United Kingdom Internal Market Bill Debate
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William Cash
Main Page: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)Department Debates - View all William Cash's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Walker
I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that we have consistently followed through with our agreement. We have done that with the delivery of protocol requirements when it comes to the legislation for the dedicated mechanism and to citizens’ rights, and we will do so regarding EU state aid rules applying in Northern Ireland in respect of goods and electricity as agreed.
Mr Walker
I will make a bit of progress and take an intervention from my hon. Friend later.
Clause 44 establishes a statutory requirement that no one besides the Secretary of State may notify the European Commission of state aid where the UK is required to do so as a consequence of article 10. That codifies in legislation the existing practice where aid is notified by the Foreign Secretary via the UK mission in Brussels and will ensure that a uniform approach to the state aid elements of the protocol is taken across the UK.
Paul Blomfield
I am happy to give way again. I am interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman will pursue his point about the Sheffield steel industry, on which he is usually wrong.
Sir William Cash
I am actually going to look briefly at a simple point, which is that, apart from our own judges, the German federal constitutional court in December 2015 clearly stated that international law leaves it to each state to give precedence to national law. International law gives effect in that way. How does the hon. Gentleman answer that?
Paul Blomfield
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I think the answer was provided by the Northern Ireland Secretary when he spoke to the House on the issue and he said that—let us all think on these words—
“yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way. We are taking the power to disapply the EU law concept of direct effect, required by article 4”.—[Official Report, 8 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 509.]
On that, he was right. Article 4 does require that the UK ensures compliance with paragraph 1 of the withdrawal agreement, including our courts, disapplying
“inconsistent or incompatible domestic provisions”.
Article 5 makes it absolutely clear that we have an obligation to
“refrain from any measures which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives of this Agreement”,
which, as the Northern Ireland Secretary made clear, is the purpose of clauses 41 to 45. In adopting them, we are in breach of international law and unsettling the situation in Northern Ireland, to which the Minister rightly referred. Indeed, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan, who is a widely respected voice, said that the Government’s actions “may well undermine trust”.
Paul Blomfield
The right hon. Gentleman came back at me on the quote I gave about trust. That quote was from the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, and it was about trust in relation to the Government’s actions. In terms of how we deal with the issues that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, I will come on to those subsequently.
The Government’s cavalier disregard for the rule of law has been condemned by the Law Society and by the Bar Council. It has shocked people across the country, and it has disturbed our friends and allies around the world. Part of the tragedy of the Government’s actions is that they never needed to do this. Instead of throwing their toys out of the pram, there was a grown-up solution there in the Northern Ireland protocol itself: the dispute resolution mechanisms agreed by the Prime Minister, to which the Minister has referred at length and which have been utilised already on other issues. However, in recognising those, the Minister failed to explain to the House satisfactorily why the Government have chosen not to exercise that route and have instead put this proposed legislation before the House. Article 16 provides for either the EU or the UK to take unilateral safeguard measures:
“If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”,
and annex 7, to which I think he alluded, sets out the process to which matters can be resolved through the Joint Committee set up to oversee the implementation of the withdrawal agreement.
Do not take my word for it. The former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), who I seem to recall was once celebrated in the Conservative party, made the case in The Times last week when he said:
“There are clear and lawful responses available to Her Majesty’s Government”,
which
“include triggering the agreed independent arbitration procedure set out in the withdrawal agreement and, in extremis, these might legitimately extend to taking temporary and proportionate measures, where they are urgently necessary to protect the fundamental interests of the UK”.
That was his conclusion. And the Prime Minister could not answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) at the Liaison Committee last week when he asked the simple question why he had not been prepared to use those measures, which he negotiated, to resolve any disagreements, rather than engage in lawbreaking.
So let me ask the Minister a simple question, which I hope he will come back to at the end of this very long debate, on the question of state aid. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), said it was a matter for the Joint Committee. Will the Minister be able to confirm in his winding up whether the Government have actually raised their concerns there for resolution?
Our amendments seek to put the Bill right. They reassert our commitment to the rule of law by removing the notwithstanding clauses, which have been the subject of so much attention, but also the other references to disapplying the protocol and disregarding the law.
Paul Blomfield
No. I have taken one intervention from the hon. Gentleman and, with respect for those wishing to speak, I will follow the injunction of the Chair and make progress.
The Government are sending a worrying message, too, about their attitude to accountability in Government amendments 64 and 65, limiting opportunities for judicial review. Our amendments 58 and 59 would put that right, protecting those rights for the scrutiny and challenge of Ministers. If the Government are, as they say, acting reasonably, they should not be afraid of scrutiny or of challenge. Overall, our amendments 52 to 60 would enable the Bill to achieve its aims, but to stick to the rule of law, the Human Rights Act 1998 and our international obligations. We hope that the Government will accept them, but if they do not, we will vote against clauses 42 to 45 standing part of the Bill.
