Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Andrew Stephenson)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s tireless efforts to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in Westminster, and to her successful campaign to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824. My ministerial colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), and I are keen to continue to work with her to ensure that we get the balance right.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

T6. Today, representatives of food poverty charities delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for urgent steps to stop families having to rely on charitable food aid to survive. The all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks has its own inquiry. Will the Minister meet us to discuss our report and its recommendations?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady.

Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

We can see this as an evolving process, with the Government continuing to ramp up and increase the resource committed. It would perhaps be unhelpful to provide a running commentary on the number of people working on the process, not least because there will be some ebb and flow given the number of people prepared to work over the weekend versus during the week. We are ensuring that the resource attributed to the effort is equal to the need and we are improving the fluency with which applications are being processed daily so that the maximum number of people who have submitted an expression of interest can house somebody from Ukraine.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Like others, I commend everybody who has come forward to support the Homes for Ukraine scheme. However, it is important to remember that those sponsors are the conduit between the Home Office, the scheme run by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the refugees with whom they have been matched up. They are awaiting home checks, and in Scotland we are still waiting for local authority guidance, which places enormous pressure on sponsors as they try to navigate the system. Indeed, my caseworkers are taking calls from distressed sponsors who want to ensure that they have done everything they can to get those whom they have sponsored safely to the UK as fast as possible. What conversations have been had about putting in place emotional support to help sponsors who are opening their homes?

[Eddie Hughes]

One thing we have seen is a tremendous effort by charities and non-governmental organisations who are incredibly well placed to offer the guidance and support that the hon. Lady refers to. On advice for councils, I understand that in Scotland it will be the responsibility of the devolved Assembly to provide that. From the tremendous efforts that I have seen in its work so far, I think that, if that has not already been provided, it will be coming very soon.

Second Homes and Holiday Lets: Rural Communities

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

Like other Members here today, I represent a rural and coastal constituency. North East Fife is very popular with tourists—and why would it not be? The East Neuk is known as a hidden gem, a string of pearls, with its beautiful fishing villages of Crail and Elie, St Monans, Anstruther and Cellardyke; beaches and cliffs and nature to walk on—I tackled the Elie chain walk scramble with my son last year—and the sea for swimming and sailing; it has local food producers and a burgeoning craft alcohol industry; and all that is before moving on to St Andrews with its history and golf.

Tourism is clearly a vital part of North East Fife’s local economy, but I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend on the need for a balance. Tourism is only sustainable when it works with and enhances local communities. In many respects, the communities in North East Fife continue to thrive even outside of tourist season. Over Small Business Saturday before Christmas, I had the opportunity to visit the inaugural Largo arts winter weekend, where 30 artists opened their homes and studios to showcase and sell their works. Between covid and the weather, there were arguably not many tourists, but it was a fantastic and vibrant day showing the strengths of those living in our communities.

A persistent issue for those living in North East Fife, as for other constituencies mentioned here today, is the unsustainable proliferation of second homes and holiday lets. Details from Fife Council housing services for March 2021 show that, at a minimum, almost a 10th of all the properties in the East Neuk were second homes. I say “at a minimum” because the data does not include 14 smaller villages where there are fewer than 30 second homes, it does not identify where long-term empty properties are second homes and, crucially, it does not record holiday lets at all. So the real figures are likely to be significantly higher, with some anecdotal estimates placing the number closer to half of all properties.

No community can thrive when half of all private properties are holiday accommodation. A constituent wrote to me recently, noting that during the last 25 years numbers at the local primary school had fallen from just over 100 pupils to 30. That is not good enough for the families in North East Fife or elsewhere. It is not the sign of a thriving community where children will be given opportunities to flourish as they grow up. Others have mentioned the ongoing impact that that has on other services. We all run campaigns as MPs to keep our bus services and to keep our schools and other public places open, but we find ourselves in a vicious cycle because of this problem.

As others have mentioned, these properties drive away families and drive up house prices. Last August it was reported that property prices along the East Neuk rose by more than 26%, which is fantastic if you are on the property ladder, but less so for young people and growing families, who find themselves priced out. As the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) referenced, there is an impact on councils and housing. There has always been a shortage of council housing in North East Fife, with people forced to become homeless.

