UK producers, which already meet high standards; it is clear that, despite all the rhetoric and protestations, it is about either lowering UK standards or accepting lower-quality products to achieve a trade deal. That concern is heightened by the UK Government’s repeated refusal in the proceedings on the Agriculture Bill or the Trade Bill to protect food standards or exclude the NHS and other public services from future trade deals. Indeed, there is no guarantee of preserving minimum standards on anything.

[Drew Hendry]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it tells a huge story that the Government have voted against those kinds of protections on 10 occasions?

[Dr Whitford]

Absolutely. An amendment was tabled by one of their own Members—the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)—to protect food standards in farming.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I beg to move amendment 28, page 20, line 31, leave out “, Scotland”.

This amendment would exempt from the operation of Part 4 (independent advice on and monitoring of UK internal market) regulatory provisions applying in Scotland which did not apply to the whole of the UK.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause 28 stand part.

Amendment 29, in clause 29, page 21, line 3, at the beginning insert

“Following legislative approval from all devolved administrations,”.

This amendment would ensure that the CMA may only undertake a review following legislative approval from all devolved administrations.

Clauses 29 to 34 stand part.

Amendment 21, in clause 35, page 26, line 16, at end insert—

“(1A) Prior to publishing the information in subsection (1) the CMA must consult the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland about how it is to approach the exercise of its functions.”

The intention of this amendment is to ensure that the devolved administrations are consulted before the CMA determines how to exercise its functions in regard to the UK Internal Market.

Clauses 35 to 37 stand part.

Amendment 30, in clause 38, page 29, line 22, after “must” insert

“obtain the agreement of the devolved administrations and”.

This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State cannot decide amount for penalties with CMA without agreement from devolved administrations.

Clauses 38 and 39 stand part.

New clause 1—Dispute resolution mechanism—

“(1) Within the period of two months after the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland about how any disputes relating to the functioning of the internal market will be resolved between the four parts of the United Kingdom.

(2) Within the period of three months after the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a report detailing how any disputes relating to the functioning of the internal market will be resolved between the four parts of the United Kingdom.

(3) Any dispute resolution mechanism established by the Secretary of State must provide for representation from each nation of the United Kingdom.”

The intention of this clause is to help resolve the functioning of the internal market between the four nations of the United Kingdom.

New clause 2—Limits on powers to override common frameworks—

“The Secretary of State shall not make any order or regulations under this or any other Act of Parliament that has the effect of imposing lower standards on Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, in any area for which a common framework—

(a) has been agreed,

(b) is in development, or

(c) becomes necessary,

unless, where subsection (b) or (c) above applies, the Secretary of State judges that a reasonable period has passed and the negotiations have failed to reach agreement, and a draft of the order or regulations has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.”

This new clause puts common frameworks on a statutory footing. Where there is a common framework agreed, Ministers would not be able to override them through secondary legislation to impose lower standards on devolved nations. Where a common framework was in development, or a new common framework became necessary, Ministers could not impose standards until the negotiation of common frameworks had taken place between the nations of the UK and failed to reach agreement after a reasonable period. The UK Parliament would be the ultimate arbiter of standards if reasonable agreement could not be reached.

New clause 3—Duty to consult, monitor and report—

“The CMA has a duty to consult with all relevant national authorities and shall produce monitoring reports on

(a) changes in standards, and

(b) assessments of whether standards have been met.”

New clause 4—Appointment of members to the Competition and Markets Authority board by the devolved administrations—

“(1) Schedule 4 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 is amended as follows.

(2) After sub-paragraph 1(1) insert—

‘(1A) The members appointed under sub-paragraph (1)(b) must include—

(a) a member appointed by the Scottish Ministers,

(b) a member appointed by the Welsh Ministers, and

(c) a member appointed by the ministers of the Northern Ireland Executive.’”

This new clause gives the devolved administrations the power to each appoint a member to the board of the Competition and Markets Authority.

[Drew Hendry]

Dame Rosie, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I rise to talk to amendments 28 to 30 in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

When the Institute for Government warned that

“it is not clear how disputes around the functioning of the internal market will be managed”,

it opened up the yawning and damning gap in the plans for the governance of the internal market. As a result of ditching co-operation over common frameworks, this Government propose to fill the gap with an Office for the Internal Market—an unelected quango. I will return to the composition of that body shortly. The Office for the Internal Market will have an effective veto over the Scottish Parliament, and the subsequent result is that devolution will be hamstrung. This is yet another step in introducing a system where standards are set by Westminster and they must be accepted by Scotland in devolved areas.

Analysis by the Scottish Government has revealed that successful Scottish policies such as alcohol minimum unit pricing, our policy on tuition fees and the ban on smoking in public places would be among the Bills referred to the Office for the Internal Market. That has been opposed by many bodies who have shone a light on this. The National Farmers Union Scotland has raised a series of concerns about the function of the Office for the Internal Market’s dispute resolution mechanism in managing policy differences, ensuring that the UK Government do not have the final say on areas of devolved policy, including agriculture, and enabling the devolved Administrations to act where it is considered that a policy aligning in a particular manner is unfavourable to devolved interests such as agriculture.

Of course, it would not have to worry about that if the UK Government had simply continued work on common frameworks. Common frameworks are designed to manage cross-UK divergence where EU law and devolved competencies intersect, including in relation to the functioning of the UK domestic market, together with existing processes for regulatory impact assessment and existing structures for regulatory co-operation and information sharing. Let us be clear: they do not need to be supplemented or undermined by a new, unelected body.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Does this not get to the crunch? Government Members keep asking what powers are being taken away from the Scottish Parliament. My hon. Friend is outlining it—the power that is being taken away is the power to make all these decisions. The Scottish Parliament is going to be trumped by an unelected, unrepresentative body, instead of having agreements between the devolved Governments and the UK Government on the framework basis, which should be being implemented.

[Drew Hendry]

I could not agree more. This simply does not have to happen. Scotland does not need it, and Scotland does not want it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Duguid)]

So you say.

[Drew Hendry]

Yes, I am saying that, but that is also what the National Farmers Union is saying. It is also what the Institute for Government has pointed out. A number of other bodies have pointed out that this is just not necessary. We have something that we could work with, with co-operation, but of course, the UK Government do not want co-operation, consultation and working together. They just want to impose their will, and that is what they are trying to do again.

This Bill not only undermines the basic foundations of devolution but goes further, hitting all existing mechanisms for co-operation and the development of common frameworks. It is not this abomination that is required; it is the establishment of the common frameworks mutually agreed, developed and implemented through consent, with effective governance and processes for regulatory impact.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman called the Office for the Internal Market an unelected quango. Does he accept that, if he had his way, he would be handing powers back to unelected quangos in Brussels?

[Drew Hendry]

This is the argument that Government Members try to propagate all the time—that if these powers came to Scotland, they would immediately be transferred to unelected people in the EU. Two things are wrong with that. First, nobody in the EU is actually unelected when they make decisions; they are all elected by either the Parliament or the people who go there. The second and most fundamental point is that, under these proposals, the UK Government are simply taking all control and overriding the ability of Members of the Scottish Parliament to do their job by representing the people who voted for them and their choices.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Drew Hendry]

I will make some progress.

