United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

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

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, now that we are leaving the scope of the single market, the characteristics of the UK internal market become very important; that is why I put my name down to speak to this group and, in particular, to Amendments 2 and 59.

Superficially, it is easy to assume that the UK internal market should, and will, share the principal attributes of the EU single market but, of course, that is far from certain, not least because of the circumstances surrounding it all. After all, the creation of the EU single market was first agreed by member states in an IGC, which is very different from what we are looking at now in this country. The new arrangements have come into being in somewhat different circumstances and across a single territory in which there has been devolution—and within that, the different components clearly have different perspectives.

There is now much less consensus and no prior agreement. In these circumstances, within a devolved as opposed to a federal system, there are potential procedural problems where the UK Government and the English Government—if I might be allowed to call them that—are coterminous. It is not desirable for the repatriation of European competencies to drive a coach and six through the devolution settlement in these islands. For this reason, I believe strongly that Amendment 2 is important to provide a legal framework around the political procedures repatriating these powers. In my view, it is particularly important—I speak as both a unionist and a supporter of the devolution settlements—that England does not emerge as a bully boy imposing its will on the other countries. To do that would be to take the high road to the break-up of the UK.

I also want to touch on Amendment 59, in the context of my chairmanship of the Cumbria local enterprise partnership. As a border region and part of borderlands, any form of potential discrimination—be it direct or indirect, intended or unintended—poses a very real threat to our economy, much of which is focused on both sides of the Solway Firth. Competition law, environmental law and a number of other more general categories of social law are essential components of market economies in our kinds of societies in the 21st century. As a number of speakers have said, there is a real conundrum at the heart of this between local autonomy, which matters, and British cohesion and homogeneity, which also matter. I very much hope that the Minister will spell out exactly how the Government see these things interacting, because, as always, the devil lies in the detail.

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, my concern in this group of amendments and, indeed, with the Bill as a whole is that a fundamental collision is taking place between what is happening in London and what is happening in the regions. I was never struck by the Sewell convention. I believe that we have not properly explained the source of funds to the devolved nations, and I do not believe that any country like ours should leave itself unable to function in certain parts of its own territory. Nevertheless, I believe that we are now paying the price for the haphazard, ill-thought-through lurch to different types of devolution that have been going on over the last 20 years in a virtually unco-ordinated way.

This collision is demonstrated by the fact that we had discussions taking place on the various common frameworks, which have been sort of set to one side and replaced with some of the provisions in the Bill. Probing amendments such as Amendment 2 are important. The Minister and his colleagues have to reassess where they are with all this because there is a pattern emerging—we have devolution and people are now more focused on their local identity. We see this happening in parts of England with the Covid crisis; it is really concerning. Some Members have already expressed their concern about the future of the union as a whole; I very much share that and have done so for some time.

Looking at the best way ahead, while the term “subsidiarity” is European, the general principle that you take decisions at the closest point to the people who are affected by them is a solid and sound way of doing business. There are examples of where the United Kingdom was until relatively recently still a very centralised country compared to some of our European colleagues and other countries around the world.

One other element not mentioned so far is that my own region of Northern Ireland will be subject to different laws on a whole variety of subjects, and it is not entirely clear to me where this will leave us. For nearly all of our economic activity, we will remain to all intents and purposes within the European Union, subject to European and state aid regulations, and there will be a whole, as yet unresolved, customs conundrum as far as our trade is concerned. How all these different measures are to be brought together in a coherent way is entirely unclear to me at this stage. I feel that this probing amendment and others in this group are important because they force the Government to explain to us how this will work in practice.

I accept the concept of common frameworks, in which you get general agreement from the devolved regions. Whether you agree with it or not, this Parliament has given them the power—the fact is that they have it and they are entitled to exercise the functions that have been devolved to them. We should not find ourselves in a situation where ultimately we sow the seeds of further clashes. That would undermine the union and our economy, and I certainly do not want to see that. The Government need to revisit these amendments and this section of the Bill. Unless it is clear and people know where they stand, we will have the sources of further friction built into our legislation—and we have more than enough of those at the moment.

I ask the Minister to address my point specifically: if Northern Ireland is effectively in the EU from an economic point of view, where is the line drawn between functioning under EU laws and regulations and, in the future, such things as market access being involved? I can see circumstances where there could be a significant clash. Procurement is one of the most obvious areas. A lot of small suppliers throughout the United Kingdom have felt that they have been discriminated against because Governments and various authorities have always tended to go to the bigger players. As was pointed out at the beginning of this debate, we could end up with almost the same threshold as we currently have as part of the EU. Will the Minister and his colleagues take seriously the concerns that Members of this House have been expressing about the fundamental clash—the collision—between our devolved settlements and our internal market? To me, that will be the key to making sure that this legislation does good and does not end up doing harm.