I have mentioned the success of many local businesses, but no one’s income grew by more than a quarter last year, and no local business can work without employees. Like other areas, North East Fife has really struggled with employment in hospitality. There are vacancies in establishments such as the Michelin-starred Peat Inn, which has been forced to cancel lunch services owing to a lack of staff.

I welcome the actions of the Liberal Democrats on Fife Council, who brought a motion to consider the use of control orders. Those are not a silver bullet, but they do attempt to strike the right balance in our communities and, importantly, give local people a say.

I am conscious that many of the proposals mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale fall into policy areas that have been devolved to the Scottish Government. The option taken by the Scottish National party in Holyrood was to propose the licensing of properties to regulate proper usage. The Scottish Government withdrew those proposals prior to the Holyrood elections in May, having committed to respond to stakeholder concerns about the licensing scheme through a working group. However, I am sorry to say that that working group has not gone well. In August, tourism bodies, having highlighted the lack of significant change to the legislation, particularly where it impacted on traditional self-catering and bed and breakfasts, resigned from the group en masse. Since then, the group has given evidence to Holyrood’s Local Government and Communities Committee, outlining its view that the current plans would be hugely damaging to the Scottish tourism economy, particularly as we recover from covid.

I understand the frustration of those living in city areas, where noise from partygoers in rentals can be a real issue, but the solution of the legislation being outlined in Scotland will not resolve the issues experienced in rural and coastal communities such as North East Fife. My MSP colleague, Willie Rennie, continues to raise those issues in the Scottish Parliament.

So what can be done for North East Fife in Westminster? Fiscal policy could be used to encourage the sale of properties as primary residences. The Liberal Democrats have previously called for the holiday let tax loophole to be closed and for mortgage tax relief to be removed from holiday lets. Just as important as tangible policy change is the need for a consistent approach between the devolved Administrations and Westminster, as the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), who is no longer in his place, alluded to.

Hospitality and tourism are vital for communities across the four nations of the UK. As we have seen with differing covid regulations, sometimes people do not think twice about travelling across borders to where the rules are different. I want hospitality, tourism and the communities in North East Fife to thrive, and I want them to thrive in North Devon and in Westmorland and Lonsdale, so I ask the Minister to commit to conversations with his counterparts in the Scottish Government and the other devolved Administrations to ensure that no community ends up losing out in a race to the bottom on these measures.

Budget Resolutions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), who is no longer in his place, stated that levelling up is not just about geography. Although I am not yet clear what it is, I do agree with that. It is not just about people knowing that they will have decent schools, good hospitals, connected transport and investment in local jobs, no matter where they were born, grew up or live now; it is also about a society in which all people—no matter their situation, who they are or where they live—have an equal chance not just to survive, but to thrive. Public services and infrastructure are obviously part of that, and public services include the provision of social security.

It is not shameful to receive social security. That is important and not said enough. It is not shameful to be born without enough, for someone to lose their job, or to have health difficulties or caring responsibilities. As many in North East Fife and across the UK have found in the last 20 months, anyone can require to be in receipt of social security. The way that the Government have treated social security in the Budget suggests that they feel otherwise. Although it has taken some time, I am pleased that the Government now seem to recognise that universal credit is an in-work benefit. Yes, the taper rate for universal credit has been cut, but that restores only a third of what was taken away by the £20 cut, and it helps only those people already in work. There are thousands of other people struggling to enter the workplace, or in receipt of legacy benefits—and what about those, still predominantly women, with childcare commitments?

Research done earlier this year by the University of York found that most mothers claiming universal credit struggle to meet the work conditionality requirements because work coaches do not understand the commitments of childcare. The childcare element of universal credit barely covers costs anyway, but cannot be claimed until the end of the first month of paid work, so people are supposed to do up to 30 hours of work search each week while caring for their children. I know from experience, and I hope that anyone who has or had small children knows, that that is just not possible. Without reforms of conditionality and better access to full-time childcare, parents—particularly mothers and single parents—will continue to be left behind.

