United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Lee Rowley and Deidre Brock

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I will not. I apologise, but I wish to make some progress.

The idea that the negotiations will not be difficult or choppy is unrealistic. Our values of openness, internationalism, free trade, partnership, fairness and freedom never change, but we have to prepare our domestic legislation and ensure that it works. Certain key questions remain, however. What else can be done? How else can this be remedied? How can the United Kingdom protect its own interests, its fundamental, historic economic integrity and its right of self-determination? I have yet to hear one realistic alternative to the legislation in front of us today that would create a functioning, coherent and integrated internal market, based on a historic precedent, that would work and that would, as a result, allow us to be clear with our friends over the channel that, as a consequence, the economic integrity of the United Kingdom must be respected.

[Deidre Brock]

I rise to speak to amendment 89 and a number of other amendments that appear in my name and those of my hon. Friends. I also support Plaid Cymru’s excellent amendment 9.

Scottish architects have raised concerns about the Bill imposing the much lower English building standards on Scotland. The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland pointed out this week that Scotland’s standards have helped prevent tragedies like that at Grenfell. Peter Drummond of the RIAS said that

“it is simply inexplicable that the bill seeks to align the more robust Scottish regulations with the English system. Those powers are now to be removed. The lowest common denominator within the UK will apply. And that is, on any fair reading, a spectacularly poor step backwards.”

One would think that England would want to move towards the Scottish standards, but the Bill makes it clear that England’s Government seek to bring Scotland’s standards down rather than improve English standards. That poverty of ambition will haunt England for decades, but it should not be allowed to shackle the rest of us.

In areas of devolved responsibility, the Government in Whitehall are the English Government rather than the UK Government. The Bill, under the myth of removing barriers to trade, ignores that division and seeks to force Scotland—and, of course, Wales and Northern Ireland—into a lockstep Union of diminishing standards and lessening protections, with a Government determined to rip away what they would term red tape and the rest of us term sensible precautions.

The White Paper singled out various building standards as a supposed barrier to the smooth functioning of the market, in spite of decades of experience showing that to be utter nonsense. What about other standards? Will the minimum tolerable standard for living accommodation be lost? Will teaching qualification standards be removed?

In answer to the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), who is no longer in his place, I have had a number of WhatsApp messages since the earlier exchange and I am told that in England a teacher can be unqualified or can switch subjects. For example, a PE teacher can start to teach physics if there is a shortage. That is not the case in Scotland. Scottish teachers must have a degree in teaching or in the subject they are teaching, plus a postgraduate qualification. Again, that is not the case in England, as I understand it. Will free schools and academy schools be foisted on an unwilling Scottish populous? Will the power grab destroy Scotland’s consumer protections?

The exemptions in schedule 1 include water and sewerage, to be sure, but clause 10 allows the Secretary of State to amend those exemptions by secondary legislation. Is this the back door to privatising Scottish Water?

The Bill is a parade of threats to Scotland, not least among which is the threat to our food and drink industry. The Government will remove food protections. Animal welfare standards, environmental standards and protections against genetically modified crops are all in the firing line. Ministers will tell us that this is not so, but let me tell them that no one believes them. England’s Government will not protect English consumers, but they should not get in the way of Scottish Governments protecting Scottish consumers.

I have solutions. The first is the obvious one and by far the best: Scotland as an independent nation state making her own decisions, which will happen soon. The second is less direct but would have some effect: instead of reducing everything to the lowest common beast, as is proposed in the Bill, raise it instead to the highest standard. Our amendment 89 would do that. Where goods are traded across the borders of these nations, let them be traded at the highest standards. Scotland has banned flammable cladding on high-rise buildings and that should be respected. A ban on hormone-treated beef should be respected, and so on. Respect the higher standard and protect the consumer, the brand reputations, the businesses and the investment—protect jobs. The higher standard should be the goal, not the lower. I urge Members to adopt that principle and Ministers to consider it.

There are other problems with the Bill. Regulations will be made in Whitehall. Unlike the EU process, this will not be co-decision-making. EU competences are constrained by the need to achieve consensus among member states. This regime will be dictatorial: rule from the bunker, not the negotiating table. The mutual recognition clause is actually the Whitehall superiority clause.

Scots academics have given this Bill short shrift. Professor Michael Dougan has been quoted at length in this debate. Professor Michael Keating, professor of politics at Aberdeen University, points out that under the 1999 devolution settlement there was no hierarchy of laws; some were reserved to Westminster and the rest were devolved. Under this Bill, UK Ministers would have

“powers to regulate a…wide range of otherwise devolved matters in the name of the internal market”.

Professor Nicola McEwen of Edinburgh University makes it clear that rules made by the devolved Administrations will not apply to goods or service providers that satisfy less strict regulations in England. She says that

“unfettered market access is given priority. EU principles of proportionality and subsidiarity are…excluded.”

Also on the chopping block would be the right to differentiate production methods in procurement, so there goes organic farming—even if it survives the drop in exports after the Government’s failure to agree an equivalence with the EU. This is an absolute mess, and that is why amendment 89 is so important.

Do not drag us down; use the good example set by a neighbour to raise up your own standards. Let us have goods crossing the national borders of these islands meeting the highest standards, rather than the lowest. There has been much ado about the fact that the Bill will potentially breach international law. It is a matter of at least equal concern that it would change our constitutional arrangements without asking the people for approval in a referendum. Furthermore, the Bill would give Ministers the right further to amend the constitutional settlement without the bother of primary legislation. Some folk would call that a coup d’état. It represents the dismantling of the devolved settlements, the disempowerment of this Parliament and the centralisation of power in the hands of a very few Ministers. Surely that is the mark of a failed state.

In short, this Bill is a mess that would have been better off consigned to a skip, but if we are all going to have to suffer it—we in Scotland, hopefully, for the shortest time possible—at least let us pitch for the higher standard, rather than the lower.