United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has withdrawn so I call the noble Lord, Lord Judd.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to put on record my admiration for the consistent, valiant work done by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. She has proved herself over recent weeks as a champion, almost second to none, of the principle of accountability to Parliament, the importance of Parliament and the importance of always being cautious lest power drifts back to the Executive. If we are to have these new arrangements for regulation and supervision, what she has talked about is a prime candidate for this. I believe it is a test of whether the Government really do believe in parliamentary authority and the accountability and supremacy of Parliament, and whether they really believe that there is no attempt by the Executive to take back power. I thank the noble Baroness for having given us another opportunity to raise this, which I hope the Government will take seriously.

I have immense respect for my noble friends who are working so hard and consistently on our behalf on the Bill. The rest of us who have strong feelings therefore have to be very cautious about getting in their way and making generalised statements that hold up proceedings and in the end undermine the effectiveness of what they are trying to do.

I want to make this point: anyone who believes that the Bill is simply about an internal market must face the reality, given that history will judge the effectiveness of this Chamber as a scrutinising Chamber, that it is about more than that. It is about a determined drive, as I see it, by the present Government all the time to increase the powers of the Executive. We must therefore be on our toes strategically if we are not, in our preoccupation with the detail of the Bill, to lose sight of this major challenge that we constantly have to face. I thank the noble Baroness once again.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who always helps us with his wisdom and experience. I join him in commending this understandable attempt by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to strengthen the scrutiny of any regulations made by the Minister under the proposed Bill, whether in the exercise of Henry VIII powers or otherwise. While I entirely support their purpose, I cannot support the precise method that the noble Baroness puts forward. The trouble is that there is no single super-affirmative procedure; there are, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, pointed out, a whole host of procedures.

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, because, not for the first time, he speaks a great deal of powerful good sense. We have to recognise that what is at stake here is the future of the United Kingdom as we now have it and not as we used to have it. As I said when I spoke briefly on Monday, I was not an advocate of Scottish devolution because I saw within it the seeds of disaster, but we have it. The fact that we have a Government in Scotland who are bent on independence adds a real danger and we must not play into the hands of those who would destroy the union.

It is all a question of getting the right balance. Far too often we have not got the right balance. I completely accept that the United Kingdom, which I want to see retained, has a Parliament and a Government which are clearly superior in political power to the devolved Administrations. Bearing in mind that one of those Administrations wishes to separate, I believe there is an enormous amount of good sense in what the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said. He talked about qualified majority voting within a council of Ministers drawn from the United Kingdom Government and the devolved Administrations. I beg my noble friend on the Front Bench to reflect on the wisdom of what the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred, said in very thoughtful, well-considered and powerful speeches.

It is clearly crucial that we consult within the four countries. It is clearly crucial that we recognise that one of the four countries has 80% of the population of the United Kingdom. It is clearly important that no tail wags the dog, but it is equally vital that we treat each other as equals and that Ministers meet and come to sensible decisions which are not seen as impositions. That is why I am so fundamentally opposed, as I always have been, to Henry VIII clauses. That Henry VIII should have been recruited in such large measure by the present Government is extremely unwise. To get immediate domination through a means that can only spawn long-term disaffection is not wise, and we need a Government who are able to practise wisdom at this crucial moment in our history.

We have left the European Union, we are going forward as a United Kingdom and we have got to achieve balance and symmetry and a long-term wisdom which does not lead to the replication of the sort of social division that was created in the 1880s, to which the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, just referred. History does not repeat itself, but it does—or should—teach us lessons and we should seek to derive wisdom from the knowledge of what has happened in the past. I beg my noble friend to consider what has been said in this debate, to reflect on the very wise words which we have had from the noble Lords, Lord German and Lord Liddle, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in particular, and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and let us try to come to an accommodation.

We need to come together in this country more than we have ever needed to. We must not dismiss opinions because they come from parties other than our own. I am not so starry-eyed as to think that we could have a national Government tomorrow, but we have to treat each other with a degree of respect. We have to recognise that it is just conceivably possible that the other side might have a few good views.