The UK Government say that they want to

“guarantee the continued right of all UK companies to trade unhindered in every part of the UK.”

Under this proposal, businesses simply have to have deep enough pockets to challenge the democratic decisions of the Scottish Parliament and the Members elected by the people of Scotland to represent and make decisions further for them. For some, it will be “Sale of the Century” or “Bargain Hunt” as they go looking for these things. For those who set their sights on Scottish domestic choices, it does not stretch the imagination much to picture private health companies or private water companies operating in England looking at our publicly owned organisations and seeking to claim that, under the UK Government’s auspices, they have a guaranteed right to trade in Scotland. That is the first big flashing red light here.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I agree with the points that my hon. Friend is making. Is he as concerned as I am to find that when the CMA arbitrates on a dispute, it does not have to publish the report of its finding, on the basis that such a report contains

“commercial information whose disclosure the CMA thinks might significantly harm the legitimate business interests”

of any person? That means that the CMA could well cover up the report of any dispute in favour of private business.

[Drew Hendry]

Exactly; my hon. Friend makes a telling point. To say that the protections are opaque would be an exaggeration, because they are nowhere near as good as that.

[Richard Fuller]

I am keen, as I mentioned yesterday, to learn more about some of the points of view that the hon. Gentleman is expressing. In the absence of a common frameworks agreement, if it were not possible to get reconciliation between the constituent nations of the country on what the regulations should be, what would be the implications for business?

[Drew Hendry]

The problem with that question is that there is already, as I mentioned at the start of my remarks, a process for dealing with that—the common frameworks. I am saying that the UK Government do not have to take this hammer and smash devolution in order to organise things so that business can co-operate and work across the different nations of the UK, taking cognisance of the choices made by those nations’ individual Parliaments.

I turn to the composition of the Office for the Internal Market, and I would be grateful if the Minister intervened and gave me some answers to these questions. Who are these people? Who will sit down in judgment over the democratically made decisions of the Scottish Parliament? Do we know yet? Do we have any idea? These words from the Prime Minister—he was talking about the EU, of course—are coming back on him, as so many of his outpourings do:

“They may decide that now is the time—even though electorates are already feeling alienated from the political process—to hand sensitive decisions…to unelected bureaucrats.”

But that is what he has decided to do. He has decided to hand these decisions to unelected bureaucrats.

What grace-and-favour appointments will there be to this body? Will any of them have links to the many vested interests that apparently find it so easy to pick up contracts from this Government? The fact that that is something we can only guess at underlines how dangerous this proposal is for Scottish people and communities. We reject the idea of this body of unelected, unknown bureaucrats having power over the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people.

The SNP has tabled amendments 28, 29 and 30, which are in my name and those of my hon. Friends. Amendment 28 would exempt from the operation of part 4, which deals with independent advice on and monitoring of the UK market, regulatory provisions applying in Scotland that did not apply to the whole of the UK. Via this amendment, the SNP wants Scotland to be removed from part 4 of the Bill, because it undermines devolution.

Decisions made by our elected representatives must be upheld, and this proposal to overrule the Scottish Parliament is a democratic outrage. Let us be clear that we cannot and will not accept this legislation in any form. Under the unelected Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister is forcing this power grab through, despite overwhelming opposition from Scotland’s Parliament and MPs. It proves that Scotland will never, ever be accepted as an equal partner in the UK. It attacks the foundations of devolution and gives Westminster and an unelected quango a free hand to overrule the Scottish Parliament in devolved areas, threatening our NHS, our food and our environmental standards. It fires the starting pistol on a race to the bottom.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I fully agree with amendment 28, which is very well drafted. The same should apply to Wales and Northern Ireland, because it would allay any fears in the respective devolved countries of the UK that the British Government are using the UK Internal Market Bill to torpedo devolution.

[Drew Hendry]

Indeed, and this is a matter that does not just affect Scotland, as the hon. Gentleman said. Even the Labour-run Welsh Government have come out to stand against these measures.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman has made some strong points, but does he agree that it does not have to be this way? He will know that our Counsel General, Jeremy Miles, has been giving evidence alongside one of the Scottish Ministers this morning to a Committee in this place. He spoke of the engagement and discussion they had had with the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and how that completely dried up at the start of this year, so much so that they did not even get the details of the Bill until the night before it was published.

[Drew Hendry]

That sort of attitude towards what should be co-operation over our common interest underlines the contempt that has been shown for the devolved nations. It is yet another example.

As I have said, we cannot and will not accept this legislation in any form. All the Bill does is simply and plainly underline why the democratic choices that represent Scottish people and the protection of our Parliament can only be delivered through the powers of independence for Scotland, so that it can take its place as an independent nation among the other independent nations of the world.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The arguments that I have just heard from the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) are, in my judgment, completely unjustified. [Interruption.] He might expect me to say that; it is hardly surprising. The reality is that the Bill is intended to provide for independent advice and monitoring through the creation of this internal market within the Competition and Markets Authority arrangements. What the provision clearly states—far from it being just a bunch of nodding donkeys, which is more or less what the hon. Gentleman is saying—is that it will be a non-ministerial department, albeit sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and it will have an enormous amount and range of experience and knowledge brought from its predecessor.

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, especially as I just recently concluded my remarks, but can he confirm two things for me? Who will be on the body, and who has—he will know the answer to this—the final say over this body?

[Sir William Cash]

What I can say for sure is that it will not be the European Union, and that summarises the argument in a nutshell. It is something I spoke about in the debate only yesterday, where I made it entirely clear that there is one thing we have to be absolutely clear about, and this Government, as compared with the previous Administration, have made it clear. In relation to that vast range of state aids that I mentioned yesterday—they are effectively decided by the European Commission and imposed on our own companies and our own internal economic sovereignty at the moment, but we are now going to insist on retrieving them, and we have retrieved them by leaving the European Union—the position is simply this: the manner in which the European Court and the European Commission operate needs to be revised, reviewed and abandoned for the purposes of ensuring that in the United Kingdom, we have a competition policy that enables us to be able to compete fairly, not only throughout the whole world, but also in relation to the European Union.

It is well known that the question of state aids, which goes across such a wide range of matters, as I mentioned yesterday, causes an enormous amount of problems in many sectors of the British economy. We have to be able to compete effectively. We have just heard a statement on coronavirus. The damage that has come about as a result of this uncontrollable—or virtually uncontrollable—disease, which has infected so many people, affects the operations of our businesses and has created a great deal of economic dislocation. We will need to be able to compete effectively throughout the world. This is a serious matter about a serious issue. What we cannot have, as I mentioned yesterday, is the situation that we have at the moment, which is where authorisations are given by the European Commission that either create discrimination against British businesses or have the perception or the potential for doing so. They will affect the voters in Scotland—and the voters in Sheffield, if I may say so. I was brought up in Sheffield. I saw what the European Coal and Steel Community did to the British steel industry. [Interruption.] I hear what the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) says. The reality is that those businesses were driven out of business by, in many cases, unfair subsidies and unfair state aids that were given to other member states. I can give an example. I happened to know many people who worked at the coalface—I used to play cricket with them when I played for Sheffield—and I can tell Members that the Sheffield steelworkers, whom I also played with on occasion, sometimes it was rugger, found that they were very severely jeopardised by the massive state aids that were given to the German coal industry—it was as much as £4 billion—and authorised by the Commission. For a variety of reasons, we did not get the same kind of treatment here in the United Kingdom. This is all part of the problem of how to have fair and reasonable competition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Dame Rosie—that was unexpected. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and to have the opportunity to raise some general points and specific questions relating to the clauses under consideration today.

