King’s Speech

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, this is a difficult, sombre time and I rise with a heavy heart. It is a shocking thing to lose a friend and mentor. The death of Lord Judge will be announced in the usual way tomorrow by the Lord Speaker. I am very grateful to the Leader of the House for confirming to me just now that there will be an opportunity to pay tributes at that time, which I will use to pay my tribute to Igor.

It was, as ever, very special to hear the gracious Speech yesterday—the first, I hope, of many from our King and the last of this Parliament. I will restrict myself to a subject on which very little was said—devolution—but I start by saying how much I am looking forward to the three maiden speeches today, from my noble and learned friend Lord Burnett of Maldon and from the noble Lords, Lord Houchen and Lord Bailey. I also look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lord Meston, who is making his first speech on returning to the House.

During the previous Session, quite a lot happened in devolution terms. Many times, the importance of clarity and consistency in devolution settlements has been remarked on. Lack of clarity and consistency and too much complexity inevitably lead to the risk of clashes between layers of government, and poor dispute resolution mechanisms exacerbate matters. The citizen in the street generally wants none of this, and it is in their interests that this Parliament does its bit in trying to prevent poor outcomes.

The core of the relationship between the UK Government and the Governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is the intergovernmental relations structure that surfaced at the start of last year. It is a vastly improved and updated structure, replacing its 2013 predecessor with ambitions to achieve regular dialogue and an effective dispute resolution mechanism between the parties. There was a substantial diet of common framework issues to be worked through the revised intergovernmental arrangements. The committee structure of this House has been riding shotgun alongside these matters, and in reports and correspondence continues to seek to nudge things to be better.

However, my impression is that this is unfinished work. Some of the ministerial strands—Defra should be complimented here—have got to something akin to what was hoped for by the parties as the IGR review was settled; others have not. The suspicion is that dialogue has been wanting. I dare say that the blame for this lies with more than one party.

Our work as a House on common frameworks has not ended. Although the committee—which I warmly salute, along with its doughty chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews—has now stood down, these frameworks replicate similar arrangements that existed in the EU when we were a member and which were scrutinised by the EU committees of this House. I know therefore from long experience that the common frameworks will necessarily change over time—perhaps quite often, as was the case in the EU—and this House will inevitably continue its scrutiny.

I say all this without even having mentioned the devolution difficulties posed by the situation in Northern Ireland, which others will no doubt cover fully in their contributions on the gracious Speech. The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, with the Windsor Framework agreement that so welcomely surfaced in February this year, presents further devolution complexities. Here I salute the work of our Select Committee so ably chaired by my noble friend Lord Jay.

It is against this background that we are now starting out on the road for devolution in England. The White Paper of February last year set out the goal of every part of England having a devolution settlement by 2030 and that there would be three general levels of devolution deal on offer. That is a lot of complexity.

The trailblazers—deals for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands—were announced in March this year and their full implementation is expected by the end of 2025. The enabling measures for all this are in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act which spent so many months going through your Lordships’ House until very recently. I fear this Act is hard to construe, even though I have spent much time in the Chamber, and indeed in the Chair, and with the Act’s written materials. This would seem to me to make consistency and clarity in new devolution under the LURB, as I still think of it, a challenge.

So many Bills that come before us contain important elements of devolution. Just as much as we patrol Henry VIII clauses, we must patrol these elements. Clarity, consistency and lack of complexity will remain the enablers of successful devolution, underpinned by dialogue and good dispute resolution mechanisms. Parliament and Government together should look to these principles in the new Bills that will be put before us.