Scottish Devolution and Article 50

Debate between Ian Murray and Dan Poulter

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ian Murray]

It must be in the post; I hope it is, because it would be thoroughly deserved. I apologise to you for elevating you to a knighthood, Mr Gray, and also to the House for being slightly late. A major constituency issue delayed me, so I only heard the end of the speech by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock).

This issue will be a key element of the discussions over the next few years in this House. I am not sure how many thousands or tens of thousands of statutory instruments and pieces of legislation we will see when the great repeal Bill is announced, but I hope we will have some kind of process that takes into account three things. First, English votes for English laws should be suspended with the great repeal Bill, given its severity. Secondly, there must be a streamlined process, so that we do not all end up having to sit and consider 10,000 statutory instruments. I am sure that the House, and certainly the Clerks of the House, would very much welcome that.

Thirdly, I hope that the Minister and the Government—I say this with all respect and in the interests of trying to find a way through—take into account the political difficulties and sensitivities of the Scottish Parliament’s responsibilities and schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998. Schedule 5 is incredibly simple to read now because it has got so small, given the number of powers that have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, but the key one in there is the relationship with the European Union and foreign affairs. That should not be an excuse for the Government to say that the devolved Administrations should not be heavily involved in this process.

None of us wanted to be here—I certainly did not—in terms of Brexit, but we are, and this process has to be followed through. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for securing this debate. It will probably be one of many we have on Brexit and Scotland over the next few years.

I said this to the Prime Minister yesterday in the House and will emphasise it again now. The general principle should be that where a power is not in schedule 5 to the 1998 Act and where a power has been devolved—whether to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales or the metro mayors we are about to elect in May—the power should be devolved. The reason I put it as a principle, rather than saying everything should be devolved in a blanket way, is that some things will take some thought when it comes to the framework. While things such as fisheries, agriculture, the environment, regional development and policy from the European Union are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, it is under the EU framework. That EU framework gives the minimum standards and framework in which member states have to operate.

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech. This is a difficult area, as he has outlined. Agriculture, for example, is devolved to different parts of the United Kingdom, and there is disagreement on areas such as genetically modified crops. However, when the Secretary of State for International Trade needs to make a trade deal, that is surely something that the UK Government across the UK single market are best placed to do.

[Ian Murray]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that point, although my response will not necessarily be on the complicated nature of what he determined in his intervention; rather, it will be on how crucial it is for both Governments to work together. Unless both Governments work together, all the negotiations that are happening on trade deals or otherwise will be incredibly difficult to resolve. Given that Scotland and other regions and nations of the UK have some significant products that are of a singular nature to those particular geographical areas, we will have to work together.

Agriculture is one of three or four big areas where we need some kind of working together to ensure that this works properly. Take, for example, cattle movement across borders, which is a hugely complicated and difficult thing. It is about not only the cattle themselves and their welfare but the spread of disease and other issues. We will need some kind of working together and a framework to allow that to happen. While repatriation and devolution should be the principle, we should do this in a systematic way, not only for the benefit of the country and ensuring that this works properly, but for the benefit of the practitioners in all those areas—whether it be the environment, agriculture or fisheries—that will be repatriated and devolved.

Finally, it is not only about devolution; a cheque has to go with it. It cannot just be devolution of power without the devolution of the money. If we take agriculture as an example, again, Scotland gets 16% or 17% of UK agricultural spending in the round. That would have to travel with the devolved powers, which is why I think we need to be quite careful that the frameworks in place for each of those big items are dealt with properly.