Many Members on the Government Benches talk about their ambition for global Britain. We share the desire for strong trading partnerships after we leave the transition, but that will be undermined by flouting international law, and the Government know that. The Foreign Secretary was dispatched to Washington last week to calm fears. This visit seemed to make things worse. As he left the United States, the man that the polls indicate will be the country’s next President said:
“We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”
He was adding to the views expressed on both sides of the aisle in Congress that there will be no US trade deal if this Bill proceeds unamended. We should remember that the UK and the US are co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement. It is a responsibility that the future President of the United States seems to be taking more seriously than the Government.
This debate is about our place in the world. It is about our values. It is about the sort of country that we want to be. If we cannot comply with our treaty obligations, how can we ever demand that others do so? We are giving a green light to oppressive Governments, from China to Belarus, who flout the rule of law. This Bill has deeply damaged trust in our country and our place on the global stage. In our votes tonight and tomorrow, we have an opportunity to rebuild our reputation to make it clear that we are a country that can keep its word, a country that can make agreements and stick to them, and a country that believes in the rule of law. Let us not fail in that responsibility.
Sir William Cash
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend. Is she aware that the EU itself and indeed many other states throughout the world, including many democratic countries, have persistently broken international law, and that this applies not only to other countries, but to the United Kingdom? There are many overrides of international treaties by the UK itself.
Mrs May
Let me get this right. My hon. Friend seems to be saying, “If somebody else does something wrong, it’s okay for us to do something wrong.” I am sorry, I do not agree with him on that point.
I recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has taken every effort to ameliorate the impact of these clauses, and the Government have accepted and put down their own amendment. But, frankly, my view is that to the outside world, it makes no difference whether a decision to break international law is taken by a Minister or by this Parliament; it is still a decision to break international law. This can only weaken the UK in the eyes of the world. One of the great strengths we have as a country is our commitment to the rule of law, and this will have been damaged. Our reputation as a country that stands by its word will have been tarnished, and the willingness of other countries to trust the United Kingdom and its values will have been reduced. So much for global Britain!
In 2018, when Russian agents used a chemical weapon on the streets of Salisbury to attempt to murder Sergei and Yulia Skripal—a nerve agent that led to the death of Dawn Sturgess and affected her partner, Charlie Rowley—I led the action. I called on our friends and allies to stand alongside the United Kingdom, and I led the action that resulted in 29 countries expelling an unprecedented 153 Russian agents from their borders. We were able to do that because those countries had trust in the United Kingdom. Where will that trust be in the future if they see a United Kingdom willing to break its word and international law?
If we pass this Bill with clauses 41 to 45, and in so doing accede to the Government’s wish to break international law, I believe it will have a detrimental effect on people’s trust in the United Kingdom. As the United Kingdom negotiates trade deals around the rest of the world, why should anybody we are negotiating with believe that we will uphold what we sign up to in those agreements if we have said clearly, “If we don’t like it after we’ve signed up to it, we’ll break it”?
This is a country that upholds the rule of law. That is one of the things that makes us great; it is one of our characteristics. We propound and uphold the rule of law around the world. The Conservative party upholds the rule of law—it is one of our values and characteristics—yet we are being asked to tear up that principle and throw away that value. Why? I can only see, on the face of it, that it is because the Government did not really understand what they were signing up to when they signed the withdrawal agreement.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon described the Government’s action as unconscionable. As has been said, Lord Keen resigned because he said that he found it increasingly difficult to reconcile his obligations as a Law Officer with the Government’s policy intentions. Frankly, I find it difficult to understand how any Minister can go through the Lobby to support these clauses.
I consider that, in introducing clauses 41 to 45, the Government are acting recklessly and irresponsibly, with no thought to the long-term impact on the United Kingdom’s standing in the world. It will lead to untold damage to the United Kingdom’s reputation and puts its future at risk. As a result, with regret I have to tell the Minister that I cannot support this Bill.
Sir William Cash
There are many essential reasons, in our national interest and on constitutional and legal grounds, and grounds of practical necessity, for the clear, unambiguous “notwithstanding” clauses in the Bill that have been discussed in the context of clauses 42 to 45.
I mentioned in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) that this was a question not just of whether the Euro pot was calling the British kettle black, but of whether, in the United Kingdom, we had ourselves overridden clear treaties. There are too many—they are far too numerous—to mention in this short debate. Of course, there is also an enormous number of examples of international law breaches by foreign states—not only, in Europe, by member states but by the EU itself, egregiously. Furthermore, there are examples of other countries, every one of them democratically elected, having done so. This question of values and reputation, and the issues that have arisen, has to be weighed against that context.
