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United Kingdom Internal Market Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateMarco Longhi
Main Page: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)Department Debates - View all Marco Longhi's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is a kind of pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). He strikes a conciliatory tone and he sounds reasonable, but the bottom line is that he talks complete tosh. Nobody in the SNP is arguing against preserving the UK internal market, but this Bill does not preserve the internal market; it actually undermines Scotland’s position, because it means we can be forced to accept conditions imposed on us by Westminster. It undermines devolution for the very same reason.
The hon. Gentleman says that the Bill allows the UK Government to spend more money in Scotland. That is bypassing the devolution settlement. There is nothing to stop the UK Government working with the Scottish Government at the moment to give the Scottish Government more money to spend on infrastructure and to discuss with them our needs in Scotland.
The hon. Gentleman supports a Prime Minister who in the past has said:
“A pound spent in Croydon is of far more value to the country than a pound spent in Strathclyde.”
A Prime Minister who wanted the Barnett formula scrapped. A Prime Minister who said:
“I do think it is pretty monstrous that you have free care for the elderly in Scotland and no tuition fees…when you still get considerable subsidies from the rest of the UK”.
Where is the respect for devolution and for the Scottish Government making their own policy decisions in Scotland? It is non-existent.
As we have heard, clause 46 is the biggest power grab ever, allowing the UK Government to impose spending decisions on Scotland, bypassing the elected Government of Scotland. We have heard that it will be additional money, but where is the proof? This allows the Tory Government to cut the Scottish block grant and then spend that money for its own political gain, pretending that it is top-up money when it is not. It is a con trick.
The first sentence of clause 46 includes the provision:
“A Minister of the Crown may….provide financial assistance to any person”.
Given the Tory track record—as we have heard, they have awarded a ferry contract to a company with no ferries, awarded PPE contracts to their cronies and outsourced the track and trace scheme, for example—how can we trust their spending judgments and their integrity to spend money in Scotland, supposedly for our benefit?
Scotland previously relied on EU structural funds to help to plug shortfalls from Westminster, and now we are supposed to trust the UK prosperity fund, which sits in the Department of English communities and local government, managed by a Secretary of State who ploughed the English towns fund money into Tory marginal seats and who made an unlawful planning decision to save a Tory donor millions of pounds. There is no way we can trust him to look after the needs of Scotland. We cannot trust the Tory Government with clause 46 and, to rub salt in the wounds, clause 47 allows returns and punitive interest to be applied to any spending that comes through clause 46.
Clause 48 allows Westminster to decide what is and is not allowed with state aid. Let us look at farming, for example. The Scottish Government may wish to pay headage figures for lamb and beef production, but the UK Government could overrule that if they do not support English farmers in the same way. If we get to the stage where the free marketeers have their way and UK Government state subsidy is eliminated for certain sectors, by default, the Scottish sectors will also have their rug pulled from under them because of state aid rules. How does that respect devolution? When it comes to farming, the UK Government have form, previously having stolen the common agricultural policy convergence uplift money from the EU.
We know the risk of imports of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef. However, Argentinian beef could come in and undercut the market. Genetically modified crops could be imposed in Scotland. We have more robust climate change targets that could now be overruled by Westminster. The Government might impose this Bill on the Scottish Parliament against its will, but they are going to lose the independence argument.
I rise to speak in support of the Government’s Bill and their amendments. This Bill exposes an inherent weakness in the withdrawal agreement—namely, that while the EU and UK Government must use best endeavours and act in good faith to reach an agreement, it does not spell out a clear course of action if either or both of those criteria are not met. We all know that the EU has become accustomed to a United Kingdom that repeatedly comes back to the table asking for an extension, and maybe this is why the EU’s format of negotiation is a sequencing one, meaning that it agrees to move forward only once an agreement has been reached on a previous matter. This has the effect of incurring huge delays, and the EU’s unwillingness to multitask must have a purpose—namely, continuous delays desirable to the EU and damaging to the UK’s prospects of a good deal.
