European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

Before the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, proceeds, it may be of benefit to the House if I now confirm that the Government will bring forward amendments on Report to apply the same protection for the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales Act to the Clause 7 correcting power that applies to the Northern Ireland Act. I will speak about that more at the end of the debate. It may also benefit the House to note that the Government have tabled an amendment to Clause 11 —as I am sure noble Lords are aware—that reflects the significant offer we have made on that issue to ensure that the House can debate the offer when we reach that clause, just as we promised to do in the other place.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Since he has started speaking, would it not be better for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, to speak fully now and tell us what he was going to say? That would give us much more to respond to and might indeed shorten the debate.

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[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 91, I shall speak to Amendments 131 and 149 in my name. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has set out in great detail what his Amendments 90, 130 and 148 in this group seek to do, so I shall be extremely brief. My Amendments 91, 131 and 149 seek to achieve the same aims as those amendments but for Northern Ireland.

Sadly, despite several false dawns, well over a year has now passed since there was a functioning power-sharing Executive in place in Northern Ireland. This means that it is now well over a year since the formal mechanisms have been in place to ensure that the voice of the Northern Irish people is heard through the Executive and the Assembly. It should be recalled that the majority of people in Northern Ireland did not vote the same way in the referendum as the Government’s partners in the DUP. Whereas the Scottish and Welsh Governments have been able to make clear their very deep concerns about the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, there has been no joint position on matters relating to Brexit since the joint letter from Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness back in August 2016.

If the Minister agrees with the proposition from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that it is inappropriate for regulations under Clauses 7, 8 and 9 to make changes to the Scotland Act 1998 or the Government of Wales Act 2006 without the consent of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, he must also agree that it would be inappropriate to make changes to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 without the consent of the Northern Irish Assembly. Does the Minister acknowledge the principle that Ministers in Westminster must not encroach on the devolution settlements without the consent of the appropriate devolved Parliament or Assembly? In previous debates, the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, has made much of “not ruling anything out”. There are elected Members in the Northern Ireland Assembly and in the continued absence of an Executive, is thought now being given to how these MLAs might be effectively involved in this process?

Finally, can the Minister say how the Government intend to deal with Northern Ireland in the context of the Bill, in the possible continued absence of an Executive and Assembly, how they would make the Bill fit for purpose were an Executive to be formed, and how they would ensure that the powers provided for in the Bill are appropriate for the very specific circumstances in Northern Ireland? I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the Minister unusually intervened at the beginning of the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, to say that he had some significant announcements to make in respect of Scotland and Wales and Clause 7. I assume he also meant Clause 8, but it was not clear. Given that this debate will be precisely on what the terms of Clauses 7 and 8 should be in respect of the devolution settlements, may I suggest that it would be fitting if the Minister made his announcements on the Government’s intentions now, and then noble Lords can respond afterwards? He has already told us that he intends to make such announcements and it would be ridiculous to have a big debate only for us to learn of the Government’s intentions after we have spoken.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I thought I was explicit that my remarks concerned only Clause 7, but I thought that was still significant because, clearly, that is a large part of the debate. I wanted to make it clear at this stage that we have moved significantly on Clause 7, but there is still an issue to be addressed in relation to Clause 8, and, I believe, Clause 9.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, what does the noble Lord mean by “moved significantly”? For those of us not initiated into the intricacies of this, what does he intend to do?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I seek to indicate that I can confirm that the Government will bring forward amendments on Report to apply the same protection to the Northern Ireland Act as to the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales Act. This means that all the changes we are proposing—bar one, I think, in relation to technical standards, but even that we will be able to spell out in relation to the Bill—and all the powers in relation to corrections will be in the legislation when we get to Report. We will table amendments on Report so that the correction power in Clause 7 will not be necessary. It will be in relation only to international obligations in Clause 8 and complying with the exit in relation to Clause 9.

