United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Debate between Deidre Brock and Craig Williams(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Craig Williams
On day four in Committee, it is tempting to regurgitate all the points that have been made previously, but I can assure Members that I will resist that. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); I agree with much of what he said about our precious Union. It was also a pleasure to hear from my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies), and my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) about the non-tariff barriers. Those two key points—non-tariff barriers to trade and market access for our Union—are why I was so exercised that I put myself forward to speak in this debate.
I want to briefly talk about market access. We have heard some Members getting exercised about the creation of this market access framework, but much of what is in the Bill replicates the EU market as it was. Much of the political debate around the Bill thus far has been a regurgitation of the former Brexit argument—it is just the same old politics in a different guise.
A third of my constituents in Montgomeryshire travel across the English-Welsh border every day, whether that is for education, jobs, skills or goods. It is entirely porous. It is essential for my constituency—I task the entire Welsh nation with this—that we get market access right, with no distortions and no non-tariff barriers internally or externally, for the rest of the world. It is critical that this is done at a UK level.
I want to touch on amendment 9 and the perceived attack on devolution. This is one of the single biggest transfers of powers to the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament —70 powers. I will happily take an intervention from anyone who can name a single power that the Welsh Parliament will not be able to exercise because of this Bill. Indeed, the Counsel General of the Welsh Government went as far as to say that
“this doesn’t specifically prevent the Senedd from exercising its powers”.
All the noises to date in this Chamber and in the press are a lot of politics.
Deidre Brock
Of course, it is not a single power. The effect would be felt across many of the devolved powers. If the hon. Gentleman would care to have a look at page 12 of the explanatory notes, he will see that it is explained quite clearly in the paragraph entitled “Constitutional embedding and devolved competence”:
“the Bill’s provisions create a new limit on the effect of legislation made in exercise of devolved legislative or executive competence.”
Craig Williams
No more than the market access operated under the EU market. The devil is always in the detail, and the hon. Lady can name no specific power—these are just broad political statements again and again. My constituents expect better. This Bill is essential for jobs, jobs, jobs. That, more than ever, is what my constituents expect me to support.
Deidre Brock
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there already exist wide regulatory differences between the four nations of the UK? When I sat on the Committees considering both iterations of the Agriculture Bill, we heard from the National Farmers Unions, and they always wanted any changes to regulations or to approaches in the different nations to be agreed, not imposed, as is happening with this Bill.
Craig Williams
My constituency has a huge concentration of high mountain and hilltop sheep farming. This Bill affects none of that. It changes no specific powers. The point that the hon. Lady just made means absolutely nothing in detail—nothing to jobs in my constituency, nothing to the constitutional changes and nothing to the devolved Administrations. All this does is continue what we had under the European Union.