Of course, there are many international treaties, and there are many aspects—
Sir William Cash
In a moment. There are many aspects of international law that are sacrosanct—those in respect of torture, genocide and the rest, for example—and it is the fact that international law comes in many shapes, sizes and degrees, as I am sure we all know.
Basically, the point is that where the sovereignty of a nation is involved—the Vienna convention addresses this question—and where we are at the highest end of where the national interest lies, other considerations come into play. It is absolutely clear that in many instances, democratically elected civilisations—countries—have themselves broken these treaties.
This Bill does not, in my view, breach international law, but our rule of law must be based on our Parliament making our laws for our people based on our sovereignty, not judges. Indeed, Parliament itself voted for section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, without a single vote or even a voice raised in opposition, as far as I am aware, in either House on Second Reading. That Bill passed its Second Reading by as many as 124 votes.
The famous Lord Bingham clearly demonstrated this in chapter 12 of his book, “The Rule of Law”. He said clearly, with respect to the fact that it is our Parliament, not judges, that makes laws for our people based on sovereignty, that he had come across a number of judgments that had breached that principle. Wise judges do not want to make political decisions. His unimpeachable principles turn on their head the exaggerated claims with respect to the breaking of international law that has not taken place.
As I said, the German Federal Constitutional Court stated in December 2015:
“International law leaves it to each state…to give precedence to national law”.
Laying a Bill is not a breach of international law and is privileged. If a treaty is entered into on the reasonable assumption that a state of affairs would exist, but that does not transpire, the treaty is voidable. The agreement was written on the basis of the EU recognising our sovereignty, which has not happened.
International law is broken by democratic countries throughout the world and the EU, in their own interests. The list is long, but I will give a few examples. Western Sahara is one case. Another is migrants sent back to north Africa and Turkey. In 2010, when the EU broke the Lisbon treaty, Madame Lagarde said,
“We violated all the rules”
about the Greek and Irish bail-outs. The EU is unilaterally changing the bilateral channel tunnel treaty without our being able to prevent it. The EU threatened to use the WTO’s most favoured nation principle against the UK contrary to state practice, core principles of world trade and requirements negotiated in good faith.
I have another stack of examples, which I mentioned, where UK statute has overridden international treaties. There is no argument about it; it is there in black and white in the treaties and in the sections of various enactments that have overtaken and overridden international law.
It is understandable that some are bothered about this to a degree, but the fact is—
Sir William Cash
I said, “to a degree”. Within the framework of international law, it is entirely a question of whether the degree to which it is done is commensurate with what is being proposed. The case of sovereignty goes to the heart of the extent to which we are entitled to take the action that we do.
This is less about breaking international law than about breaking the conditions in respect of state aid and in respect of the manner in which the Northern Ireland protocol would operate in the UK with respect to breaking the issues of contract and of the manner in which people work in this country. We are faced with a critical problem, the effect of which is that if we were not to pass these clear and unambiguous clauses, we would find that we were subjected to EU laws—that we were subjugated to them—in a way that would ensure that we would not be able to compete effectively throughout the world or support the workers of this country, particularly in the context of covid.
Section 38 was passed by every single person in this House and by the House of Lords. There is no doubt about that. The notwithstanding provision is inviolate; it is in an Act of Parliament. These enactments do the necessary job to ensure the future prosperity and competitiveness of this country, and the opportunity for its people to move forward in an enterprise society to enable future generations after Brexit to guarantee their jobs, their businesses and their future.
Gavin Robinson
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who has that classic flair of oratory, as when he said that some Members may be somewhat bothered to some degree. Whether we agree or disagree with him, he raises a smile through the Chamber.
I rise to speak in support of the amendments tabled by my party. Before I do, I want to reflect on the comments from the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I regret some of the comments she made about the implications for relationships in Northern Ireland and the consequences associated with the Bill. Be it her contribution or many others on Wednesday and no doubt later today, there is an awful lot being said that is not only at cross purposes across the Chamber but completely misses the point. The right hon. Lady embarked on a political strategy that was encapsulated by the phrase “Brexit means Brexit”, and for nine months there was no greater clarity than that. Here we are four years later, and we know that what was outlined as a national aspiration and what was agreed to in a referendum by the people of this country is not being delivered for the people of Northern Ireland.
Members will remember the week in December 2017 when there was a flurry of activity around the formulation of what became the UK-EU joint report. They will also remember the work that had to go into getting provisions placed in that joint report at paragraph 50, which not only represented the principle that it was of no concern for the European Union to impede or impose upon the integrity of a member state, but stated:
“the United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, unless, consistent with the 1998 Agreement, the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree… In all circumstances, the United Kingdom will continue to ensure the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the United Kingdom internal market.”
