Scottish Devolution Settlement: Retained EU Law

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)]

I wish to make a short statement about the sub judice resolution. The question whether provisions in the draft Independence Referendum Bill relate to reserved matters under the Scotland Act 1998 has been referred to the Supreme Court and a judgment is anticipated in the coming months. I am exercising the discretion given to the Chair to allow reference to the issues concerned, given their national importance.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of retained EU law on the Scottish devolution settlement.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for this morning’s debate, Mrs Murray, and I welcome the Minister to his new post.

Should this shambles of a Government manage to stumble on past the weekend, we are being told that their Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will come before the House on 25 October. The Brexit freedoms Bill, as the Government like to call it, will give UK Ministers unprecedented powers to rewrite and replace almost 2,500 pieces of domestic law covering matters such as environment and nature, consumer protection, workers’ rights, product safety and agriculture, and that will be done with the bare minimum of parliamentary scrutiny. It is, in short, an ideologically driven deregulatory race to the bottom that will do enormous damage to our society and our economy.

The Bill, taken in conjunction with the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, will fundamentally undermine and alter the devolution settlement by giving primacy to UK law in areas that are wholly devolved, such as environmental health, food standards and animal welfare. Today, I thought it would be useful to consider the Bill to examine what it could mean for Scotland and for the devolution settlement. I believe that any objective analysis would see not only that it puts at risk many of the high standards and protections that the people of Scotland have enjoyed and come to expect from more than four decades of EU membership, but that it is part of the Government’s long-term plan to undermine the devolution settlement and weaken our Scottish Parliament.

Under the Bill, and with the 2020 Act already in place, any legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament could be undermined by a Government here in Westminster whom we did not elect, even in matters that are wholly devolved. I will give a few examples. In the area of food standards, if the Scottish Parliament decided that we would remain aligned with the European Union and would ban the sale of chlorinated chicken, but this place decided that cheap, imported, chlorine-washed chicken was acceptable, there would be almost nothing the Scottish Parliament could do to stop lorryloads of chlorine-washed poultry crossing the border, with that chicken then appearing on our supermarket shelves.

Similarly, if the UK agreed a trade deal that saw the UK flooded with cheap, factory-farmed, hormone-injected meat, but the Scottish Parliament decided to protect Scottish consumers and Scottish farmers by adhering to the standards and protections that we have up to now enjoyed, under the terms of the Bill—again, backed by the 2020 Act—Westminster could override that and Scotland’s supermarkets could be inundated with inferior-quality cheap cuts of meat that under existing EU law would get nowhere near our supermarket shelves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

That is more fantasy from the SNP. I find it strange that, when we have a Government on their knees bringing forward a piece of legislation that ultimately could undermine devolution, the main part of the hon. Member’s speech was an attack on the Labour party. That maybe tells us that our ascendancy in Scotland is worrying the SNP.

Let me say what would have happened. The hon. Member calls the Labour party hard Brexiteers; had the SNP not abstained on the amendment for the customs union it would have passed in Parliament—a matter of public record. The SNP spent less on the EU referendum than it did on the Shetland Scottish parliamentary byelection—to win 3,400 votes. The SNP asks about where we are as a country at the moment. It is perfectly practical for the Labour party, who wish to be the next Government, to try and make Brexit work. The first day that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) walks into No. 10 as the Prime Minister, he is going to face the circumstances of the day, not those that we may wish to find. The first task will be to make what we have got work, the second task will be to build and deepen that relationship with Europe, and the third task, which overarches all of that, is to do what is in the national interest. That is clear.

That shadow Chancellor was actually saying that part of the problem we have in this country with the immigration system is the Home Office not processing applications for asylum quickly enough, which leaves the massive backlog of tens of thousands that we have at the moment. If hon. Members had listened to what she actually said, that is what she was referring to—which I think is SNP policy? If the Home Office was processing applications in a timely manner, and in a humane way, we could get through applications much quicker, lessening those issues.

Where was I with the hard Scexiteers? I think we had gone through that. I will get on to some of the issues raised about what the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will do. I hope the Minister will tell us what the Government’s plans are, because this is essentially a theoretical Bill about trashing, amending, or otherwise, EU retained law in this country. The Government always have those grand phrases, but they do not tell us what they are going to do. Can the Minister answer my first question: what would take several years if it was not in the Bill? Will the Minister give us an example about what he wishes to do with some of those regulations? I would be happy to listen to that.

The Labour party wants to use that platform to put in a new deal for working people. That is a prime policy example. That would give people workers’ rights from day one and it would build on EU regulations that we have already had. Incidentally, the UK has always gold-plated EU regulations. In fact, Conservative Governments have always gold-plated EU regulations. The Labour party would end fire and rehire and zero-hour contracts—is that part of the Government’s strategy? We would make work more family friendly and flexible. We would strengthen trade union rights, which would raise pay and conditions. We would roll out fair pay agreements, and we would use Government procurement to ensure that we could lift standards, pay, conditions and skills right across the country.

Our new deal for working people is a practical example of what we would do with regulations, rather than a Bill that says we will rip up every piece of EU regulation without saying what we would do instead, while, at the same time, undermining devolution.

I will ask one final, two-part question to the Minister. What discussions is he having with the devolved Administrations about the Bill, and about trying to achieve a consensus so that legislative consent motions can be passed? The Sewel convention—which was right—was put on a statutory footing under the Scotland Act 2016 by an amendment brought forward by the Labour party. We cannot just disregard that; the Sewel convention is clear that the UK Government will not legislate in devolved areas where they do not need to. If they do, a legislative consent motion must be positively passed by the Scottish Parliament—not the Scottish Government. What discussions is he having to make sure those legislative consent motions can come forward?

I am grateful that the debate has been brought forward, and that we have had the hard Scexiteers and hard Brexiteers arguing over the EU. However, yet again we have had a combined 37 minutes from three SNP Members, and they have not told us one iota about how they can get back into the European Union with the huge deficits they have, no currency, no central bank, no lender of last resort and no immigration policy—[Interruption.] Now they are claiming that I am slagging them off, but they spent a lot of their speeches slagging off the Labour party. I look forward to the Minister answering some questions, and maybe at some point in the future we will get some answers from the SNP as well.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)]

I welcome the Minister to his place.