Overall, I am very supportive of the Bill, but, as with any substantial change, caution, checking and prudence should be part of the Government’s process. When I look at regulations and regulatory frameworks—which perhaps I do a little too often—uppermost in my mind is the quality of the regulations or framework, their effectiveness, their relevance, and whether we have the correct allocation of decision authorities given the different parts of the United Kingdom or different groups for which the regulations are being made.

On that last point, I want to pick up on some of the issues that animated the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) and perhaps others in their questions about the choice of a common approach compared with a common framework. I should perhaps know more about this area, but it is alluded to in paragraph 8 on page 5 of the explanatory notes to the Bill, which states:

“As part of its vision for the UK internal market, the Government is also engaging in a process to agree a common approach to regulatory alignment with the devolved administrations. The Common Frameworks Programme aims to protect the UK internal market by providing high levels of regulatory coherence in specific policy areas through close collaboration with devolved administrations.”

Where is that in the Bill or today’s considerations? What is the Government’s current thinking around engaging in a process to agree a common approach as part of their vision, as the explanatory notes state?

I did not get an answer from the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey to my question about how disputes would be resolved in a common frameworks approach, which seems like a fundamental issue.

[Drew Hendry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to make good my deficit in not answering his question fully. I am happy to try to do so now. I understand that before the Bill was introduced, the Joint Ministerial Committee, with Ministers on both sides, was working on a programme, with some success, I understand, by which all these issues could have been ironed out in a collaborative and consultative way with each of the Governments of the devolved nations, but that has now been torn asunder. I look forward to the answer to the question about how this collaboration will work in the future, given that the Bill simply overlays that with an unelected quango and the ability for the BEIS Secretary and this Parliament to make the ultimate decision.

[Richard Fuller]

I think I have the answer—it might not be the one he thinks he is conveying—which is, there is none. There is no answer to how disputes will be resolved because it does not appear that that has actually been achieved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

Was it not just this Sunday that a UK Government Minister refused to rule out our having to import and sell chlorinated chicken? The product is chlorinated due to the filth of animals living in the cage among pests.

[Alyn Smith]

Absolutely. We are deeply concerned on behalf of Scotland’s farmers—and, indeed, everybody else’s—that trade deals could see a lowering of standards. Mutual recognition of the UK internal market could undermine the capacity of the different authorities to have those rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

That is why I am going through the clauses and amendments at Committee stage to keep the focus on what is so important—what businesses expect us to do. I will not go through all the clauses, for reasons of brevity, but I am happy to follow up with anybody who wants to do that as we go through the rest of the Bill’s stages.

Amendment 30 would require the Secretary of State to obtain the agreement of the devolved Administrations before the Secretary of State specifies the level of financial penalties in secondary legislation in cases of non-compliance with the information-gathering requirements of the CMA. I am happy to reassure the Committee that the Government are committed to not taking any steps to bring the financial penalties into effect by commencing the clause until there is clear and credible evidence that there is a need to do so to enable the CMA to fulfil its internal market functions under the Bill. The amendment would also require the Secretary of State to consult with other relevant persons before making the necessary regulations. I want to confirm that the devolved Administrations would be consulted as other persons the Secretary of State considers appropriate, so they do fit within that.

On new clause 2, we are committed to maintaining high standards across the UK. That is absolutely vital. There are effectively two strands of this debate: first, the devolved Administrations; and secondly, concern—understandable concern—about standards. We have said repeatedly that we are committed to maintaining high standards across the UK, so I am pleased to have the opportunity to set out how we are already working with the devolved Administrations to ensure that this will be done.

I thank the hon. Members for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) and for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) for their passionate remarks in favour of common frameworks and the high standards that we have here in the UK. The new clause, though, seeks to fundamentally alter the nature of the common frameworks programme, the design of which was agreed by the UK Government and devolved Administrations in October 2017 at the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations. The principles agreed made it clear that the common frameworks are based on consensus and are designed to establish continuing dialogue between the UK Government and devolved Administrations. This dialogue facilitates policy development in a range of policy areas where powers returning from the EU intersect with devolved competence.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire rightly asked what underpins those common frameworks. Common frameworks provide an agreed approach to ensuring regulatory coherence across the UK in specific policy areas where powers are returning from the EU and intersect with devolved competence. The Bill, on the other hand, works alongside these common frameworks to provide a broader structural underpinning, and offers additional protections to the status quo of UK trade, ensuring certainty for businesses and investors in the form of a backstop—if I may say that—of regulatory coherence. The UK Government continue to work closely and constructively with the devolved Administrations. It would not be appropriate to create a legislative underpinning for UK common frameworks because this is about consultation, collaboration and working together with the Administrations rather than legislating to push them to do so.

In conclusion, in the debate we have had today, we started off with some misunderstandings about common frameworks—we have five frameworks coming before Christmas, including for food standards. We have talked about whether water and the national health service were at risk in Scotland, both of which are not within the scope of the Bill. This is really important: when one starts reading the Bill, one has to get to the last page, because that is where the schedule of exclusions is. It is important to do that, before we posture here in this House about something. As I say, businesses are crying out, “Do not do the politics. Let us trade across the UK.” That is what they are crying out for. That is what they want. So I hope that the amendments will be not be pressed and then we can get on with getting this Bill through the House.

[Drew Hendry]

Mr Evans, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I must admit I am still reeling somewhat from the irony of the Government opposing amendment 29 on the basis of political intrusion.

We have heard today from those who support independence and from those who are diehard Unionists in this Chamber. We have heard the concerns of the Welsh Government. Can I say that it is not a manufactured grievance to have these concerns from the Welsh Government, because they are genuine concerns? But that is true for Scotland, too. These are not manufactured problems; these are real-world problems.

I have to say that the Labour Front-Bench speech was warmly welcomed by those on the Conservative Benches today. The party that brought devolution in—the party of John Smith—undermining devolution in the way it did during that speech deserves some proper reflection.

In this debate, we have heard some warm words, but again, we have had absolutely no detail on how this is actually going to be protecting devolution. It is not. We have had no detail on the Office for the Internal Market. Who is going to be in that unelected body? How can we vouch for the integrity of anybody when we do not know who is going to be on that body and who is going to elect them—or who is going to appoint them, I should say?

The Minister talked about alcohol minimum pricing, which by definition is a discriminatory policy in Scotland. How can that possibly be protected under these measures? It cannot be. If we choose in Scotland and if the Scottish people vote for policies aimed at public health that cause the problem, the Bill still undermines the ability to do that.

