United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Marco Longhi and Richard Thomson

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson]

On the contrary, there is every reason to do that precisely because I have been making the argument—I do not know how carefully the hon. Member has been listening to it—that there is absolutely no need to encroach on the existing devolved settlement to deliver all the things that we are being told need to happen.

Frankly, this is nothing more than an arrogation, a usurpation and a trespassing on the principle that the decisions taken exclusively for Scotland should be made in Scotland by those who are directly accountable to the people of Scotland, taking us back to the bad old days prior to devolution, when Ministers of a party elected on a minority of the votes and seats could nevertheless rule the country without going to the trouble of winning an election beforehand.

Devolution was once described as

“the settled will of the Scottish people”—

as a way to accommodate legitimate desires for growing democratic aspirations within an old Union. That was certainly how it looked until 1997, and it is how it has looked for many in Scotland until recently, but the Union that Scots were invited to vote for in 2014—the balance that existed between Parliaments, Governments and institutions in London, Brussels and Edinburgh—has already gone. The failure to back an amendment of this nature shows that the very principles of autonomy, consent and respect that lay at the heart of the devolution settlement are also about to go.

People who voted in 2014 to be part of two Unions—the European Union and the British Union—can now see that they can only possibly be part of one. If this amendment falls and is not taken on board by the Government, it will show that the entire basis of devolution—that decisions should be taken for the people of the devolved nations and regions by those elected by and directly accountable to them—is being similarly trashed.

If the UK Government wish to depart from the EU and to deploy their majority to crush these principles, there is very little that I or my colleagues can do in practice to stop that, although there is plenty that can be done outside this place. For all that I used to make the argument that one day, the Scottish Parliament might have its wings clipped by a politically motivated activist Conservative Government, I never imagined for one day that a Government would come along so stuffed full of John Bull as to make it actually happen.

The polls across Scotland—I am sure that private polls in the Scotland Office confirm what the public polls say—show that increasing numbers of Scots know and understand that to re-attain EU membership, independence is required. If the Bill is passed unamended, it will become equally clear that independence is also required to preserve Scotland’s hard-won democracy and autonomy. It will give me no satisfaction to be proven right, from back in 1997, about where devolution might end up. There is if not yet a settled will, very definitely a settling will in Scotland that that is the case. If yet more of the Scottish people reach the conclusion that independence is now the only way to protect Scotland’s Parliament, this Government, having acted in haste, will be left to repent at leisure and in not very splendid isolation.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I rise to speak with enthusiastic support for clauses 46 and 47, and I start by saying that long before the advent of the EU, the UK internal market functioned seamlessly for centuries. This Bill and the clauses we are debating ensure that every part of the United Kingdom—England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—will benefit. The Government committed to delivering the UK-wide shared prosperity fund, replacing the awful bureaucratic EU structures. Clauses 46 and 47 are specifically designed to ensure that no one, regardless of home nation, misses out on this fund.

Of course, if we cast our minds back to 2016, one of the leave arguments made during the referendum was that not only is the UK a net contributor to the EU, but that the reduced funds that it receives back are prescribed explicitly by the EU in terms of how much and where in the UK these funds are spent. We were being told where to spend our own money, and less of it. Brexit and the Bill rectify that utterly bizarre arrangement and allow a sovereign UK Government, working together with their devolved Administrations, to set out how and where these funds are spent, which is precisely as it should be. We voted to take back control, and control we are taking back.

Under clauses 46 and 47, our UK Government could make payments, including grants, loans and guarantees, to any person in the United Kingdom for the purpose of promoting economic development in the UK, providing infrastructure in the UK, supporting cultural and sporting activities, projects and events, and supporting international and domestic educational and training activities and exchanges.

We have very recently seen the benefit of taking a UK-wide approach to funding issues such as covid-19 and the effects of Storms Ciara and Dennis, and the Bill supports exactly that type of approach.