Cromwell was not a man for consensus, but he once said, in the predecessor of the other place: “Conceive it possible, in the bowels of Christ, that you may be mistaken.” My message to the Government this evening is: conceive it possible that you may not have got it quite right, and let us come together to help you to get it right.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest because I am half English and half Scottish, and proud of it. I am very close to my Scottish family. I have always feared that, in this House in particular, we have underestimated the dangers ahead had devolution not happened. The lessons of Ireland are there, and I believe that the peace and stability of our peoples across the islands of Ireland and Great Britain have been ensured by the process of devolution; I am convinced of that.

When my noble friend Lord Hain says he sometimes does not understand why Ministers do not accept the logic of a particular position that is taken, I think that he is failing to look at the driving force behind all that is happening. As I said in a debate on a previous amendment today, I believe that there is a driving force against everything that I think most of us in this House have believed was vital.

There is a world of difference between the concepts of “consult” and “consent”. What builds up the resentment of the Scottish people, for example—I am sure it is true for Northern Ireland and Wales as well—is the patronising assumption that we will consult the others. Those who emphasise the importance of mutuality in this debate are absolutely right. That means that we meet, in a sense, as equals, and we seek their consent to proposals that we may be making.

The amendment is vital. It is vital not just to this internal market Bill but to recommitting ourselves to peace-building. We always seem to react and try to deal with crises when they have overtaken us. In this case, we had the wisdom to look ahead and do things in time. We will need to reassert the whole process of peace-building, mutual consent and the recognition of people as people, wherever they are with their identity. This amendment is very important indeed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I agree with him. Reflecting on this amendment, so ably moved by my noble friend Lord German on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, I was struck by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. During the 20 years of devolution, none of us has had a unique monopoly on wisdom as to what devolution is. It has been a combination of people on a journey. The noble Lord started from a position of opposition but then perhaps found areas to support, while recognising that there are still frictions within our union. Within my party, there has been a consistent element of support for delivering it.

I hope the Minister accepts that no one in this House wishes our union ill harm. No one wants the internal market not to operate in the best way that it can for the benefit of our businesses and our people. Clearly, there are nationalists across parts of the United Kingdom who have a different purpose, but when we are scrutinising this Bill, we want it to be better.

I want to reflect on the points made to the Scottish Parliament by the right honourable Michael Gove. He was asked why the Government was insisting on putting this legislation forward when it had not received the normal legislative consent Motions. Michael Gove said that these were exceptional circumstances. It is arguable whether all the component parts of this Bill—which creates the framework for an internal market with its long-term consequences—are both exceptional and necessary before the end of January.

The Minister still has to persuade many that the whole of the Bill is required by the end of the IP period, given that we are still awaiting legislative frameworks. As part of EU retained law, there is a standstill period for all those pieces of legislation anyway, so we question the Bill’s necessity. The Government insist that they need it to go through but, since the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, indicated in a previous group that it was drafted in a bit of a rush during the summer, it is right to ask the Government to think seriously about those elements that will have a significant impact on the ability of the devolved Administrations to legislate and of Ministers in Scotland and Wales to act in an executive way within their competences.

Perhaps the Government could reflect and insert some provisions into this legislation in order to reassure the devolved Administrations that the level of consultation to which we have been accustomed in the past will continue in future. As the Constitution Committee report clearly indicated, it is only in Clause 6 where changes would have an impact that the Government are proposing to consult with the devolved Administrations. There is no provision for what would happen if there were a dispute or if the consultation were to indicate that the devolved Administrations did not want the Government to continue on their chosen route.

Clauses 8, 10, 17, 19, 20 and 48 all contain areas where the Constitution Committee has highlighted changes that would have an impact on the devolved Administrations and their legislative competences, and where no consultation is proposed. These areas can be rectified without a change to the timetable by which the Government wish to move forward. This is a legitimate request on behalf of all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate.

