United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Aaron Bell

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), although I fear there is very little common cause between her speech and mine. The internal market is a shared asset, and we all want it to work effectively. As we recover from covid, we must ensure that our economy becomes stronger than ever. That is why the Government have introduced this legislation: to guarantee the continued functioning of that internal market, to ensure that trade remains unhindered in the UK. That is why I support the Government amendments and the Bill as a whole, and I urge the House to reject the Opposition amendments.

It is apparent that we need a clear state aid policy that resides in Westminster, because, as much as the SNP likes to pretend this is the English Parliament, all parts of the UK are represented here, and this place is the only place with the legal and moral authority to act on behalf of the whole of the United Kingdom. Also, our ability to develop trade relations with other countries depends on our having a co-ordinated approach to state aid across our own country, the United Kingdom.

I do not believe that the Bill, or any of the specific provisions in question, undermine our commitment to the Good Friday agreement. Rest assured that those of us on this side of the House remain fully committed to the provisions of that agreement. We will not allow it to be undermined by any possible failure of negotiations, nor by any bad faith interpretations of clauses in the Northern Ireland protocol, and I pay tribute to the speeches from my hon. Friends earlier in the debate.

I will touch on the controversy over the key clauses in part 5: clauses 42, 43 and 45. I am no lawyer, and there are many Members in this House more learned than I am, but it seems to me that international law is breached all the time. The recent actions of the French navy in the channel breached the UN convention on the law of the sea. Where was the pearl clutching from the Opposition Benches then? The German Constitutional Court ruling in May set aside a ruling of the European Court of Justice and brought that international law into question. The European Union itself was only too happy to set aside its own treaties when the stability of its own union was put at risk during the financial crisis.

It seems, as my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), put it earlier, international law is, in fact, a mixture of law and politics; I think he said it was 40% the former and 60% the latter. That does not mean that we should not be mindful of our international reputation, but our friends and allies around the world would not expect us to accept bad faith interpretations of the Northern Ireland protocol. They would not expect us to impose unreasonable restrictions on our own internal sovereignty.

That is why the clauses are in the Bill. They are, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office said, a safety net in the event of a failure of negotiations. I believe, too, that they strengthen our hand in those negotiations. The people of Newcastle-Under-Lyme expect their representative to stand up for them, but they also expect him to stand up for Britain, and that is what I am doing by backing the Bill.

I do not believe, therefore, that Government amendment 66, which is now incorporated in clause 54, was strictly speaking necessary, though I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), whose amendment inspired it. However, I believe that incorporating that amendment was wise, because by leaving the final decision about these matters in the hands of this Parliament we are making it clear where sovereignty in these matters, and in this country, truly resides.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Every once in a while, a piece of legislation comes that goes to the very heart of our character as a country. The internal market Bill is one such piece of legislation. It goes to the very heart of our economy, our national identity and our constitution. There is no doubt that the legislation is necessary. We need a strong internal market so that businesses can trade freely across the UK’s four nations, which will be vital for our shared prosperity, and we want the Government to get on and deliver what they promised: an oven-ready Brexit deal in place for 1 January, so that we can get on with tackling the coronavirus crisis.

However, whether seen through the prism of the economy, of our national reputation or of our constitution, the Bill is fundamentally flawed. On the economy, it creates the conditions for a race to the bottom. Mutual recognition of standards without common frameworks in place simply opens the back door to hormone-injected beef and chlorinated chicken becoming the norm.

Internationally, the Bill will severely damage Britain’s standing in the world. The Government have freely and openly confirmed that the Bill will breach international law by overriding elements of the withdrawal agreement signed only nine months ago by the Prime Minister himself. As the Foreign Secretary himself stated in January:

“global Britain is…about continuing to uphold…our heartfelt commitment to the international rule of law…for which we are respected the world over.”—[Official Report, 13 January 2020; Vol. 669, c. 768.]

Our country’s reputation is on the line. Surely, we want to be seen as a trustworthy nation with which other countries can do business in good faith. Surely, we want to strike good trade deals across the world. Surely, we want to be able to stand up to the world’s authoritarian regimes with credibility. I know many Government Members are extremely concerned about the damage the Government are doing to Britain’s standing in the world. I hope that that concern will be reflected in the Division Lobby this evening.

As a Welsh MP who believes passionately in a strong Wales within a strong United Kingdom, I am profoundly concerned that the Bill risks the integrity of our Union. Devolution is based on the principle of informed consent, but the UK Government are hellbent on cutting the devolved Administrations out of the conversation. Surely, one of the lessons of the covid crisis is that the overcentralised control freakery of this Government is simply not working. The days of being able to sit behind a desk in Whitehall, pull a lever and expect it to deliver the desired outcomes in places such as Aberavon are over. Modern Government should be built on consultation and co-operation, not top-down diktat. As chair of the all-party group on post-Brexit funding, I am profoundly concerned that this approach will be applied to the shared prosperity fund. There is a risk that the UK will undertake both a money grab and a power grab from the devolved nations with regard to how that development funding will be spent. Further still, we hear that the Government plan to funnel money directly into Conservative seats in what can only be described as the worst sort of pork-barrel politics.

The Prime Minister loves to present himself as a Churchillian patriot, but is it patriotic to divide our country? Is it patriotic to tarnish our country’s reputation overseas? Is it patriotic to undermine our economy and the standards we hold so dear? Absolutely not. The key elements of the Bill are holding our country back. We need competence and consensus, not bluster and bullying. We need to deliver on this deal and move forward.