United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 15 and the other amendments which would require the UK Government to obtain consent from the devolved institutions.

The big political issue from a Scottish perspective in what we are debating is whether this legislation takes back powers that currently reside with the Scottish Parliament to the UK Parliament without consent. It seems accepted by all involved in this debate that that could be the case; I believe that is what my noble friend Lord Hain was saying, and what the Minister clarified on the first day of Report. Any further information or response the Government could give to clarify that point would be greatly helpful, in terms of the political problems from a Scottish perspective regarding this legislation. There can always be situations where it would be completely appropriate for UK legislation to be enacted covering currently devolved areas, with the consent of all parties involved, but that is not the issue we are debating here.

The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, of a more detailed framework for consultation was incredibly useful, for all the reasons that have been outlined by noble Lords. As I understand it, the current legislation has no arbitration or other process that would deal with disputes. The genuine belief, which has been confirmed around this House, is that, as currently drafted, this Bill undermines the devolution settlements because it potentially involves areas where the Scottish Parliament currently has competence. There could be situations such as that outlined by my noble friend Lord Hain: for example, the Scottish Parliament currently has the ability to regulate for all goods in Scotland, but this legislation would mean it could regulate only for goods made in Scotland or those imported from abroad, and not those from other parts of the United Kingdom.

If that is not how this Bill, if it becomes an Act, would work in practice, or if it is impossible that that set of circumstances could come about, the Government need to be up front about that and make commitments and guarantees, given the political debate around this legislation. As I said on the previous occasion I spoke on this Bill, the concern in Scotland is that it could lead to a race to the bottom on standards and would enable a situation where the Scottish Parliament cannot legislate on matters that it could at the moment.

The concern is that the Government are effectively seeking, in certain circumstances, to take powers back from the Scottish Parliament. The backdrop is that all parties in Scotland, with the exception of the Conservative Party, have been asking and campaigning for greater powers for the Scottish Parliament, particularly financial powers, for many years. We have had rising support for independence, which gained momentum during the independence referendum in 2014, and a Brexit which is unpopular in Scotland, where there is a high level of awareness that 62% of the people voted remain. I therefore ask the Government to take all that into account.

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I am concerned about Amendments 14 and 15, which both clearly state that:

“Before making regulations under subsection (7) the Secretary of State must”


consult

“the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Department for the Economy”.

I asked myself why it is specifically the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland but not in Wales or Scotland. Can the Minister clarify in winding up why it is specifically the Department for the Economy? The distinction is made in a couple of other parts of the Bill. Surely it is clear, given that the grounds for discrimination cover areas such as animal health and biosecurity, that the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs would have a deep interest in any changes. Thus the restriction to consult only the Department for the Economy is a bit difficult to understand.

I strongly contend that Northern Ireland should be treated in exactly the same way as other regions of the United Kingdom. Would the Minister be good enough to clarify in winding up on this group why it specifically states only the Department for the Economy, and not the Northern Ireland Assembly or other ministries? I will leave it at that.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, it is welcome that the Government, in the shape of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, have got up today and made some concessions to the position articulated in this House in Committee. We all welcome that, but he has not gone far enough. In Amendment 15 in particular, what he describes as imposing additional processes on government would actually be very valuable—particularly in the present political context, in which the Government have thrown a lot of doubt on their commitment to the devolution settlement.

In that context, I endorse the speech of my new Labour colleague, my noble friend Lady Clark. A serious political crisis is looming on the devolution question and, in everything we do, we have to behave with enormous sensitivity to the fact that that is a realistic prospect before us. Therefore, I do not see Amendment 15 as nitpicking, in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, described it; I see it as strengthening the principle that the Government have already conceded.

As a federalist and someone who believes in a federal Britain, I believe that this is an inadequate response to the devolution problem. I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, when he says that we should have an arrangement where none of the four nations of Britain can veto a proposal that the other three agree with. I do not believe that England can always exercise that veto through the United Kingdom Parliament—that is what we have to change. If we are to keep the United Kingdom together, I believe that we have to think of new arrangements where decisions are made by a United Kingdom council that properly represents the nations, and, I hope, the regions and cities of England as well. That is a personal point about where I think we should be going.

Therefore, I do not see this as a particularly radical amendment that will address the present growing concerns about the devolution settlement. None the less, it is a sensible amendment, which I support, and I hope very much that my Front-Bench colleague, my noble friend Lady Hayter, will divide the House on it, unless we hear in the Minister’s response that the Government will make a significant move in its direction.

It seems to me that the merit of this amendment is that, by saying that the Secretary of State “must” seek consent, it puts on the face of the Bill the argument that disagreement should be the exception and that we should go into this with all sides—particularly the UK Government—determined to reach consent. Where there is no agreement, to win consent for that decision it is very important that there is a requirement for an explanation of how it is consistent with the devolution settlement, where the principle that the Government have set out is that the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments will have more, not less, powers as a result of withdrawal from the EU. In that explanation, the Government would have to demonstrate why that was so. They have already listened to some extent but I very much hope that they will listen more to what those of us on this side of the House have said, and that the Minister will indicate that he might go further.