What about those who provide unpaid care to their loved ones and receive either carer’s allowance or the caring element of universal credit? Our society relies on those unpaid carers, but the Government’s refusal to uprate those benefits, or to give additional support, almost amounts to abandonment of those people, who do so much.

I could mention many more groups who will not experience a levelling up through the Budget, but I am aware of time, so finally I turn to vulnerable and homeless young people—young people starting their life with nothing but barriers before them. The Government appear to base their policies for under-25s on their own experience of being young. In response to a One Parent Families Scotland campaign that I and other hon. Members have supported on the young parent penalty, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said that young people need less social security than older people because they can rely on support from their parents. How does that thinking apply to young parents who are living independently with their children, to care leavers, to homeless young people, or to those who, through no fault of their own, have no parents or care givers who can step in when things get tough?

Last week, at the launch of Centrepoint’s report on the experience of vulnerable and homeless young people in the social security system, one young person asked, “If it is not good enough for you or your children, why is it okay for us?”. I ask the Minister to think about that when reflecting on the Government’s policies. The Government can change this. By failing to even acknowledge the needs of those who provide and need support, the Government are failing to level up before they even get started.

Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund in Wales

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees, and I apologise for my delay in making it to the Chamber. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) on securing this debate.

The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) said that we should be outcome focused, and I absolutely agree, but I also argue that good processes help to deliver good outcomes. The initial deadline of 18 June means there were 74 working days, in the context of responding to the pandemic, for local authorities to process what was needed and to make applications. That is clearly insufficient time. For the community renewal fund, the spending must be completed by 31 March 2022. Therefore, applications are limited to projects that are ready to go, rather than those that would take a longer time and arguably deliver better outcomes. I reiterate the point made by the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns): this disadvantages smaller local authorities that do not have the same capacity and will not have an ongoing programme of funding bids.

Previously, 40% of Welsh apprenticeships were funded by EU structural funds. The current funding will provide £220 million to the whole UK. Wales, as many Members have said, is guaranteed at least 5% of that, which is £11 million. I struggle to see how else that can be explained other than as a loss of over £300 million of funding to Wales. The prospectuses of both funds stress that they are competitive and point to the need to get value for money. That intrinsically suggests that the process is driven by cost savings and not communities.

Other Members have mentioned the process of how the two funds have been created and that their formation has not been transparent. The Welsh Government do not appear to have had any meaningful engagement. This lack of transparency makes it appear, at the very least, as if that information has been given strategically to Conservative Members of Parliament. Both funds state that the only role of the Welsh Government in the decision-making process is to consult as appropriate. Ultimately, this is the centralisation of a decision-making process and it omits the devolved Administration.

I conclude with two questions that I would like the Minister to address today. Given the importance of maintaining strong UK relationships—as a Scottish MP, I take an interest from that perspective, too—will the Secretary of State and the Minister commit to a meaningful relationship with the Welsh Government in the formation and administration of the UK shared prosperity fund? Was it discussed at last week’s four nations meeting? When will Parliament receive a full read-out of that meeting from the Government?

Secondly, can we get a clear outcome on how the Government plan to meet their pledge that Wales will not lose out on funding that it previously received from the EU, including whether certain areas and priorities will lose funding?

Covid-19: Hospitality Industry

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

For about half of the past 12 months, the brilliant hospitality industry in North East Fife has been forced to close its doors. Obviously that has had a profound impact, from the Ship Inn in Elie, to Kingsbarns Distillery, to our many fantastic and historic golf clubs, to wedding venues such as Kinkell Byre, to street food like the Cheesy Toast Shack in St Andrews. There has been support, for which I am grateful, but I have spent much of the past year arguing for the people and businesses who either missed out on support or for whom the support received has been inadequate. My casework team have done a brilliant job in navigating through the often complex support schemes of both the UK and Scottish Governments.

All being well, this will be the last time that I speak on hospitality before the businesses in North East Fife can open their doors again on 26 April. I, for one, cannot wait to finish our door-knocking sessions with an ice cream from Jannetta’s in St Andrews. But it will not all be plain sailing from that point. Social distancing requirements, limits on households and table service will be a reality for all these businesses. Even though in Scotland indoor hospitality is opening on the same day as outdoor, no alcohol can be sold indoors initially, so there is a disadvantage for premises that do not have outdoor seating.