The Government are determined to continue with their programme of overriding the Scottish Parliament and its elected representatives, and this underlines the fact that Scotland will never be seen as an equal member of the UK. We do not accept this. The people in Scotland are saying, and it is reported in poll after poll, that the only way to protect our Parliament is to be an independent nation.

Mr Evans, I press our amendment 28.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee proceeded to a Division.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Will all non-Front Benchers leave the Chamber behind me, please, and then join the queue in Westminster Hall? Remember to socially distance please as you leave. Thank you very much.

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and in particular to my roles as a director of companies.

Like the Opposition, I welcome the changes that the Government are accepting in the Bill today. I have listened to a couple of interventions from the Opposition Benches, with their strong support for Government measures to support the economy, and that is emblematic of how successful they have been. However, I would just gently warn my hon. Friend the Minister that we have made great progress so far, but there are issues, as we emerge, about how those programmes are helping certain people, while other people are not receiving that support. We need to get the economy going back to normal business principles as quickly as possible, not seek to extend Government intervention unnecessarily or for too long.

This Bill is a very timely Bill and it is a good Bill. As the shadow Minister said, there is a mixture of short and long-term issues here, but getting this on the books is really rather important for the market. May I ask the Minister, building on some other comments about the changes in the role of the Pensions Regulator and the PPF, whether he sees this as part of a longer-term view of the Government about the role of pensions regulators in insolvency, and whether this is an indication of something that may outlast and be outwith any short-term changes? I would be interested in his perspectives on that.

I am not sure if the Bill continues to relate to the primacy of HMRC as a creditor in insolvencies, but I would be interested if the Minister has any observations on that. I know that, for many businesses when they are trying to seek resolution in insolvency, HMRC can prove to be one of the most difficult creditors to deal with—and that is putting it perhaps a little lightly. So do the Government have the intention of providing, or does the Treasury have any intention of providing, any guidance on how HMRC may be treating its obligations during this particular period? For many companies, that would be a welcome piece of information as they go through what may otherwise be very difficult periods.

May I ask the Minister about the extension to 30 September? That seems to be a very sensible change, but may I ask him about what happens in the event that there is a repeat lockdown that is a national lockdown? He has talked a bit about an affirmative decision here. That, it seems to me, is perhaps a bit more focused than that. Perhaps more tellingly, what happens in the instance where there is a localised lockdown in a particular county or a particular region that affects businesses there and they go insolvent? What happens to those particular businesses? I would be interested to see if the Minister has some thoughts on that.

My final observation, Mr Deputy Speaker—and you, with your great experience, may know this too—is that frequently measures that come into this House that are seen as short-term measures have a habit of sticking around on the statute book. So could I have, on the sunny-side view of the recovery of the economy, an absolute assurance from the Government that it is their intention, as these things sit, as the economy recovers, that they will implement the sunset clause, and they will come forward so that we can enable businesses to go back to the longer-term framework, some of which is in this Bill, for managing corporate insolvency?

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Can I also thank the Minister for the collaborative and refreshing way, given his Government’s record, of engaging across the Benches to take this legislation through? I will come to my constructive criticisms in due course.

The areas I want to expand on are, basically, that we accept the Lords amendments and, within that, seek assurances from the Minister, his Secretary of State and his Government that they will work with the trade unions to ensure that workers are adequately protected, acknowledging that, while the Bill is a welcome step, the help it will give firms to get through the covid-19 crisis is going to be a drop in the ocean of the challenges they face. If this Tory Government are serious about reducing insolvency, they need to do much more. They should then support the Scottish National party’s amendments to the Finance Bill to prevent HMRC’s vulture powers from taking effect.

We welcome the technical changes made through the Lords amendments, not least the fact that the Scottish Parliament can play its full role in matters relating to clause 43. That is extremely welcome. It is also welcome to see the Government make concessions to Lord Stephen to ensure that directors will have responsibility for informing employees about moratorium arrangements and reassuring them about their conditions in the future. The Minister and the Government must provide assurances that they will continue to engage with trade unions and give an unequivocal guarantee that workers’ rights will not diminish as a result of the Bill.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) was very kind in her criticisms. I am going to be a bit more direct. The swathes of Government amendments required in the Lords are indicative of the Government’s ongoing failure to grasp the details of the measures they propose—that is notwithstanding the very good engagement I have already referred to by the Minister here today. It is not the way to take such important matters forward.

As I said earlier, we welcome the measures, especially the provision of a short business rescue moratorium to protect companies from creditor action while options are considered; the new court-based restructuring tool; and new rules to prevent suppliers from cancelling contracts with businesses in an insolvency procedure. They are all helpful to business, as is the temporary suspension of the wrongful trading provisions to give company directors greater confidence to use their best endeavours as they continue to trade during this pandemic emergency, without the threat of personal liability should the company ultimately fall into insolvency. Importantly, we are keeping the existing laws for fraudulent trading and potential director disqualification to deter director misconduct—so far, so good.

The main and most pressing issue, however, is that these measures do not address the mountain of corporate debt that will prevent firms from investing to rebuild the economy. With reports that less than half the bounce-back loans will not be repaid, it is high time that recipients of the bounce-back loan scheme and coronavirus business interruption loan scheme debt were offered the chance of that debt being turned into equity instead. It is simply unrealistic to expect economic growth while numbing investment, crushing productivity and adding to corporate debt.

To be serious about avoiding insolvency, much more attention will need to be paid to the breadth of effects. Even businesses that survive will face a much longer road to recovery, especially in sectors such as tourism, hospitality and the arts. Without meaningful action, jobs will be lost and communities scarred, probably for decades. The effect on those sectors and others means that the brunt will be borne by thousands of people in the gig economy and on zero-hours contracts—and disproportionately by young people.

The Minister said that he wanted to make a commitment to supporting local economies. It is important that he takes that message back to the Chancellor because, when redundancies come, businesses will focus on those who will cost them the least to release: the low paid; those with no contract; and, as I have said, younger people. I have to declare an interest here as a father who still has two teenagers in the house, and, of course, as a newly-surprised grandparent of my new grandson Cameron Hendry. I want to ensure that all young people have a future to look forward to that is not going to be hampered by decades of retrenchment. [Interruption.] Indeed, Cameron Hendry. It is a fine name, isn’t it?

To get back to the serious point, although the hospitality sector is hopeful of some meagre income in the dying embers of the season, it has effectively faced a three winter situation. It may get 15% to 20% of that which July would normally bring, and maybe a bit more in August, if it is lucky. I have been engaging with and listening to the industry’s concerns, which are similar in tourist areas across the nations of the UK.

Current hotel occupancy rates seem to be below 10%. In my own constituency, the owner of the Kingsmills Hotel Group, Tony Story, told me that his company will have to bear the cost of an additional 15% to 20% per room for electrostatic spraying and hospital-grade cleaning in his hotels. That experience has been reflected by other smaller hotel owners across the sector.



