United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

1: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Common frameworks process
(1) The United Kingdom market access principles shall not apply to any statutory provision or requirement that gives effect to a decision to diverge from harmonised rules that has been agreed through the common frameworks process.(2) No regulations may be made by a Minister of the Crown with regard to a matter that is under consideration under the common frameworks process while that process in relation to that matter is still in progress.(3) The “common frameworks process” is a means, established by the Joint Ministerial Committee on European Negotiations, by which a measure of regulatory consistency to enable a functioning internal market within the United Kingdom may be mutually agreed between the United Kingdom and devolved governments.”

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to move the first of three amendments in this group, which consists of Amendments 1, 38 and 51. They address the rules for the mutual recognition of goods in Part 1 of the Bill, of services in Part 2 and of professional qualifications in Part 3. They are all directed to the same essential point: the relationship between the common frameworks process and the internal market that the Bill seeks to create. Underlying this is a question which goes to the heart of the relationship between the Governments of the four nations in this United Kingdom.

There are two ways in which our internal market can be created. Is this to be a market created by all four nations working together, as they are doing through the common frameworks process, or is it to be created by imposition from Westminster, as the Bill seeks to do? If it is the latter, do the Government really support devolution, as the Prime Minister is now asking us to believe? Actions speak louder than words. How the Government respond to these amendments will tell us where the truth lies.

I am grateful to those noble Lords who have joined with me in proposing these amendments. I should make it clear that I intend to divide the House if the Minister is unable to give me an assurance that the Government accept the principle that lies behind the amendments and will come back at Third Reading with amendments of their own that give effect to it.

The noble Lord, Lord True, has said several times that the market access principles are designed not to replace but to complement the common frameworks. I am sure that he will not mind when I say that he was not the first to use that expression, nor, since it is not his word, if I tell him what I think of it.

The word “complements” is in the White Paper. The noble Lord assured us that the Government remain committed to the common frameworks programme. I would like to take him at his word, but what does he mean by that? Are the market access principles that the Bill sets out really complementary to each other, as he has indicated? It is hard to see how that can be, unless the Bill itself tells us how these two systems are to work together towards the same aim. As it is, when you consider the effect of the market principles on that programme, to say that they complement each other seems a complete misuse of language. My amendments seek to bring the two together, in a way that fully respects the devolution settlement while allowing the principles to operate fully in all the other areas that the common frameworks do not touch.

Without going over again all the ground that I covered in Committee, I should remind your Lordships that the common frameworks process has its origin in an agreement reached at a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council in 2017. Something had to be done to create a harmonious working relationship between them all when we left the EU. The devolved nations had been able, within the limits of EU law, to fulfil their responsibilities as devolved Governments to formulate and apply policies that best suited their local circumstances. So it was agreed that they and the United Kingdom Government would work together through common frameworks in order to enable the functioning of the UK internal market, while—this was a crucial part of the agreement—acknowledging policy divergence. Therefore, each devolved Administration was to retain the ability to diverge from the harmonised rules in their territory within the mandate given to them by the devolution settlement, after consulting the relevant policy group to see whether a common outcome could be reached and agreed to. Now, three years later, and without the agreement of the JMC or any of the devolved nations, we have this Bill.

Not only does the Bill ignore the common frameworks process but it destroys one of the key elements in that process that brought the devolved Administrations into it in the first place: it destroys policy divergence. It destroys those Administrations’ ability through that process to serve the interests of their own people, and to innovate. The common frameworks operate by working out solutions by agreement between the four nations. If a policy divergence is sought, it has to be agreed to. The market access principles system, on the contrary, does not operate by agreement; it is hard edged. It is a set of strict statutory rules which, apart from the few limited exceptions, do not allow for any divergence at all.

A policy aim which is designed to deal with serious threats to human, animal or plant health will be protected by the exclusion in Schedule 1, but that exclusion is narrowly drawn—threats to the environment, for example, are not mentioned. So policy aims giving effect to advances in the science relating to biodegradable plastics, for example, are outside its scope. As time goes on, there will be others which one party to the common frameworks system would like to put into effect. Business is nothing if it is not dynamic, so there must be room for improvement in what we do across all four nations. The common frameworks system should be allowed to develop but, under the Bill as it stands, all of that will be inhibited by rigid rules.

