European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Report: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Lord—I would like to call him my noble friend—gives the game away. He says that he imagines that this person might represent an English constituency. In fact, he might or might not. If the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, were Prime Minister, he comes, I understand, from Aberystwyth. He would then be the representative of the UK Government. In our lifetime, I served under one Scottish Prime Minister. I have never served under a Welsh Prime Minister, but there have been one or two Welsh candidates for that post in the past.

In England we are not very good at this rigorous constitutional thinking. Let us be clear, even if it were an English Member of Parliament or Minister, their role would be to represent the Government of the United Kingdom; it would not be their role to represent England, separate from the Government of the United Kingdom.

Finally, when the noble Lord produces his full draft of a new written constitution for the United Kingdom with his proposal for a federal senate, which I assume will be his next amendment on Third Reading, could he please suggest some arrangements for how England will play a part in his federal arrangements?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, we have a lot of sympathy for the amendment. We agree with its aims in so far as they put the JMC on a statutory basis. The formula is not one for this House to write, but undoubtedly the objective of putting that on a statutory basis is one that we support.

I think there were different Ministers at the time of the Article 50 Bill, but we had an amendment at that stage that would have required the Government to set out the relationship with the devolved authorities, particularly over Brexit, obviously. We included at that stage formalising the Joint Ministerial Committee and I think it remains a good idea. At Second Reading, or certainly since, we raised the issue in the context of the Bill.

So we are very sympathetic to the objective of Amendment 92A. Our reservation is about its form. I do not think it is in the right form, but that is not for us to do. Even more importantly, this goes well beyond the Brexit Bill and it needs looking at. We urge the Government to look seriously at the objective of Amendment 92A and to discuss it with the devolved Administrations. If this or something similar found favour and everyone thought it would be a good idea to put it on to a statutory basis, I am sure this side of the House would be very amenable to making such a movement possible.