In this group, it has been helpful to reflect on the areas where it has become the practice to seek consent for significant changes to the constitutional framework impacting on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Then there are secondary areas where—if there has been an impact—consultation has been the norm.

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[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, I originally put my name down to speak on this group because I wanted to give strong support to Amendment 52 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. She, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, have made a good case; after all, climate change and the other environmental challenges are bigger issues than Brexit, Covid or even the break-up of the United Kingdom. We need to ensure that nothing we do in this Bill or in parallel Bills diminishes our commitment to meeting our international obligations under the Paris Agreement or our national obligations under the Committee on Climate Change’s proposals on carbon budgets and the commitments we make as a Government and as a Parliament to meet our targets on that front. Amendment 52 would help deliver that.

During this afternoon—I was not here on the first day of Committee—I have also become increasingly concerned that the Bill is, as the noble Lord, Lord German, called it, twin-tracking different aspects of government policy on the devolution settlements and the way they are going. The two do not meet. The principal commitment here is market access. There are government commitments to standards in the Agriculture Bill and elsewhere, and there is the whole process of common frameworks, many of which are still in very preliminary form.

With regard to the broad public debate, the Government have managed a great diversionary tactic by banging Part 5 into the Bill and causing public and international outrage. However, there are some fairly profound issues in the lack of commonality or melding in the approaches on market access, common frameworks and the long-term implications for our devolution settlement. They have not been resolved today in the subjects we have discussed. At Second Reading, I expressed some concern that the Bill was not clear in relation to state aid and the internal market, or the role of the proposed office for the internal market.

A lot of this needs to be pulled together before we complete the Bill. I have a proposition. We have as a House established a short-term Select Committee looking at common frameworks. That has called for evidence; the deadline is 30 November. Would it not be sensible for the Government and the usual channels to talk to it? I am afraid I have not consulted my noble friend Lady Andrews, who chairs that committee, on this; it occurred to me only this afternoon. It is looking at the role of common frameworks, but in this Bill, which the Government are trying to get through as fast as possible, we are doing something which cuts across some of the commitments on them. Would it not be sensible to ask that Select Committee to look at the relationship between the Bill and common frameworks before we move to Report, or, if that is not possible, at least between Report and Third Reading? The process we normally adopt will not resolve these conundrums in the Bill; we need to find a novel way of dealing with them, and we have a solution at our fingertips with the Select Committee, which has already begun its work. I ask the Government and the usual channels to look at that proposition.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, what a powerful team at the end of this very interesting debate. It was great to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, putting her case on standards so strongly; she is absolutely right. I was also delighted to hear my good neighbour and noble friend Lady Hayman—we live in the same ward in the west of Cumbria—speaking with all her authority. She will bring a very important contribution to the considerations of this House. My respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, is continuing and constant, and noble Lords hear it again tonight. What my noble friend Lord Whitty was saying about the useful contribution the Select Committee could make in getting things right should be taken very seriously. We get awfully trapped in patterns of organisation for our affairs and debates. Sometimes we do not look at our assets and the contributions they can make.

I strongly support my noble friend Lord Stevenson’s amendment and I am impressed and struck by the importance of Amendments 52, 53 and 54. They all deal with the essential quality of our existence and the action that is necessary to ensure that we have some sort of quality of existence, and ensuring that we are in a strong position to ameliorate the impact of climate change. These are absolutely fundamental issues for our future.

I sometimes look back on a long time in Parliament and politics and think that we sometimes want to fit things into organisational structures. Of course, the market is crucial and what we are debating is a reform of the market and what we are going to do, but the market is not an end in itself. We should constantly be restating the challenge: in the environment, in conditions of work and workers’ rights and employment conditions, of animal welfare, and of good husbandry of our land and care of it. There is also the whole issue of understanding that this is not just a choice of what we might do; we are dependent upon getting it right. From that standpoint, these amendments are a very important part of our proceedings, and I congratulate all those who have been involved in proposing them.