Scottish Devolution Settlement: Retained EU Law

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is correct, and I will expand on his point in a moment.

This Government and the Bill are an existential threat to Scottish agriculture. Scotland could decide to stick to long-established best practice in the welfare and treatment of animals, and retain the stringent checks on animals entering the food chain. However, if this place decides to deregulate, animals whose provenance is unknown, and whose welfare history is unaccounted for, can and almost certainly will enter the food chain. Most worryingly, if the Government decide to change food labelling standards, Scottish consumers not only could be subjected to chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-injected beef, genetically modified crops and animals of questionable provenance, but will probably not be able to tell what they are eating. The labelling regulations could be so diminished that the protections consumers now enjoy could be completely removed.

On Friday, I met with the Argyll and Bute regional board of the National Farmers Union Scotland. Its message was stark: farmers feel forgotten and undervalued. They have been battered by Brexit. They are barely surviving the energy crisis. At a time of falling incomes, they are at a loss as to how they will cope with the skyrocketing costs of feed and fertiliser.

Farmers know, too, that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is a potential death sentence for an agricultural sector that requires a hefty subsidy. It needs that subsidy because it manages the land, keeps the lights on in our hills and glens, provides employment in rural communities, and helps stem the tide of rural depopulation while producing high-quality, high-value beef, lamb and dairy products. They know—we all know—that the lowering of food standards, the relaxation of rules on labelling and animal welfare, and the mass importation of inferior products will be an unmitigated disaster for Scottish agriculture. They are also painfully aware, as we are, that there is precious little that their democratically elected Scottish Parliament can do about it.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Member will know that his opinion and mine greatly differ on this precious Union. I understand that, but it does not make us friends any the less; we are dear friends, and work on many things together. One of the reasons for that difference of opinion is seeing the impact that being slightly removed has had on constituents, which he has referred to. Undoubtedly there are some businesses that will thrive in dealing with the EU, but for the vast majority, basics are more expensive to come by. It is simply wrong to have no representative to speak on our behalf on EU legislation. We are painfully aware of that in Northern Ireland. It goes against everything we in a democracy hold so dearly and believe. Does he agree that no nation can knowingly subject itself to law with no voice?

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank my dear hon. Friend, and reciprocate the feelings that he has expressed. Every community needs a voice, and his community and farmers need a voice. His farmers need protection. I would caution that his farmers will look at the situation and also be extremely worried that, if the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 are spread across into Northern Ireland, as they may well be, they will face the same threats as Scottish farmers.

Angus Robertson MSP, Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, has already raised the Scottish Government’s serious concerns with the Secretary of State. The Minister will be aware that if the UK Government act in wholly devolved policy areas, they will do so without the consent of Scottish Ministers or the Scottish Parliament, and that will significantly undermine the devolution settlement.

As I said earlier, we will be in a deregulatory race to the bottom, a race in which individual citizens will surely lose out to the spivs and the speculators—and no doubt to the politically connected, who will be fast-tracked into making a quick buck at citizens’ expense. The Government say that the Bill will give the UK the opportunity to be bolder and go further than the EU in securing consumer rights and environmental protections, but there are clauses in the Bill that actively prevent Ministers from imposing any new regulatory burden, including any “administrative inconvenience”, on anyone.

Those clauses suggest very strongly that this is headed in one direction only, towards deregulation, and that that deregulation will make it easier to circumvent our legal obligations on food labelling for allergens, or not to pay holiday pay, or to roll back on the safe limits on working hours, or to change hard-won rights to parental leave. The Government will be aware of the fury that will follow should they move to weaken existing controls on polluting substances, or attempt to lower existing water or air quality standards, or dare to dilute the essential protections that defend our natural habitat and our wildlife.

Let me stress again: this is not a road that Scotland has chosen to go down. Rather, it is a road that Scotland is being dragged down. Our nation rejected this Tory Brexit fantasy, but our democratic wishes have been ignored at every turn. This is not of Scotland’s doing, but because of the constitutional straitjacket we find ourselves in, we are having this done to us by a Government that we did not elect.