The obstacles go further. Mainland Scotland moves back into level 3, but that will mean travel restrictions preventing anyone from entering or leaving a local authority area. When Fife was in level 3 last year, that presented a real difficulty for many hospitality businesses in the area. Indeed, I have previously spoken in this place about the Peat Inn, which is a Michelin-starred restaurant that attracts most of its business from outwith Fife—tourists who come to stay in bed-and-breakfasts and hotels. Under level 3, it was legally able to open, but business was so limited that it was forced to shut its doors again. The Scottish Government’s approach thus far has been that businesses that can legally open are not eligible for the grant support available to level 4 areas, and that has not changed in intervening months since last autumn as we now enter the spring. It was a real difficulty then and it is still a real difficulty now.

It is hard to justify that lack of support: first, because they are Government restrictions that are hampering business by preventing travel into the kingdom of Fife—as many others have said, the likelihood of seeing overseas visitors this year is fast diminishing—and secondly, because both the UK and Scottish taxpayers have now provided so much support to businesses around the country through the furlough scheme, rates relief, and the small grants administered by local authorities. The whole point of that support has been to get those businesses through what has been, in effect, three winter seasons in a row, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said. Now, thanks to the public’s hard work in following lockdown restrictions, we are in a position where we can begin to recover, so let us not take the support away too early, or all the efforts over the last year will have been wasted. Now is the time to enable our businesses not just to survive but to thrive. Let us put recovery first.

Bereavement

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I absolutely agree. There are some specific things that we in this House can do and that the Government can do in relation to the bereavement standard.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

rose—

[Grahame Morris]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, who also indicated earlier that she would like to intervene.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. Does he agree that although work is being done in the private sector around the bereavement standard and we have the Government’s Tell Us Once service, we are still getting too many clumsy mistakes when we are dealing with grief? I had a constituent who received a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions addressed to his wife to tell her that she was no longer eligible for employment and support allowance because she had died. Does the hon. Member agree that we need to do more?

[Grahame Morris]

I completely agree with that, and I want to develop those arguments.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have said in response to other questions, it would clearly be beneficial for the sector for there to be a multi-year settlement. This was not the opportunity to do so. I do not think that this would have been the right time when there is so much instability and uncertainty surrounding the delivery of public services by local councils. Perhaps next year—I will certainly be making representations to the Chancellor to encourage him to do so.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

The Secretary of State has said that it is not the right time to pursue wholesale reform of local government finance, which will be a relief to many local authorities across England. However, the threat of the reform will hang over the heads of those authorities as they work to recover from the financial difficulties of the pandemic and longer-term budget cuts. Will the Secretary of State confirm when he plans the reform to take place?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not able to confirm when we will bring that forward. As I have said, it will not be on this occasion, but we will have to make a judgment, as to the position of local government, whether next year would be right for, as she says, an undoubtedly significant change.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Any improvement to the Bill would be welcomed, but the proposed amendment does nothing to protect the devolution settlement—the Minister said as much in his opening remarks—and the provisions will simply allow this Parliament to overrule Scottish Parliament and Welsh Parliament decisions. It is incredible to hear Labour Front Benchers trying to take credit. They say that they led the way, but they have actually paved the way for this Bill to do that to the Scottish Parliament. They talk about the guile they have shown, but it is gall that they have when they talk about this. You can understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, why Labour has only one MP in Scotland.

Instead of taking this Bill apart, as they should have done, those on the Labour Front Bench spend more of their time talking about the democratically elected Members of Parliament that they have here, who, as I pointed out, are in vastly greater numbers than the one Labour MP from Scotland. They are not listening to Scotland—they never do—and Labour has allowed this aberration to come forward in this way by abstaining in the House of Lords.