Is the sequencing approach to negotiating a demonstration of using best endeavours or negotiating in good faith? I submit that it is not. It is now clear to most objective observers that the EU’s current interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol is to use it as a lever in the negotiations. How is that a demonstration of negotiating in good faith? This Bill will ensure that Northern Ireland remains part of the UK’s customs territory and that Northern Ireland businesses retain unfettered access to GB markets. I must, however, place on record that more needs to be done in relation to Northern Ireland, having heard very powerful and compelling speeches from Unionist colleagues today and previously.
We know that the withdrawal agreement provided for the Joint Committee to set out heads of terms of a future deal, but the prospect of there being a timely and full agreement now appears unlikely. Why does the EU fail to agree at the Joint Committee on a single exemption from controls and tariffs for any goods flowing between GB and Northern Ireland? Is that behaviour consistent with best endeavours and good faith? Again, I submit that it is not. Why is it failing to agree exemptions at the Joint Committee on food checks for food moving between GB and Northern Ireland when we have been a member of the EU for 40 years and set standards ourselves? However, more fundamentally, what country and what Government in their right mind would devolve such fundamental sovereign powers to a foreign entity so that it would have the right to decide whether we can move our own food around our own Union of nations, as we have done for centuries? If we do not deliver this Bill, the EU will also have jurisdiction over how state aid decisions are made, for example on bail-outs related to covid or any future crisis.
For all those reasons, the Bill is about the delivery of Brexit and about sovereignty. It puts into law the ability for the Government to take action if a deal is not agreed. It delivers on an instruction that the good people of Dudley, and across our Union, gave this place not only in the 2016 referendum but at the last general election. We should, and must, press on with this.
The debates have been robust and challenging, and I have learned so much about Scottish politics. It has been a pleasure to listen to the sibling rivalry across the House. I have learned a great deal—thank you.
This evening we will be asked to vote on a Bill that moves us towards a situation in which the Government will break their own international treaty obligations. That will make negotiating future deals even harder, at a time when the Government should be focusing on tackling covid rather than reopening Brexit battles. However, I am encouraged by the number of amendments and new clauses in the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) and for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), and all those who have worked tirelessly to try to improve the Bill.
New clause 3 would place on the Government a duty to consult, monitor, report on and review parts of the Bill, including the shared prosperity fund. That is incredibly important to my constituency, which is in desperate need of levelling-up opportunities. My constituents have grown weary of glitzy marketing campaigns such as the northern powerhouse or social mobility, which have failed to deliver meaningful and widespread opportunities for them and their families. New clause 3 would militate against the shared prosperity fund going the same way, because Ministers would have to return to the House to update hon. Members. That report would allow us to examine whether the internal market will deliver desperately needed opportunities across our country. Let us not forget that the Centre for Cities called the UK
“the most geographically unequal developed economy in the world”.
The new clause would also require oversight of any cynical attempt to use the shared prosperity fund as a reward for Conservative MPs in red wall seats.
There is an urgent need to bring new jobs and development out of the south-east and into communities that have talent, people, and enthusiasm but are in need of opportunities. If we are to spread growth around the country in a consistent way, the power to do that must be in the hands of local leaders. By the time the Government report back, we should not still be debating whether the Bill strips devolved authorities of power and undermines the Union. Instead, we should be talking about how it places opportunity in the hands of local representatives—the very people who work in those communities, and know them far better than centralised Whitehall Departments ever could.
The shared prosperity fund replaces the EU structural fund, which many parts of our country benefited from. In Yorkshire and Humber, that fund was about €796 million. Currently, when drawing down resources from that fund, priorities for support funding need to be set locally and delivered by those engaged in the projects locally. The Government should deliver the fund by building on that principle of engagement, and by empowering our devolved Administrations, local authorities and elected mayors. The Government must trust our regional leaders to do what is right for their communities.
The Bill is about Britain’s reputation and position in the world. It is also about how we serve our communities better and ensure that our prosperity is shared properly across our country, on the basis of what would have been received had the referendum result been different.