They need the Minister, his Secretary of State and his Government to implore the Chancellor to extend furlough support in the sector beyond this year. As it stands, because of the changes—because of the contribution they will have to pay towards furlough—they will lose more money opening their businesses than when they were closed. It makes no sense to punish them in that way. The furlough scheme has been of great help; we have mentioned that many times and supported it. That is why it is important that it continues in order to avoid insolvencies that may come out of this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful to the Minister for his kind comments. I would say in passing that there has to be at least one good Cameron mentioned in this House.

I have asked about a range of things, in addition to the HMRC issue, that are not within the Minister’s direct power. One of them was supporting minor changes to borrowing powers to allow the Scottish Government to take decisions themselves to support economies locally. That is important, as he said. Will he take that forward with his colleagues in order to make sure that we can have those measures taken in Scotland?

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Clearly, these are all things that we will continue to look at.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the hospitality sector. Let me reassure him that the Government recognise that this sector is particularly hard hit by closure. I have regular conversations with representatives of the hospitality sector, including, most recently, only yesterday. They were very pleased and optimistic about the fact that we have now been able to change the rules within England and start giving them the certainty that they need to reopen. I look forward to successful reopening in England and, in time, in Scotland as well. It is so important that we work with the hospitality sector. The three winters issue that he described has been raised with me and I do appreciate it.

This shows the interlinking of the economy. I also hold the position of Minister for London. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) talked about culture. With regard to the hotel sector in London, people do not tend to go to a hotel just to sleep in another bed—they come, they sleep and they go because of the theatres, the restaurants and the culture around the area. It is therefore important that we get each of these sectors up and running. That is why we have these frequent discussions and work as collaboratively as we can. That also gives us the understanding we need in order to inform our support. A range of hospitality bodies and companies were consulted on the safer workplaces guidance, for example.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park talked of striking a balance, which is what we have tried to do in this Bill. I am grateful to her colleagues for making the point so clearly that measures are needed for longer. I hope she will agree that the Government have taken on board those concerns. She also spoke about the theatre sector. I know the Orange Tree. I tend to know the Orange Tree pub next door a little bit better than I do the theatre, but I know the great work that it does in the community. I will take her concerns back to colleagues.

Let me take this opportunity to thank the House of Commons Public Bill Office and the House Clerks for ensuring that this vital piece of legislation could be expedited through the House and consequently come into force as a matter of urgency. The support they have provided has been invaluable. I thank the officials who have brought this legislation into existence: my Bill team of Andy Ormerod-Clarke, Muneera Lula, Jess Bradbury, James Roddy and Alice Roycroft. All those in the teams in BEIS and the Insolvency Service—there are too many mention—have worked tirelessly, across weekends and in the evenings, to make sure that we could bring this to bear as quickly as possible. I want to mention the lawyers who have worked day and night, some of them with very young children, to draft this legislation: in particular, Jo Ashida, Denise Fawcett, Samihah El-Gindy, David Anderson, and our lead parliamentary counsel, Diggory Bailey.

I pay tribute to the policy leads, some of whom have worked in this area for many years, and who have worked with outside experts to make sure that we had the measures right: Steve Chown, Simon Whiting, Laura Bardsley, Rob Mak and many, many more. Colleagues from HMT, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the DWP have also been invaluable. I pay tribute to all the organisations and representatives of businesses, consumers, workers, shareholders, investors and insolvency experts who have engaged with us in developing these proposals.

I conclude by mentioning those for whom this Bill is intended: the millions of business owners up and down our country who are keeping Britain moving. I say to them: please keep it up. Let us keep moving and let us bounce back our economy as and when the limitations and the restrictions are lifted.

Lords amendment 1 agreed to.

Lords amendments 2 to 116 agreed to.

Lifting the Lockdown: Workplace Safety

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I now call Drew Hendry, who is asked to speak for no more than one minute.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]]

While the social and economic impact of this crisis cannot be overestimated, it is vital that all workplaces are reopened only when it is safe to do so. After all, they will only work if they have the confidence of workers. On 25 March, the Scottish Government and the STUC issued a joint statement making clear their shared fair work expectations. That naturally followed the Scottish Government’s fair work approach, which has been developed in partnership with the unions over years. They are now looking forward to putting that into law, once Holyrood has the power to do so. Reports that the TUC cannot support the draft UK policies are therefore of great concern. In a spirit of collegiality, what consideration has the Minister given to following the Scottish Government’s approach of ensuring that the guidance is consistent with fair work, including that workplace rules be developed for specific environments, and not only by employers but by trade unions as well?

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I agree with him that our message and our processes need to be as consistent as possible, not least for people across the UK, but also for the companies operating in each nation of the UK. That is why colleagues from my Department have regular conversations with the devolved Administrations, including the Scottish Parliament. We must continue to work to get into the detail to give employees that confidence. We will continue to work through that with businesses, unions and others who are feeding in day to day, so that we can provide a consistent, robust line and give confidence, with examples of best practice from businesses that have remained open and from which we can learn.

EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this debate on an issue that is close to my heart, given the effect of European funding on the highlands and islands over the years. He cited CPMR figures of €13 billion and £11 billion, and as he rightly said, those numbers have been backed up by the House of Commons Library, and may even be an underestimate of the funding available had we remained in the EU. Indeed, if the Government had decided to take a sensible approach, we would still be beneficiaries of that funding.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the least developed regions, which get a bigger share of that money because they have greater need, and about the EU stepping in where Westminster had not. My constituency contains some big, iconic signals of that. Predating devolution, the Kessock bridge crosses from Inverness to Ross-shire, and it would not have been delivered without intervention from the EU. It has been transformational. Similarly, the University of the Highlands and Islands is now a physical entity, and it has helped hugely with some of the issues described by Members today. There is no town, village or community in the highlands and islands that does not show a wee EU sign to explain how it has benefited from that funding over the years. The hon. Gentleman went on to talk about a range of positive and social economic benefits of European funding, and we share that view.

The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asked a question that many of us have asked: why is there no consultation? What is holding up the Government? He raised the important point that we will no longer be a member of the European Investment Bank, and the deficit that that holds. The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) said that people are looking not for a handout but for a hand up, and he listed the criteria. That is where the EU has stepped in in the past. He spoke about a protected allocation of funds, and said there is no reason to believe that that is not what is intended. Let us see the evidence for that; let us see the delivery. There is no detail and, as we have heard, not even a consultation.

The hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) spoke about investment and innovation, business and work skills, youth employment in the Tees valley, and about how essential those things are given this UK Government, and the times of Tory austerity we have been living through. She said that people have no knowledge about what is coming, and with her customary niceness she said that plans are “very light on detail”—I would have used stronger terms, but she is absolutely right. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) said that the way the Treasury looks at funding overlooks rural areas, and that she will be working hard to ensure her party honours that commitment. We need to hear the Minister say that the funding will be fully replaced, and whether it will be included in the spending review.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) talked about the three years of uncertainty that the communities and recipients of that spending have lived through, and she wondered where we will go next. Importantly, she mentioned the positive impact of the funding on disabled people, because often the best of it goes to those who are left behind in the thoughts of Westminster. She spoke about there being slogans from the Tory Government rather than investment, and today the Minister has an opportunity to put some meat on the bones and give the guarantees that everybody is asking for.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the importance of such funding in the shadow of universal credit, and as an MP for a constituency that has seen UC over six years, from pilot to full roll-out, I know that money from the EU is vital to address some of the deficits caused by that programme. Indeed, we share a rise in food bank reliance as a result. She said that funding should be targeted, focused and devolved, but we are still waiting for a consultation.

