United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Drew Hendry and Jonathan Edwards

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

Indeed, it is the UK Government who are seeking to take back control from Scotland, and from Wales, with the Bill, which is a clear and utter power grab.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for his forensic analysis of the British Government’s tactics in relation to the Bill. Essentially, the British Government are hollowing out devolution as the middle ground in the constitutional debate in Wales and Scotland. For the people of Wales and Scotland, the choice becomes independence or direct Westminster rule.

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. It is no surprise that in Scotland we have now had 15 opinion polls in a row that show that a majority of people support independence. That has not happened overnight; that has happened because they have been watching what has been happening here, and have seen the contempt with which Scotland and Wales’s Parliaments have been treated. The result is the growing demand for us to protect our Parliament in that way.

When it comes to devolution, the Tories used to wear a mask to hide their contempt, but the Bill, and recent comments from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House, have ripped it away once and for all. The Prime Minister recently told his MPs that devolution was a disaster and Tony Blair’s biggest mistake—the latest in a long line of statements that he has made to show his distaste. We all remember him saying that

“a pound spent in Croydon is far more of value to the country…than a pound spent in Strathclyde.”

The Leader of the House has called devolution a failure and is arrogantly dismissing it, while the Scottish social attitudes survey shows that only 7% of the Scottish people do not support devolution. As I have said, the Bill is an orchestrated attempt by this Tory Government to re-centralise powers.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Drew Hendry and Jonathan Edwards

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

Indeed—I agree. In fact, Professor Dougan has said:

“I do not share UKGov’s apparent assumption that regulatory divergence is inherently problematic and must be strictly controlled, by imposing extensive limits (in effect) on the ability of devolved institutions to make different choices from Westminster”.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his very carefully crafted amendment 89, which would mean a race to the top as opposed to the race to the bottom that he has alluded to.

[Drew Hendry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. Of course, that is where we all should be aiming—a race to the top. That should be the principle that is being set by elected Members in the Parliaments that they are elected to represent, yet we find here a complete travesty of that.

Devolution has proved that the market can successfully operate across the UK with variations in standards. This Bill’s proposals work against the interests of our high-quality producers and our consumers. As the National Farmers Union of Scotland explained in its submission to the UK Government’s White Paper consultation, the proposals for the UK internal market, in the absence of effective common frameworks, could trigger a race to the bottom. In a Scottish context at the very least, they could force a choice between upholding high standards of production or maintaining the competitiveness of agricultural businesses.

The existing common frameworks were designed to manage cross-UK divergence where EU law and competences intersect. They do not need to be supplemented or undermined. Scottish Environment Link is clear that the UK Government’s plans could

“force Scotland to follow the lowest common denominator, especially where countries negotiating bilateral trade deals with the UK demand lower standards seriously undermining efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity decline.”

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Drew Hendry and Jonathan Edwards

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

The problem with that question is that there is already, as I mentioned at the start of my remarks, a process for dealing with that—the common frameworks. I am saying that the UK Government do not have to take this hammer and smash devolution in order to organise things so that business can co-operate and work across the different nations of the UK, taking cognisance of the choices made by those nations’ individual Parliaments.

I turn to the composition of the Office for the Internal Market, and I would be grateful if the Minister intervened and gave me some answers to these questions. Who are these people? Who will sit down in judgment over the democratically made decisions of the Scottish Parliament? Do we know yet? Do we have any idea? These words from the Prime Minister—he was talking about the EU, of course—are coming back on him, as so many of his outpourings do:

“They may decide that now is the time—even though electorates are already feeling alienated from the political process—to hand sensitive decisions…to unelected bureaucrats.”

But that is what he has decided to do. He has decided to hand these decisions to unelected bureaucrats.

What grace-and-favour appointments will there be to this body? Will any of them have links to the many vested interests that apparently find it so easy to pick up contracts from this Government? The fact that that is something we can only guess at underlines how dangerous this proposal is for Scottish people and communities. We reject the idea of this body of unelected, unknown bureaucrats having power over the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people.

The SNP has tabled amendments 28, 29 and 30, which are in my name and those of my hon. Friends. Amendment 28 would exempt from the operation of part 4, which deals with independent advice on and monitoring of the UK market, regulatory provisions applying in Scotland that did not apply to the whole of the UK. Via this amendment, the SNP wants Scotland to be removed from part 4 of the Bill, because it undermines devolution.

Decisions made by our elected representatives must be upheld, and this proposal to overrule the Scottish Parliament is a democratic outrage. Let us be clear that we cannot and will not accept this legislation in any form. Under the unelected Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister is forcing this power grab through, despite overwhelming opposition from Scotland’s Parliament and MPs. It proves that Scotland will never, ever be accepted as an equal partner in the UK. It attacks the foundations of devolution and gives Westminster and an unelected quango a free hand to overrule the Scottish Parliament in devolved areas, threatening our NHS, our food and our environmental standards. It fires the starting pistol on a race to the bottom.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I fully agree with amendment 28, which is very well drafted. The same should apply to Wales and Northern Ireland, because it would allay any fears in the respective devolved countries of the UK that the British Government are using the UK Internal Market Bill to torpedo devolution.

[Drew Hendry]

Indeed, and this is a matter that does not just affect Scotland, as the hon. Gentleman said. Even the Labour-run Welsh Government have come out to stand against these measures.