The amendment does not protect devolution, as I said: the Minister has laid that out clearly today for everybody to hear. Westminster Ministers will still have the right to impose lower food, environmental and other devolved standards on Scotland, regardless of the view of Holyrood. This Bill is the biggest assault on devolution in the history of the Scottish Parliament. It undermines devolved policy making, grabs spending powers, and removes state aid from being a devolved responsibility. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly refused to give this Bill consent, and it is outrageous that the UK Government are once again ignoring the wishes of the people of Scotland as well as Wales.

In welcoming the amendment, Professor Aileen McHarg warned:

“There are still significant problems with this Bill: it changes the scope of devolved decision-making; it reserves additional powers to Westminster; it empowers the UK Government to spend in devolved areas that have nothing to do with markets (eg prisons, sport, international student exchanges); and above all—unlike EU law—it has an inherently asymmetrical effect on decision-making for England and for the devolved territories.

This is a Bill which squarely falls within the scope of the Sewel Convention, and the necessity of which is deeply questionable.”

But of course the Government have not listened to that, and Labour has capitulated on it.

The only reason for this Bill as it now stands is to demolish devolution. If the Government take this Bill forward today, as they obviously will, that is what they will be doing. Any pretence thereafter by the Scottish Tory MPs that they respect the democratic rights of the people of Scotland will be blown apart if they support this today. In fact, they have already supported it, because it seems that it will go through. They have done nothing to protect the democratic rights of the Scottish people.

People in Scotland are watching. People in Scotland, when they see the effects of this Bill, will be angry about the fact that their rights are being taken away by these Tory Ministers, aided by their Labour bedfellows. They will be furious about the fact that their rights are being stripped from them. They are listening, they are watching, and they are seeing developments in this place. They are understanding, now, that the only way to protect their Parliament, their rights and their democracy in Scotland is to go forward as an independent nation—and they will be voting for that, I am sure, in due course.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Yesterday I said that there was still time for compromise, so I am glad that the Government have finally gone for some degree of a consensus approach, and there is no doubt that what will be on the statute book is an improvement on the legislation that was initially introduced back in the autumn. I would like to acknowledge the Minister’s engagement over the Bill. I also thank my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Lords, who have played an important role, and our staff teams across both Houses.

However, I do still have concerns about the Bill, one of which is about the Office for the Internal Market. The Government need to be transparent about what role that office will play in future trade deals. Can foreign investors in a US trade deal use it to undermine the devolved nations? I have asked that question repeatedly. I am also conscious that the legislative value of this Bill might, in practice, be limited, or indeed pretty much non-existent, especially if we reach a trade deal and a standards agreement with the EU. We obviously need more clarity on this, as the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) said.

Unfortunately, as I pointed out yesterday, these changes, while positive, are too late, because the damage has already been done. The Minister heard the speeches of SNP Members yesterday, but I wonder whether he listened. With this Bill, the Government have been pouring fuel on a fire, as alluded to by the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). I ask the Minister: what has this all been worth? If the Government are committed to the future of the United Kingdom, they need to start acting like it.

I cannot count the number of newspaper articles I have read over the past year reporting a reset in the Government’s approach to the Union, that a new Cabinet Committee has been set up to finally solve the Government’s problem as regards relations with the devolved nations, or that the Prime Minister is going to love-bomb Scotland. I urge the Government: this is not about Committees, or grand new offices in Edinburgh, or bridges or tunnels over or under the Irish sea. Those of my constituents who are uncertain about where they want Scotland’s future to lie will not be convinced by Union Jacks on UK Government infrastructure projects: cack-handed stuff, as the passage of this Bill clearly indicates. What they will be convinced by is a UK Government who treat the devolved nations with respect, maturity and honesty, and who work together with the devolved nations to find consensus, because I do believe that we have too much in common for borders to divide us. Are we in this place capable of that? I like to believe we are, but for too many of my constituents, it has not felt like that over the last few months with this Bill.

So I do urge the Government: compromise and consensus were the reluctant final steps they took with regard to this Bill. Noting the comments of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) in relation to the Welsh Government’s statement, let the first steps the Government take in their future relationship with the devolved nations be that compromise and consensus.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

Let me quickly answer a few points. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) asked for a bit more detail on the amendments. In the small number of cases in which the market access principles apply to divergence agreed under a common framework, clauses 10 and 17 could be used to exclude the agreement from the market access principles. The Secretary of State would be able to do so following a consensus agreement that that was appropriate under the common framework. That is the appropriate way to ensure that the market access principles in the Bill can ensure certainty and a seamlessly functioning internal market while still respecting agreed limited divergence under the common frameworks programme.