A number of new clauses and amendments would improve the Bill, and I will be supporting them fully today.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateMarco Longhi
Main Page: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)Department Debates - View all Marco Longhi's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(3 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe withdrawal agreement, as agreed by the UK and the EU, contains a statement, under section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, that preserves parliamentary sovereignty. To be clear, section 38 states:
“It is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign”,
despite sections 1, 5 and 6. This means two things in my opinion: that this Parliament is quite within its rights to propose its own laws, as the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill does; and that, as a consequence, any such proposal that detracts from sovereign control is contrary to section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act itself.
The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill ensures that, if a trade agreement is not possible, sovereignty is preserved, given that the withdrawal agreement does itself detract from parliamentary sovereignty, such as by giving the ECJ binding powers of interpretation. Unfortunately, Lords amendments 48, 49 and 51 are but examples of how sovereignty is diminished, as the EU would control how taxpayers’ moneys are spent in the UK. We know that this is a stumbling block for the EU negotiations, and clearly it is the preference of some Members here and in the other place for the EU to retain control.
Much has been reported about control of our fisheries. Control over our territorial waters is important for our fishermen, even though many detractors of this argument seek to ridicule the amount it contributes to GDP. Yes, the contribution to GDP is in fact small, but that is because our fishing industry has been decimated since we relinquished control of fishing rights to the EU. Aside from the GDP argument, those who use it miss the point completely. It is about who exerts control over our waters, and a sovereign nation must have that control. This is what my constituents of Dudley North and the rest of the country voted for.
To present this appalling Bill to the House once was outrageous, showing contempt for our European friends and neighbours, trampling all over international law and riding roughshod over devolution. To push it through for a second time, deliberately putting back in place all the same flaws as before, is therefore simply shameless, but that is exactly what the Government are attempting to do today by way of these motions to disagree. The Government simply are not listening to some of the most serious, widespread and weighty criticism that any Government Bill has received in recent times, and they certainly are not listening to the devolved Governments and Parliaments. Every single one of the reasons for rejecting this Bill previously remain equally valid now as reasons for opposing these Government motions.
Like others, I will focus on the amendments that relate to international law and to devolution. On the former, the House of Lords did what had to be done by taking out the clear breach of international law and the attack on the rule of law that part 5 represented. It bears repeating again that the Government are expressly asking us to pass legislation in breach of an agreement they signed just months ago with a counterpart they are still negotiating with. That is simply astonishing, and we cannot let it be spoken about as if this is no big deal or in any way normal. Proceeding in this way represents a
“very real and direct threat to the rule of law, which includes the country’s obligations under public international law.”
These are not my words, but those of the Law Society and the Bar Council. When these provisions were first introduced, it seemed simply a totally cack-handed and counterproductive negotiating tactic, but, embarrassingly, here they are still pursuing this reckless possibility and offering up the removal of these clauses as part of negotiations on the future relationship changes nothing. It simply confirms that the Government are happy to threaten to go back on their word as a means of trying to get their own way. What an astonishing way for any Government to behave.
On devolution, all the House of Lords did was to water down the clear, obvious and extensive power grab on devolution. It did this through some modest obligations around consultation and giving the common frameworks process priority over ministerial diktat. It ditched the reservations of state aid and powers to bypass devolved Governments and devolved public spending. It provided greater scope for divergence on environmental, social and other grounds. None of that should be controversial, but, again, shamefully, the Government are seeking to restore the power grab to its fullest extent. Doing so undermines the possibility of policy divergence and the opportunities for the devolved Governments to deliver policies that protect and advance the interests of their citizens, and it restores the grim prospect of a race to the bottom. These Government motions are anti-devolution and they are anti-democratic. Again, they should be rejected.
In conclusion, let us be clear about what these proceedings tell us about the UK Government and the UK constitution. They tell us that Governments can, and that this one will, rip up international agreements signed just months ago. They tell us that power devolved is as exactly as was promised: power retained, with the devolved settlement to be amended or deleted at the will of the UK Government. Finally, with the UK out of the EU, the human rights regime under review, judicial oversight under attack, the second Chamber in reality toothless, this Chamber a rubber stamp for the Government, and devolution undermined, we say that the checks and balances on the UK Government have never, ever been weaker. In short, the Bill shows us that the UK’s political system and constitution are not fit for purpose, and that the sooner we are out of it, the better.