The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about how regional equality has dropped, and there are now extra children living in poverty. He asked why in 2019—I agree with this—Westminster still holds all the power. He said that people are fed up to the back teeth with Westminster’s approach, and that we need bottom-up decision making. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) spoke about below-average spending from Westminster. He said that EU funds are fairer, and that there is a better recognition of the issues by the EU. He rightly spoke about the risks of a no-deal scenario.

In the short time that she took to make her speech, my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) spoke succinctly, and rightly, about the real living alarm over the lack of detail about what is coming. Who will be eligible? How will it work? What will it be worth? Will there be—this has been mooted but not explained in any detail—like-for-like funding? Will that guarantee be yes or no, regardless of a deal or the catastrophe of a no-deal hard Brexit? She pointed out, as have nearly all the contributors today, that the funding formula must respect the devolution settlement, and she said that neither she, her constituency, nor her country should be short-changed. We call on the Minister to give those guarantees.

I am grateful to the all-party group for post-Brexit funding for nations, regions and local areas for its reports. It backed up a lot of the comments made around this room. It had lots of submissions, including from the Welsh Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, EHRC, and many educational and voluntary bodies, which all said that budget funding should be

“no less in real terms than the EU and UK funding streams it replaces.”

It pointed out that shares for the devolved nations should not be reduced, and that as we have heard, it should be a devolved matter.

The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) rightly asked when we will see action, even just the consultation—that is a pro-Brexit Member asking for that guarantee. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) spoke about the failure of successive UK Governments to address regional disparity, and he mentioned the most centralised political system in the world here at Westminster. I think his four principles are absolutely right: the budget should be no less than it currently is, there should be no competitive bidding, it should be fully devolved, and it must be beyond spending reviews and political cycles.

We have had a promise from the Tory Government, but then delay after delay in getting any information. Evidence from the House of Commons Library shows that we are approaching nearly 300 parliamentary questions, without an answer on any detail of this funding.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about European funding being replaced by UK funding. If funding does come from the UK rather than the EU in future, will he commit to all projects being branded as co-Scottish Government and UK Government?

[Drew Hendry]

It would be much easier to respond to that kind of comment if the UK Government had given any details about how this will go forward. While the hon. Gentleman worries about slogans and branding, I worry about getting the detail to explain what communities across our constituencies, including my own, will get from this programme in future. When will we know the detail about what will be spent, who will be eligible, and will it be fully devolved? Once the Minister has answered those questions, we can go back to talking about flags and slogans.

Communities and charities have waited years to find out what will be available post-Brexit. The devolution settlement must be respected. As we have said, since Brexit is distracting the UK Government from doing anything worthwhile at the moment, let us revoke article 50 and get on with doing things properly, which would clear things up right away. Brexit will cost Scottish communities millions, and this particular issue must not add to that burden.

Shared Prosperity Fund

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this important and timely debate. We have all been waiting far too long for details on this matter. The hon. Gentleman spoke about looking through the eyes of communities, and his challenges to the Minister were repeated by many others in the Chamber. We must respect the devolved Parliaments and ensure that badly needed regional aid is in place. The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) intervened to speak about the dangers of listening to who shouts the loudest, and of pork barrel decision making.

The hon. Member for Barnsley Central mentioned data from the conference of peripheral maritime regions—I must declare an interest because, as a former leader of Highland Council, I am a former vice-president of that body—and the data were very detailed. He highlighted €895 million for Scotland in this spending round, including €180 million for the highlands and islands. For the Minister’s benefit, I remind hon. Members that both that country and that region voted in great numbers to remain in the European Union.

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) spoke about the funding being used to challenge depopulation, as well as other issues that have gone unaddressed by Westminster Governments for many years. Indeed, one symbol of European funding joins our two constituencies. After decades of no or little investment in the highlands and islands, the Kessock bridge that now spans our constituencies was made possible only by EU funding—something people in the highlands are very much aware of.

The hon. Member for Barnsley Central spoke about supporting the most vulnerable, and he mentioned the need for regeneration and business support, and the low-carbon agenda that comes with such funding. In response to an intervention, he recognised that people are becoming desperate for information, which is true—people are desperate to find out where such support will now come from. The devolved Administrations must be told what the money will be, how it will be used and how it will work. Currently, they do not have clarity about how much money there is, when it will be allocated and to whom, or how the system will work.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the guiding principles of there being no less money than already exists, that the regions must not be worse off and that the system should be fully devolved. This funding must go beyond parliamentary cycles and spending reviews.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

I will not as there is not much time and I have a lot to say.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) spoke about Westminster’s failings, and the feeling in his communities about Westminster’s trickledown economics. He mentioned the benefits of EU funding in education, jobs and innovation, and said that his area requires not a penny less than was promised. There should not be a power grab. That would not be acceptable to the people of Wales, or indeed of Scotland.

The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) took great pains to try to support his Government—he even had to call for them to move on—and raised concerns about this being an England-only fund. For different reasons, I have the same concerns, because if we look back into history, we see what happened in the highlands and islands before we were members of the European Union.

The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) said that this must not be a Westminster handout on Westminster terms as that will not cut it, and I completely agree. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), along with other Members from Cornwall, seemed to argue that European funds have somehow been negative for the area. I know they were talking about the details, but I think people will find that hard to understand.

The hon. Member for Leigh (Jo Platt) spoke about the imbalance of investment, and said that for too long Westminster had held the purse strings and the power. She is absolutely right, and that must be respected when the scheme is introduced. Although the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I do not agree on everything, he said that this funding must be devolved and at the same level as before, and he listed the improvements that have been made in his constituency with EU funding.

The hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) spoke about how funding matters in his community, and how important it is across Wales, including the fact that it is devolved. This scheme must not be used as an opportunity to rewrite the devolution settlement; devolution must be respected. The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) repeated the call for this not to be a power grab. It will not surprise you, Sir David, to hear that I agree with that sentiment.

Communities and charities have been waiting years to find out what funding will be available post Brexit, and we urgently need the details of this so-called prosperity fund. Since joining the EU in 1973, Scotland has benefited from European structural fund money to the tune of billions. Those funds have been used to support getting people into work and out of poverty, to improve their education and skills, and for investment in our infrastructure and communities. The European regional development fund promotes balanced development across the EU, and the European social fund invests in employment-related projects.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has repeatedly promised to publish full details on the consultation. On 15 November 2018, Wales Office Ministers told MPs that a full consultation would be published before the end of the year. We are six months on, and there is nothing to be seen. If Brexit is drawing the Government’s business and long-term planning to a halt, they should revoke article 50—not the concept of long-term planning.

