United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Before I consider part 4, I wish briefly to set the context of the comments that I will make.

Yesterday, Scotland’s friends in the EU and the wider international community were concerned that a UK Prime Minister was prepared to sacrifice the rule of law in a vain attempt to save his own bacon. Of course, there is disbelief that this arrogance is voiced outside the Cummings bubble, but the deliberate trashing of the UK’s international standing is now endorsed by 340 parliamentarians so can no longer be regarded as the ravings of a few. They are all now complicit in this grand folly of legislation.

The Bill is a disgraceful piece of legislation led by a Prime Minister whose words mean nothing and a party that is lurching ever further to the right, breaking the rules, acting unlawfully and now rewriting its own laws, while rubbishing any moral authority the UK had to hold rogue states—

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. I draw his attention to the fact that he needs to address the amendments before us. This is not a Second Reading speech all over again; it is important to address what is before the House today.

[Neale Hanvey]

Thank you, Dame Rosie. My preface to my comments was just to set the scene, which is what I am doing, but as I move on my comments will relate to the amendments.

The Prime Minister has presided over a summer of U-turns, U-turned on his own Brexit deal and turned away from the rule of law. The comments in terms of Scotland can be summed up by the Law Society of Scotland’s reflections on the Bill. It has stated that

“as a matter of principle”

the Bill should comply with the oldest principle of international law,

“pacta sunt servanda (agreements are to be kept)”.

Quite unfortunately, Scotland has a head start in knowing the hollowness of such a principle. [Interruption.] I’m sorry?

[The First Deputy Chairman]

Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot have conversations across the Chamber. I would be grateful if he moved on to the amendments before us as quickly as possible. Thank you.

[Neale Hanvey]

This debate is focused on part 4, in which the authority of the Competition and Markets Authority and the wide-ranging and poorly specified powers of the UK Government’s man in Scotland are nothing short of a British nationalist inquisition. There are wide-ranging powers that cut to the very heart of the devolution settlement across every policy area—powers that the Government claim they will never use; they are there just in case. Well, Scotland is not buying it, and we are not having any of it. Devolution is the settled and robustly expressed will of the Scottish people, and it must be for the Scottish people alone to decide whether it should ever be restricted or changed in any way.

Part 4 of this wrecking-ball Bill takes decision-making powers away from Holyrood and hands them to the unelected body of the Office for the Internal Market. This office of inquisition will have the power to pass judgment on devolved laws and could quickly become the target of rich corporate lobbyists determined to see activities such as fracking go ahead against the will of the Scottish people.

[Patrick Grady]

Is not the power grab compounded by the fact that the Government clearly intend to push this legislation through without legislative consent to the Bill from any of the devolved Administrations? When they ask, “Where is the power grab? Give us an example,” that is it. They are refusing even to accept the fact that the devolved legislatures will not consent to the Bill and they will not engage in its detail. The power grab runs right the way through this process.

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[Neale Hanvey]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution—

[Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neale Hanvey]

If I could just answer my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. I will address the notion that there is a power surge of any shape or form shortly.

[Jane Hunt]

Sorry, I was a bit keen. Do you agree that without the Bill—without the internal market structure—Scotland would be worse off? [Interruption.] Forgive me, but let me explain my point. I will not talk about whisky, because we always do that when we are talking about Scotland; I will talk about lenses for glasses, which are often made in Scotland. A large number of them are made in Scotland and go across the whole UK. If we did not have the internal market structure, then there could be tariffs—restrictions—on their being sold in, say, Wales or England. So why would you not want to accept this now?

[The First Deputy Chairman]

Order. May I just point out that it is very important not to use the word “you” to another Member? We speak to the Chair, so it is “the hon. Member” rather than “you”, just to clarify that.

[Neale Hanvey]

The hon. Lady raises a really interesting point. I wanted to get it into my remarks, and she has now given me a very clear avenue in which to do it. I cannot understand how she could come up with the suggestion that the UK would enforce its own internal tariffs, but with regard to Scottish competitiveness in this internal market, Scotland is already at a disadvantage. There is a company in my constituency that imports chassis from the EU but does not make its lorries here completely—like many of its EU competitors, it buys certain parts and puts them together. Those EU companies would be allowed to import a fully completed vehicle without any tariff, while that company would be subject to a high tariff on the importation of those chassis and therefore at a competitive disadvantage. That is because of Brexit. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point. I would also be grateful if the Minister took cognisance of my comments and gave me a detailed response about how the Government will protect companies such as that in my constituency from this type of disadvantage in the importation of completed vehicles.