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[Lord Empey]

I think that we have to be careful because this is complicated. It is obvious that the devolution settlements are not uniform; they are at different levels. My concern with the whole point of having consent is that, while it is obviously highly desirable to have it, although we are talking about the institutions, in practice we are talking about the people who at any point in time are controlling those institutions. In our particular case, there is a veto. I take the point made by the noble and learned Lord, but in the Scottish case a similar situation arises because there is a political party which has a particular objective in mind. It is not simply about the institutions but about those who are controlling them at a point in time when these matters come forward. In fact the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, said in his passionate contribution—I know that he is a lifelong devolutionary —that devolution, once granted, cannot be taken away. That is a contradiction in terms, because by definition devolution is something that is given—and of course our experience is that what has been given can be taken away. That is the danger in all of this.

Obviously we are waiting to see what the Government’s proposals will be. I do not believe that what the Minister indicated at the start of this debate will be the only contribution they will be making on these clauses, because it is clear that other matters need to be dealt with in Clauses 8 and 9, and I am sure that we will hear more from the Government. But I would urge colleagues to be careful about what this may mean in practice—because it is not as straightforward as it seems.

[Lord Adonis]

We will be debating Northern Ireland at greater length later. The Minister said in response to my noble friend Lord Judd that the Government would be bringing forward on Report amendments in respect of the Good Friday agreement—or at least that is what I took him to be saying; no doubt he will clarify his remarks when he rises to speak. Will he tell the Committee more about what those amendments will contain?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, I speak in support of the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, to which I have added my name. I shall try to confine myself to the actual amendments to Clauses 7, 8 and 9. Like the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I have not yet had an opportunity to see the amendments to Clause 11 which were laid today, but I suspect that we will consider them in great detail before we come to debate them in Committee next week. Suffice it to say that it is helpful that some information has been forthcoming. I may not necessarily agree with it all but it will shed a helpful light by giving us an indication of the frameworks where the UK Government at least think that there should be a United Kingdom dimension, and hopefully some polish from outside stakeholders may help to inform our discussions when we come to them.

On the amendments moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, to Clauses 7, 8 and 9, I shall certainly consider with care what the Minister said at the outset of the debate and then again in response to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I thought that perhaps he went slightly further when he responded to the noble Lord, but I shall read carefully what he has said just to see whether this particular part concession has substance. That is because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, pointed out, the position with regard to Northern Ireland in Clause 7(7) is not absolute. There are qualifications to it and it will be interesting to see whether there are similar qualifications with regard to Scotland and Wales.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, also intervened on the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and said that the difference between what is there as regards Northern Ireland in Clause 7(7) as it stands and what we have proposed in our amendment is that Clause 7(7) does not make any provision for the consent of the relevant Scottish, Welsh—or in the case of my noble friend’s amendment—or Northern Irish devolved Assemblies or Parliaments. I do not know enough, and I know that it is dangerous to go into Northern Ireland politics without deep knowledge. However, I will say why our amendment, which gives the opportunity for consent, would be preferable, certainly with regard to Scotland and Wales. Ministers talk generally, and one of the concerns we have is with the breadth of the powers given to Ministers under these clauses, but we do not know whether there might be a genuine cause or reason for an amendment to be made to these founding pieces of legislation. It would therefore be helpful if there was a provision for consent so that it is not done unilaterally.

It might also be helpful looking forward. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, mentioned distrust. That cuts two ways. There is distrust among the Scottish and Welsh Governments as to what United Kingdom Ministers might get up to in using these very broad powers, and there is distrust—I can speak only for Scotland—among UK Ministers that the Scottish Government might well seek to veto something that they might otherwise think is perfectly reasonable. That is holding back quite a lot of the development of a pragmatic and reasonable solution to a lot of these issues. It might be that there will be something akin to the so-called Edinburgh agreement, which paved the way for the amendments to the Scotland Act that allowed the EU and independence referendums to take place, so that we can get some understanding between the Governments that consent would not unreasonably be withheld where a compelling case could be made for it.

The problem we have at the moment is that there is no scope for that at all. It is imposition. It could be a unilateral imposition in a change to the Scotland Act or the government of Wales Acts without any form of consultation or consent at all. As the noble and learned Lord pointed out, Clause 8, certainly in terms of Scotland, and Schedule 5 allow some limited powers for the Scottish Parliament relating to international obligations. Again, we think some provision should be made in Clause 9 for putting a brake on any amendment to, or modification of, the Scotland Act or the Government of Wales Act unless there is the consent of the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly.