Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I offer my support for these amendments from a Scottish perspective and for very much the same reasons as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, has just been expressing. I also support it as a member of the Constitution Committee because one of the points which the Constitution Committee made was that if we are to make the union work, the key words are “respect” and “co-operation”, and this is a very good demonstration of respect for the devolved Administrations and the way in which they can co-operate.

I am glad too that the document that the Minister must lay before Parliament is to be published. The Minister is not being required to lay a document before the devolved Administrations—that is not the way it will be done—but because it will be published it will be perfectly plain to the devolved Administrations what the mission will do. The amendment is well phrased. It is extremely desirable for the reasons of principle that I have expressed. I am delighted that these amendments are there.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the two noble and learned Lords who have just spoken and to see their enthusiasm for the way the Government are going. I was waiting to see whether there was any mention of a legislative consent Motion from the Welsh Government. I think the Scottish Government are still a long way from getting there.

I spoke at a previous stage about my concerns regarding agreement on devolved competences. It looks from these amendments that the Government have been working hard to find all the places where consultation might help. In Committee, my noble friend the Minister said that

“the Government are continuing to work with the devolved Administrations to understand whether there is scope to extend the EOR powers to provide a shared framework of powers across the UK. Once those discussions have concluded, the Government will bring forward any necessary amendments to both Part 6 and Part 3 to reflect the agreed position between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations”.—[Official Report, 22/3/23; col. 1803.]

I was grateful to hear my noble friend the Minister just now reassure us that these amendments are part of that negotiation with the devolved Governments.

The amendments all deal with the actions the Government will be solely bound to carry out. I understand that the Government, and particularly the Treasury, do not want to yield any powers that might end up costing money, but can my noble friend the Minister say whether what we have is anywhere near constituting the framework that they hope to achieve with the devolved Administrations or do they regard the framework as something to be left for further primary or secondary legislation? In my unprofessional view, a framework would be something that laid down the competences and responsibilities of each party and that was acceptable to all. Each Act of Parliament that has granted devolution is, to me, a framework. They are not set in stone. The difference here is that each of these Acts was set up by the UK Government on their own, but now we have to get agreement from the other parties. I realise that these are questions that the Minister may not want to go into at the moment, but they must be asked.