United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Lord Bruce of Bennachie and Duke of Montrose

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and honour to be able to participate in this very important legislation. The search for common frameworks is something that has concerned me from the minute we went down the Brexit road. I would like to support the amendments that were put forward in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I was also interested to hear the analysis by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, of ways of solving problems.

It is very important that we go into this area in great detail. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for bringing it in, in this way, this early in our discussion. What he gave us is a very fair and understanding analysis and I hope the Government will pay due attention to the issues that he outlined. We have also been privileged this evening to hear from four Members who have worked on the frameworks committee, and it is of course also very important to look at what they said. I was interested in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, supported the issue from the Scottish point of view.

I would like to offer my support to Amendment 170, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, which he moved in his intervention. It is very important that agreements that are achieved are formally notified to Parliament, and that was the point he was making.

It is not a direct parallel, but noble Lords will probably remember that, on the introduction of the Scottish devolution Bill, the parties concerned when it was brought into practice in the Scottish Parliament found that they had to achieve a memorandum of understanding. One of the things that was contained in the memorandum of understanding was the Sewel convention. Here in Westminster, we received no details of what this memorandum of understanding contained. One was left wondering how some of the agreements were arrived at. This of course was rectified when we next looked at the Scottish devolution Act and the actual practice was brought in, in a legislative form, under that Act. We need to be kept fully up to date with the agreements that Governments come to. I support that amendment.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I also am a member of the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee. I would like to give my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for the way in which she is chairing the committee. It has a hugely demanding task, which we are all learning extremely fast.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is of course a member of that committee. The combination of his work and his expertise in the law has been demonstrated to be one of the strengths of the House today in the amendments that he has drafted, moved and explained in such meticulous detail. This is of huge benefit, and I hope that the Minister will recognise that he should give very serious consideration to what is being proposed.

I do not have the audacity to summarise the noble and learned Lord, other than to say that his basic questions were these: how do the frameworks fit into the Bill, and how will future arrangements be conducted if there is not a proper correlation between the frameworks and the Bill, and indeed the principles behind the frameworks? That is something that we have all been asking the Government to explain.