Originally, Lord Hope’s amendments would have required the Secretary of State to exclude any divergence agreed under the common frameworks process from market access principles; by contrast, the Government’s amendment makes it clear that this is an option open to the Secretary of State, thereby giving the Secretary of State the discretion to ensure that the disapplication of the market access principles would never lead to the emergence of unacceptable trade barriers within the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) talked about the CMA, the OIM and what would happen with international players. The CMA and the OIM have the flexibility to investigate and report on any issues that they choose, but they are not themselves decision makers on market access principles. Throughout the Bill’s passage, we have made sure that both the OIM and the Bill itself will apply rules to each part of the UK—to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—equally.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the Minister for his response, but will he accept that, in the letter he wrote to the Scottish Affairs Committee after his appearance before the Committee in relation to the Bill, he was unable definitively to rule out foreign investors being able to take the UK Government to court, whether through the OIM or otherwise?

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will do my utmost to whizz through what I can here.

We welcome the Lords amendments seeking to protect both the devolved settlements and the policy divergence across the nations of the UK, but we also know that the Prime Minister and his Tory Government simply detest devolution. All pretence otherwise has been swept away by this Bill, as it puts into action the casual contempt that they have.

The Prime Minister, as we know, believes that devolution is a disaster. Well, we think the same about him. Last night, however, in the Lords, Labour opened the door for the Tories, as they hollowed out devolution, withdrawing support for Lord Thomas’s amendments that challenged the UK Government’s clauses on direct spending in devolved areas. Equally disappointing was Labour’s abstention on the vote for the amendment of Baroness Llandaff to halt the brazen power grab on re-reserving state aid. This is not currently reserved. It is not listed in the reserved powers under schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998. It is a devolved power being grabbed back, along with the measures in this Bill in place to overrule decisions taken in Scotland.

I have been quoting absolutely committed Unionists in the other place throughout this debate, and I am grateful to be able to quote them again today. Lord Thomas said:

“The power to control state aid is not reserved. If it were, these amendments would be unnecessary…I ask why the UK Government would not work together with them, consult them before the Bill was produced and try to find a common solution…I fear it is an example of Westminster saying that it knows best, rather than working with the devolved Administrations.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1486.]

But once again, the Labour Front-Bench team took weak words from the Government as assurances and chose to abstain on that important measure.

Lord Stevenson’s amendment alters schedule 1 so that environmental standards and public health are exempt from market access principles. He warned the UK Government not to make

“the market access principles, which operate automatically, too narrow and too prescriptive. That would fatally undermine the opportunities for devolved Administrations to diverge”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1457.]

Baroness Bennett highlighted that much leadership on climate change has actually originated from the devolved Governments. Lord Hope explained that his amendments seek to ensure that the UK Government’s commitment to market access principles do not undermine the UK Government’s commitment on the common frameworks. On policy divergence, he warns:

“As the Bill stands, a measure that gives effect to an agreed decision to diverge can be ignored by traders bringing goods in from other areas. This undermines the opportunity to diverge, rendering it worthless and ineffective.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1446.]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town provided this summary:

“When the case for Brexit was all about ‘taking back control’, we failed to understand that the Government meant taking control to themselves, even over issues that were fully devolved.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1447.]

Time and again, across all the nations of the UK, across all parties and none, and across all the affected industries, trade bodies, academia and the legal profession, this Tory Government have been told that the Bill grabs power from devolution and places it here in Westminster. The Bill allows UK Ministers to control spending in devolved areas of economic development, infrastructure, cultural activities, regional development, education, water, power, gas, telecoms, railways, health, housing and justice. The people of Scotland did not vote for the Tories to make these decisions at Westminster. Madam Deputy Speaker, you are far too young to remember the last time the people of Scotland did that, although your grandparents might just have—but only just!