I do not have much time and I want to make sure that the other Front-Bench speaker and the Minister have the opportunity to contribute, so I will wrap up with these words, although there is much more I could say on this subject. Where is the post-Brexit funding? Communities and charities want to know where it is and they need the details urgently. When is it to be revealed? Will it respect the devolution settlement and prove not to be just another power grab?

It is not good enough that this Government are tied in knots and uncertain of the future. If the UK Government’s long-term planning has ground to a halt, they must get past that and get the details to people and communities of how the money will be distributed. We already know that Brexit will cost Scottish communities millions, so they need details on funding urgently. Our people cannot be left behind by a Government who are too chaotic to get out the details of how they will support communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Berry]

As the hon. Gentleman knows and I was just about to say, the quantum of the UK shared prosperity fund will be determined as part of the comprehensive spending review. That is the appropriate time for the Government to make commitments of the sort he seeks. However, he and the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) are correct that the Government must come forward with their consultation—I am clear that this must happen—before the comprehensive spending review to enable areas to contribute to that consultation.

We have not been sitting on our hands, as people who have listened to the debate may think. We have already engaged with more than 500 stakeholders. We have had 25 official-level engagements across the country, including with our counterparts in the devolved Administrations. In addition, in my role as Minister for the northern powerhouse, I have engaged with mayors. I have talked to them specifically about how we can work together to provide evidence to the consultation that demonstrates that, as so many people have said, the impetus for investment of the UK shared prosperity fund should come from our regions rather than being directed out of Whitehall.

Having listened to contributions to the debate, I think everyone believes that it would be nice if that happened. The point is that by working with our metro Mayors, our local enterprise partnerships and authorities across England—that is certainly my role as English Minister for local growth—to create the evidence base, we can move beyond thinking that it would be nice to proving that it is how we will get the biggest return on investment. There is work ongoing in my Department, in advance of the consultation, to ensure that that hugely important argument is made, and won, when my dear chums in the Treasury are making decisions about how the money should be distributed following the consultation. I hope that answers some of the questions that Members asked. My response to the main question is that the consultation will start very shortly.

Let me move on to some of the specific points that were made. On public transport investment, Members may not have seen the most up-to-date figures, which are available on the Treasury website. They show that transport capital expenditure is higher per capita in the north of England than in London. People often talk about total capital expenditure across the north of England versus London. There are some parts of the north of England where very few people live, so it is much more realistic to talk about capital expenditure per capita, and it is higher per capita in the north of England.

Many colleagues talked about the weakness of Green Book calculations for making investment decisions, which I think is acknowledged across the House. That is why the Government came forward with a rebalancing formula in the industrial strategy. That formula looks at areas that are less developed, depending on how we define that, and at factoring future growth into Green Book calculations. Changes have been made recently to ensure that community benefit is also included in such calculations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) commented on the ring-fencing of coastal money. By the end of the current spending period, the Government will have invested £200 million directly in coastal communities through our coastal communities fund, which is about driving prosperity on our coasts. The UK shared prosperity fund must not be viewed on its own as the only support the Government give to drive regional growth. We have contributed £53 million to part of the exciting growth deal in the highlands and islands, which has resulted in things such as the north coast 500 route, which I hope to visit this summer, prospering.

[Drew Hendry]

rose—

[Jake Berry]

I will let the hon. Gentleman advise me about the best place to stay.

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful to the Minister for raising that money for the Inverness city region deal. Will he go a step further and match 50:50 the commitment of the Scottish Government, who put considerably more money into that deal than the UK Government did?

[Jake Berry]

We will have to look at how much new money the Scottish Government have committed. Since we have talked repeatedly about devolution, particularly from a Scottish viewpoint, I note that the Smith commission agreement, which was signed by all parties in Edinburgh, contains a commitment by the Scottish Government to look at further devolution to local councils in Scotland. Devolution does not stop in Edinburgh, but I understand that no progress has been made on that.

I could go on, and I would like to, but I want to give the hon. Member for Barnsley Central the customary time to conclude the debate. I hope that colleagues do not doubt the Government’s commitment not just to devolution, but to regional growth. The UK shared prosperity fund, which we will consult fully on shortly, will continue that commitment to driving productivity and growth everywhere.

Protection for Homebuyers

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on bringing not only a very important but a highly interesting debate to listen to, which has included various Members around the Chamber. It is very challenging to sum up the debate because there have been so many powerful points made by so many hon. Members, but I will do my best to pick out some of the key points as I saw them.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston talked about the unhappy homebuyer experience and the impact that has on people when they have made a huge investment in their future. She also mentioned the number of problems that occur, particularly with new homes. Giving due praise to good home builders is important, because there are many. I am very fortunate: in the highlands, due to the scale—it is probably not the same scale as in other urban areas—the home builders are very good in general. They are not without problems—there are still issues, which I will talk about later. The hon. Lady was right to pick out those large developers who are getting away with some of the things she described.

The hon. Lady said that buying a home was one of the big, significant life changes, but that buyers were having to buy their houses more or less without having seen the final build. She also talked about the introduction of the new homes ombudsman. Like her, I would like to know more about what that will entail. It would be useful if the Minister covered some of those points, albeit she may want to do so briefly. The hon. Lady was right also to highlight the dangers of a voluntary approach when there is clearly such a widespread problem in house building.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) mentioned issues for leaseholders as opposed to freeholders, and went on to address issues with ground rents and service charge hikes. I will talk later about property factoring charges. Those are important issues for people. Importantly, he also mentioned fire safety and sprinkler legislation, and pointed out the moves to tackle those issues in both Wales and Scotland.

The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) mentioned shocking additional charges that homebuyers uncover after purchase. That is clearly wrong. No one should be put in a position where they buy blind and suddenly find additional costs coming out of the woodwork—literally, in this case.

It is important to highlight the serious issue of solicitors’ conflict of interest, which a number of Members raised. It makes no real sense for the system to exist in that way. Clearly, there has to be segregation so people have confidence in the legal process when they buy a new home. The hon. Gentleman talked about people being pressured to use a solicitor from a panel due to purchase time pressures. Consumers should not be put under pressure when making a purchase of such magnitude in their lives. He challenged the Minister on those issues. He also raised the issue of paying maintenance charges twice, which I will come to, and suggested that the Minister might want to look at a retention scheme.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) told us, shockingly, that she had waited five years for a meeting. That is disgraceful, and she rightly named and shamed Persimmon for doing that. She mentioned the issue of sinking gardens, which sounds horrendous, and one householder’s fear that her fence and land would slip into the drain, which the council could not take enforcement action on. Since Persimmon was mentioned a number of times, it is important to touch on the obscene bonuses paid to its chief executives. Surely, such grandiose remuneration is unacceptable.

Other hon. Members talked about completion and adoption, promises that are made about facilities and the scary arguments that come later with developers about costs. It is common for problems to occur a couple of years after the purchase price is paid and people move in, and for the developer either to be nowhere to be found or to argue. That is simply not good enough.

We do not know what consumer protection measures will be proposed—as was highlighted, they have yet to be published—but they are unlikely directly to affect Scotland because of the devolved nature of housing. However, that does not mean they will have no effect, so I am keen to see what comes from them. For a number of years, homeowners have had issues with property factors. The UK Government recently consulted on the issue as part of its implementation of reforms to the leasehold system, which is very different.

The Scottish Government brought forward the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011, which means that since 2012, registration has been compulsory for property factors operating in Scotland and they have had to follow a code of conduct outlining minimum standards. There is also a new dispute resolution system. The homeowner housing panel, and now the housing and property chamber of the first-tier tribunal for Scotland, have allowed homeowners to challenge property factors in Scotland.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Property factors being property management agents in Scottish speak, yes?

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful for that translation from the Scots.

A test case was brought by Mr Michael Marriott, a householder in Clackmannanshire, against Greenbelt Group in 2015. He took his case to the Lands Tribunal for Scotland and won, because it was found that the deeds were not compliant with the legislation. Perhaps that is a learning opportunity for the UK Government. Where there is a clear breach, homeowners can pursue a course to get factoring clauses taken out of their deeds altogether.

That has made a big difference, but it would be foolish to say it has cured all the problems. There is much more work to be done in Scotland, including on issues with shared factor arrangements on private housing estates. There is one such estate in Milton of Leys in my constituency. One of my constituents was advised that his factoring bill had risen from £100 in 2005-06 to £173 in 2017-18, with no explanation—it was just applied to the costs.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Gentleman is making a really interesting point. I know from personal family experience that one of the difficulties with factors is that those homeowners are often older people who live in specialist or sheltered estates. Does he agree that it is particularly important that any regulation and legislation attends to the needs of more vulnerable homebuyers?

[Drew Hendry]

I am very grateful for that intervention. That is an important point. Lots of people are in a vulnerable situation. They tend to be elderly people and people with disabilities, but it is important to recognise that there are other vulnerable groups, such as the young and inexperienced, who may not be able to think about entering into a contract in the same way as other people. Some people have found it difficult to get recourse when work is not done to the standard they expect, and others have found that maintenance of communal landscaped areas is ignored completely.

As well as introducing measures to protect homeowners, the Scottish Government are working to ensure that those who aspire to home ownership are able to achieve it. I will mention a specific programme that the Minister may find it useful to hear about. Ensuring that everyone has a safe, warm and affordable home is central to the Scottish Government’s drive for a fairer and more prosperous Scotland. Since 2007, they have delivered more than 80,000 new homes—as a proportion of the population, that is a third more than in England and three quarters more than in Wales. More than 28,000 households have been supported through the Scottish Government’s low-cost initiative for first time buyers scheme and the Help to Buy programme. Nearly 20,000 houses have been built for affordable home ownership.

The Scottish Government have also introduced a new land and buildings transaction tax relief for first-time buyers, which will raise the zero-rate threshold for that group to £175,000, benefiting all first-time buyers in Scotland by up to £600. That reform means that more than 85% of those who have bought a property worth £40,000 or more since April 2015 have either paid less tax compared with stamp duty land tax, or no tax at all.

Affordable housing to buy is very important for my constituents and across Scotland. A recent survey found that increasing numbers of young people want to live and work in the highlands and islands. In 2015, when the survey was previously carried out, many young people cited poor connectivity and a lack of housing as barriers to wanting to stay.

Working together is delivering results. Mid-market rent projects are delivered through the city deal investment in a partnership between the Highland Council, the Scottish Government and house builders. Through partnerships with Highland Housing Alliance and others, young people who cannot yet afford a mortgage are given the opportunity to rent a home at a mid-market rate to allow them to save for a deposit and buy the property after a number of years.

I want to quote my constituents, Sally and Ruaridh, who have just moved into their new home this week through the Highland Housing Alliance mid-market rent initiative. They will be able to buy the property in five years, after paying a mid-market rent that allows them to save. Sally said:

“This move has been transformational for me and my partner. We are now in a secure home where we hope to start a family one day, and we’re able to save hundreds more each month to help us towards a deposit for a mortgage.”

The Raining’s Stairs development in my constituency in Inverness, which includes mid-market rent properties, won the award for the best residential development of under 70 homes at the Inside Housing development awards in London last month, so it is appropriate to mention it in this debate. Some 55% of Help To Buy recipients were aged 30 years or under. The Scottish Government recently announced a further £100 million to extend the scheme by two years to March 2021, to help even more people into home ownership.

The debate has been interesting. I wanted to touch on points specific to Scotland, but I will underline that some of the voices we have heard talking this afternoon about the costs incurred by constituents and homebuyers and about the activities of house builders have been eye-opening. I hope that the Minister has had her ears open and is willing to proactively address the many deep concerns that people have. I look forward to hearing her response.

Local Government Funding Settlement

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I recognise the challenges and issues over the business rates retention pilots. Not everyone has been successful in relation to the pilots for 2019-20. We are piloting on the basis of 75%. That is on the basis of the new system that is being introduced in 2020 so that we can properly understand how it will operate in practice. I will certainly highlight to my hon. Friend some of the other issues in relation to, for example, the rural services grant, and how that will be beneficial to her local community, but, obviously, we will look at the representations that are received through this provisional settlement.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement.

The Government’s austerity policies, as we have heard from the Labour Front-Bench spokesman this morning, have been deeply affecting councils in England for many years. I have been in this Chamber listening to debates about the struggles that they have had. Those austerity policies have also hit Scottish finances, but, in contrast, the Scottish National party Government continue to treat local authorities very fairly, despite the fact that the Government have cut the Scottish budget by £2 billion between 2010-11 and 2019-20. There are some warnings from Scotland on match funding and pilots, because this Government also continue to short change local authorities in Scotland directly in other ways by their failure to match the city deal funding from the Scottish Government by £387 million. It is especially critical at this time for Dundee, which faces the prospect of losing 850 Michelin jobs, as the Tay cities deal falls short because the Government have failed to match the Scottish Government’s spending by £50 million

Mitigating Tory costs for local authorities will cost the Scottish Government £435 million next year. On pilots, the extra administration costs of dealing with the hard-hearted and shambolic roll-out of universal credit has meant that Highland Council, a pilot area, has run up costs of more than £2.5 million, which is directly attributable to the costs of universal credit. The council leader and I have written numerous letters to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and the matter has been raised with the Minister for Employment on numerous occasions. The questions are: when will the Secretary of State’s Government reimburse councils such as Highland Council and their tax payers and when will they live up to their responsibility for city deals and make good on their shortfalls?

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I am pleased that he recognises the contribution that city deals have made in Scotland, the contribution that the UK Government are making in Scotland to ensure that that sense of growth and opportunity is felt very firmly, and how we contribute in that way to see that that is felt throughout our United Kingdom. I am sorry that, in some way, he does not fully appreciate and recognise the contribution that we are making. On the point that he makes more broadly in relation to universal credit, obviously, care and attention has been given to this matter by my colleagues, who I am sure will listen to the points that he makes. However, I say to him that the Scottish Government themselves have flexibility over welfare policy and over what they can do to deal with some of the issues and concerns that he has highlighted, and therefore that they have responsibility in that regard.