The Minister cannot dismiss this as SNP scaremongering, because organisations as diverse as the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Food Standards Scotland and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds have all warned about the adverse impact that the Bill will have. Frances O’Grady, Trades Union Congress general secretary, has described the Bill as “reckless” and said that

“vital protections could disappear overnight”.

The RSPB has warned that if the Government push ahead, they will be undermining the long-established and vital laws that are in place to protect nature. Food Standards Scotland said that the Bill poses

“a significant risk to Scotland’s ability to uphold high safety and food standards.”

Yet it seems that, in their desperate, deluded pursuit of the mirage of a Brexit Shangri-La, this Government are prepared to put at risk our natural environment, our food and animal welfare standards, consumer protections and workers’ rights. That is why the SNP will oppose the Bill every step of the way.

Not only are this Government coming for those rights and protections that we have enjoyed for decades, they are also coming for our Parliament. I repeat the call from the Scottish Government for the UK Government, even at this late stage, to perform one of their trademark—almost legendary—U-turns, and abandon this disastrous Bill. The Bill not only undermines the devolution settlement, it also diminishes the role of MPs here, with the plan to deal with everything via secondary legislation, conveniently avoiding the intense parliamentary scrutiny that the measures require. The Secretary of State claimed in his letter that this was about “taking back control”, but I have to ask: who is taking back control? It is not this Parliament.

As the Government have already gleefully announced to the press, the amount of parliamentary time required has been dramatically reduced. It seems that, for this Government, taking back control means putting a group of hand-picked party loyalists on to a delegated legislation Committee—a Committee with a built-in Government majority, which will be able to bulldoze through change after change after change, as instructed by the Government. The history of delegated legislation Committees is not particularly encouraging. In the past 65 years, only 17 statutory instruments have been voted down in DL committees. The last time that happened was in 1979. While there is certainly a role for DL Committees, I do not believe it extends to making wholesale and fundamental changes to vast swathes of the law on everything from environment and nature to consumer protection, workers’ rights, product safety and agriculture, just to help this Government avoid proper parliamentary scrutiny.

Of course, the reason the Government are avoiding scrutiny is because, in their fervour to rid themselves of any lingering European influence, the zealots at the heart of this collapsing Government have arbitrarily put a sunset clause of 31 December 2023 in the Bill. Unless 2,500 pieces of legislation are removed and replaced—unless the Government give themselves an extension, of course—they will simply disappear off the statute book, leaving huge holes in UK law. It is a tactic fraught with danger as it once again introduces another totally unnecessary Brexit cliff edge that will be welcomed by nobody outside the inner sanctum of the European Research Group—sorry, I mean the Cabinet. It is further evidence of the panic at the heart of the Brexit project. They know the wheels have come off and that the Government are disintegrating before their eyes. Thankfully, Scotland has a way out and we will, as soon as possible, rejoin the European Union as an independent nation. I sincerely hope that the rest of the United Kingdom will find its way back to the European Union as well.

I will conclude with a number of questions for the Minister. Will he confirm that, should the Scottish Government decide to preserve all retained EU law, that would be respected and upheld by the Government here in Westminster? Does he accept that, as it is currently written, the Bill threatens sweeping controls here in Westminster over areas that are wholly devolved? Can he explain why, despite issues raised over the summer by the Scottish Government, the Bill was published with powers to undermine devolution? What impact assessment has been carried out on how the Bill will affect the sectors of the economy that will be most affected by it, particularly farmers in remote, rural, economically fragile areas? Will the Government accept and honour the legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament? If they do not, why will they not?

Finally, does the Minister agree that by allowing the UK Government to act in policy areas that are wholly devolved, and to do so without the consent of Scottish Ministers or the Scottish Parliament, that is in direct contradiction to the 1998 devolution settlement and particularly the Sewel convention, which was given a statutory footing in 2016?