This Bill was born bad to the bone, setting to break international law and break devolution. The Government have been forced to drop some of it, but it remains an aberration and continues its assault on devolution, Scottish public services and public life. The Scottish public, unlike this Government, are listening and watching. They will choose their own path to protect their Parliament and democracy in the near future.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

So here we are again. I am glad that the Lords have continued to press their points on the common frameworks and the impact of the Bill on the devolved Administrations. The Lords seem to understand that the Bill poses a great threat to the devolution settlement, so I cannot understand why the Government do not even accept the damage that this Bill has caused in the devolved nations. We are told by the Minister that it is not a political Bill. It is almost laughable. I wish the Government would just be honest with us. If they want to have a debate about the merits of devolution, many Members, not just on this side of the House, would be willing to argue in its favour. The Minister would also do well to remember that it was not the Scottish National party that brought about devolution in Scotland in the first place.

A case in point of the Government’s failure to own up to the impact of this Bill on devolution can be seen with the amendments that have been brought by the Lords on the common frameworks. Last week, I raised the question of what the Bill was for, in situations where common frameworks were already in place. I again ask the Minister to address that question. There is a huge hole in the Government’s argument, and they have left that question unanswered. There is also a real question about the interaction of the Bill with any potential EU trade deal, and I urge the Minister to address this. If we reach agreement with the EU on regulatory standards, which I hope we do, what will become of those clauses of the Bill on standards and frameworks? Will they ever come into effect, or will they become obsolete, with future standards being the subject of regulatory alignment with the EU? If the answer is the latter, I hope the Government will reflect on what this has all been for, and whether it has been worth it.

The Bill had two main aspects. The first was the part that broke international law, which was removed last week. That part of the Bill has resulted in huge damage to our international standing. It was reported this weekend that the serious mistrust sown as a result of those clauses has been a significant barrier to getting the trade deal that the Government claim they want. It has caused huge disquiet among our allies, including President-elect Biden. All that, for clauses that will never even reach the statute book.

Then we have the parts of the Bill that impact the devolution settlement. Those clauses will reach the statute book, but if there is a deal, it is likely that they will have no practical effect. However, the damage has already been done. This has caused deep dismay to the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and given those SNP Members sitting around me grist to their mill. Congratulations! This is what you might call a PR nightmare for the United Kingdom and for the Union. Although in many respects it is already too late, I urge the Minister to accept the Lords amendments and finally deliver some form of limited consensus on this Bill.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Most of us here in the Chamber recognise that Brexit is an exercise in self-harm, and this Bill is an attempt to ensure that no one escapes that harm, no matter how sensible they are. No one will be safe from English Government decisions—and they will be English Government decisions because, as Professor Michael Keating notes in his excellent paper on the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill:

“In the UK, England has 85 per cent of the population so…it will be English standards, set by the UK Government, that prevail.”

So no one will be safe from the English Government’s decision to impose lower safety standards on food, electrical appliances or kids bikes, or on personal protective equipment for the NHS that has been produced by some ministerial crony with no experience in that field at all.

These Lords amendments, which are sadly ever-diminishing in strength, will none the less provide some small protections, because the Bill as it stands allows a Prime Minister sitting in Downing Street to casually cast aside the concerns of the Scots and the Welsh as he sells out safety for the sake of some second-rate trade deal. Consumer protection is being discarded by the scorched-earth shenanigans being pursued by this UK Government. Perhaps it is more fire sale than scorched earth, with the protections that consumers—our constituents—value so highly being sold so cheaply.

Farmers already know that their livelihoods are being thrown into the gutter by the abandonment of any pretence of protecting food standards. They know that England’s shift from farm subsidies for food production will adversely affect England’s farmers and indirectly threaten Scotland’s ability to support farmers. We all know that the courts will be busy with a procession of spivs seeking to remove protections so that they can make cash. What we can see will be disastrous; what we cannot yet see may be even worse.

The Governments of Scotland and Wales know that the Bill spells danger for the citizens of their countries. The Senedd and the Scottish Parliament have similarly made it clear that it is not acceptable; both Parliaments withheld legislative consent and made it clear that it will be damaging to them and to the people they serve.