It does not have to be that way. Our amendments seek to go to the heart of the problem. They assume that a requirement is enacted by a devolved Administration that has been agreed by all four nations under a common framework. They assume that it is being enacted to give effect to a policy formed within its own part of the UK, which the other nations, having assessed its effect on the market as whole, are willing to accept. The question is: how can that requirement retain its effect if traders from another part of the UK can simply ignore it when trading across the border? There is nothing that a trading standards officer—or a court, for that matter—could do to prevent that. This is an invitation to traders—who operate, after all, in their own commercial interests according to the rules of the marketplace—to disregard the requirement as they please when they cross the border.

The devolved Administrations deplore the fact that a process that all four nations have agreed to is at risk of being undermined in this way. The Welsh Government have indicated that they cannot agree to this. The Scottish Parliament has refused to consent to it. Others will speak for Northern Ireland. How can this be a UK internal market when it does not have the support of the other nations? Please do not say that there is widespread support for this Bill. That is not an answer to the very precise question that I am raising, which the White Paper said nothing about at all.

Our amendments seek to do no more than allow the two systems to live together. It will enable them both to work together towards the same common aim. In that way the market principles will truly complement the common frameworks, instead of undermining them and calling into question the whole process. Had it not been for the devolved settlements—for devolution itself—there would have been no problem. We would have been a single Administration and there would have been no need for this Bill at all. But we cannot turn the clock back. Devising rules for this internal market requires us to accept the constitutional arrangements that now exist. It is the genius of the common frameworks that a way was found, by agreement, of doing that. That is what our amendments are all about. They are no wider than is necessary. They are not seeking to undermine the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, in this group I wish to speak in particular to Amendment 1, which my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead has explained most eloquently. In Committee, the Government tried to assure us that Parts 1 to 3 of the Bill were somehow compatible with or complementary to the common frameworks process, that the Government were fully committed to that process, and that the intention of the Bill was to fill in the gaps where common frameworks did not operate. But we had no explanation of how the common frameworks process and the market access principles would work alongside each other. No real-world example was cited that the existing common frameworks process did not or could not address in the future.

For example, we were told that different building standards would tie the construction industry in knots. But there are already different building standards, including the excellent requirement in Wales that builders must install fire suppression systems in all new residential premises. This was introduced 14 years ago by the then National Assembly, and guidance to the sector on it runs to several hundred pages—understandable for a measure that will save lives. Has the construction industry been campaigning against devolution as a result? No. Then there was the risk to the English supply of malting barley to Scotland from divergent restrictions on pesticides. That case folded when the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, pointed out that the use of fertilisers and pesticides was one of the extremely rare explicit exclusions from the market access principle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure that is directly relevant to the subject matter of the Bill. I thought I had in fact made the point that imputation of motive and intent is a political choice that should be exercised wisely. This Government’s intention in this Bill is in no way to undermine the devolution settlement and I have restated, from this Dispatch Box, our commitment to the common frameworks. As for opinion polls, if I were a Liberal Democrat I would not live by them.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

[Inaudible.]—perspectives have offered support to what these amendments seek to do. Picking up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—sitting on my own in my little room, participating virtually—I too very much regret that it has not been possible for us all to join together in the Chamber. I see the value of the points he was making about introducing some more lively spirit among those in the Chamber, so there could be a real atmosphere of debate, which even remotely we would be able to enjoy.

I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord True, said. He expressed his position, as always, very clearly in careful language. I think, on a fair reading, that the clauses in Parts 1 and 2 are more absolute in their effect than he was making out, and I do not accept the criticisms that he makes of the amendments’ effect. Of course, I do not claim that the amendment I have put forward is a final solution; there was always an option open to the Government. If they thought the amendments could be improved upon or altered to meet some of the points that the Minister made, that could have been done—but there was no such offer forthcoming from him, for reasons that I understand.

The question was whether the devolved nations should continue to be free to develop and apply market policies within their devolution mandate which have secured agreement under the common frameworks process, or whether that freedom should simply be brushed aside, as the Bill really seeks to do. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this Government regard devolution as an inconvenience that can simply be ignored when they want to. I regret that very much indeed. I am a unionist and I believe in the union and all that it stands for, and all the values that I hope it will continue to give us in future. But I am afraid we see here an uncompromising, careless and centralist style of government, which divides our United Kingdom into pieces at a time when harmony is most needed. That has no place in our democracy.

I know that the Minister will reflect very carefully on what has been said today, and I hope that he will do his best to persuade those at the heart of government to think again, but what he has said in his reply leaves me with no alternative. I seek to test the opinion of the House on my amendment.