[Paul Bristow]

The internal market does not just guarantee costs and prices of things—it also guarantees standards. One of my favourite Scotland-to-England exports is BrewDog’s Punk IPA. How can the hon. Member, without the internal market, guarantee that my pint of Punk IPA in Peterborough is the same quality as in Aberdeen?

[Neale Hanvey]

I thank the hon. Member for raising yet another very helpful point. The problem is not whether the quality of Punk IPA will be consistently high in the north and the south, or even in Europe if it is still able to import it; the problem is that the quality at the lowest level will have to be accepted everywhere. It is not the highest level that is the issue; it is the lowest level. I will now try to make progress. I hope that it is now beginning to make sense, Dame Rosie, why I had that preamble.

As I said, devolution is the settled and robustly expressed will of the Scottish people, and it is for them alone to decide if it should ever be restricted or changed in any way. If this law had been in force during the past 20 years of devolution, it would have affected Scotland’s ability to prioritise important issues like free tuition for Scottish students or to set important health policies such as minimum unit pricing for alcohol and introducing the smoking ban before other nations. Those would all have been at risk and may not have happened. Looking forward, there are things like the procurement of changes to food standards that can be imposed on Scotland as devolution is reduced to the powers of compliance, complicity or subjugation. Can you imagine the howls from Government Members if the EU had proposed such legislation? Yet they are content to do this to Scotland, and then tell us that we should be grateful. What a charade!

Well, Scotland is not buying it and we are having none of it. This legislation strips powers of decision making away from our democratically elected representatives in Holyrood. In an email to MSPs on 14 September, the Royal Society of Edinburgh warned that, while final decision-making power ultimately would remain with the UK Government, the use of that authority by the CMA against the wishes of devolved Administrations

“would constitute a failure of intergovernmental relations”.

The reality is that part 4 grabs the powers of devolution and gives them to an unelected, barely accountable quango. The Bill grabs the powers of devolution, animal welfare, forestry, voting rights, food standards and energy—all currently the purview of the Scottish Parliament. The Government say that they are empowering Scotland; the truth is that they are robbing Scotland of democracy itself.

[Sir William Cash]

How does the hon. Gentleman reconcile what he has just said with what the Scottish Retail Consortium has said, which is that protecting the UK internal market means that

“Scottish consumers”

will

“benefit enormously”?

It talks about the importance of the

“largely unfettered internal single market”.

In the consortium’s view, Scotland welcomes the measures to protect the UK internal market.

[Neale Hanvey]

The way that I reconcile it is that I am talking about democracy and the hon. Member is talking about trade, and I would say that democracy is slightly more important than trade.

The Bill would make Scotland’s Parliament and our law meaningless and smash devolution. And what of the protestations of this Government’s man in Scotland and his self-congratulatory talk of a power surge? It is crystal clear now that the only power surging is to the CMA, to the Office for the Internal Market and to the Secretary of State in Scotland.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees that the protestations that there is some kind of power surge are simply incompatible with the suggestion that the Office for the Internal Market will be set up in such a way as to enable it to lie above the powers of the Scottish Parliament.

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[Neale Hanvey]

I thank my hon. Friend for those comments, because they illustrate very well the sophistry with which the whole charade has been presented. We are told that it is a power surge, and a power surge it is; but it is a power surge in the wrong direction—it is a power surge away from the devolved Government of Scotland. To judge by past behaviour, those powers will be used to interfere, undermine and diminish not just the elected Government of Scotland but the very voice of the Scottish people.

Yesterday, I heard Members claim in this Chamber that the Bill would strengthen the Union, and in their mind that may be true, but the Union is not being strengthened by a shared vision, mutual respect or other honourable means. It is the strength of bondage, of subjugation and of the pomposity that only Unionist voices matter. I’ve got news for you: it does not strengthen the bonds of the Union; it exposes the bondage of the devolved nations and illustrates why Scotland must choose an independent future. “Lead Not Leave”; “broad shoulders of the Union”; “Vote No to stay in the EU”; “We Love You Scotland”—well, nothing epitomises our Union of equals like the Prime Minister bestowing the effective status of viceroy of Scotland on the right hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack), his very own Union Jack.

Today, the international community knows something that the Scottish people have known since 2014: believe not a word, not a promise, not even a vow. To this Government, agreements are always optional. The Bill does not strengthen the Union; it strengthens the case for Scottish independence.