That was in paragraph 50 of the joint report, but it was never honoured in the withdrawal agreement.
Sir Robert Neill
This has not been the most edifying spectacle for the House of Commons over the past few days, but I hope that, at the end of the day, we can find a constructive way forward. I say that it is not edifying because, although much of the purpose of the Bill is important and valuable, to act in contemplation of something that most of us would regard as unworthy—namely, to breach an international obligation—is not something that one should ever seek to discuss lightly. Equally, it is not something that can ever be an absolute, because there can be certain extreme and pressing circumstances where such a derogation is permissible, but the bar has to be a very high one. That is why the discussions that have taken place between some of us and the Government, and the Minister’s response, are important, as far as my thinking is concerned. On the face of it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) observed, without safeguards and caveats, clauses 42, 43 and 45 would without more ado be unconscionable, and we could not support them.
I want also to speak to my amendment 4 and the Government’s amendment 66, which I hope will provide a means of reconciling that position with the need to find a constructive way forward.
Sir Robert Neill
If my hon. Friend will allow me to develop my point a little, I will of course give way to him in a moment.
Without a parliamentary lock, I do not believe that it will ever be appropriate for a sovereign Parliament to contemplate breaking an international obligation. There has to be a test for the parliamentary lock to be met. I welcome, therefore, the Minister’s comments on Government amendment 66 and the test that he has adopted—and that was previously put out by Downing Street—at the Dispatch Box in respect of the high bar that would have to be met before the House could or should be persuaded to support such a course of action. For me and, I suspect, many other Members, the bar would have to be a high one.
Sir William Cash
Does my hon Friend agree that that bar becomes very apparent when dealing with the essential question of sovereignty and whether the EU is recognising sovereignty in the negotiations in the way that was clearly stated in the protocol and in the essential elements of the agreement? We are sovereign and our constitution is special in that respect, compared with some other countries that have provisions in written constitutions.
Sir Robert Neill
Let me put it this way: if my hon. Friend is saying that the test is something akin to that in article 46 of the Vienna convention on the law of treaties, which permits a departure from an international obligation if the violation that causes it is
“manifest and concerned a rule of its internal law of fundamental importance”,
I am not a million miles away from him. It is not an exact analogy and I do not think my hon. Friend was trying to make one, but it would have to be something similarly fundamental.
From my point of view, one could conceive—I use my words carefully—that a Government might be able to persuade the House that there was such a threat to the position of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom, and to the welfare of its economy and people, that one might take such a step. That is why, having thought and hesitated for some time, I am prepared to allow the Government the opportunity to make that case. None the less, it is a high bar, and I have to say that the fact that other jurisdictions—be it the EU or others—may have derogated from international treaties is not of itself persuasive. Many of us would need to be persuaded by the evidence that was brought in relation to the specific circumstances that might trigger the bringing into force of the three clauses under the arrangements set out in Government amendment 66. That is the point and will be the only test that will be relevant.
Joanna Cherry
I rise to speak in favour of amendments 43 and 44, in my name, and to support the amendments tabled by the Scottish National party, our friends from the SDLP and our friend from the Alliance party.
I will focus my comments on my amendments, which I tabled to work out just how far this Government are prepared to go in ousting the jurisdiction of the domestic courts in relation to judicial review and review under the Human Rights Act in clause 45, as it appears on the face of the Bill. I also wish to highlight, as I mentioned in an intervention on the Minister, that, in so far as clause 45 seeks to restrict judicial review in Scotland by circumscribing the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session, this not only trespasses into devolved territory but may well breach another treaty: the treaty of Union between Scotland and England, article 19 of which preserves the independence of the Scottish legal system.
Before I address my amendments in detail, for the avoidance of doubt, my primary position—and I find myself curiously on the same ground as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—is that clauses 41 to 45 should not stand part of the Bill. Everything we heard from the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) was designed to hide from us the fact that we are talking about a bilateral treaty that was entered into by the Prime Minister and the United Kingdom less than a year ago, to deal with a specific situation that arose between the United Kingdom and the European Union; and the most controversial part of that treaty—the one dealing with Northern Ireland and the north of Ireland—is the one that this Government are seeking to drive a coach and horses through. That is what we are talking about, and that is what is so wrong.
Joanna Cherry
I will make some progress.
Such excuses as those that the Government’s Law Officers who remain in post have sought to make for this do not stand up. I am very proud, as a member of the Scottish Bar, that Lord Keen of Elie resigned last week, and I am proud of the reasons he gave for his resignation. The only thing I would say to him is, “What took you so long, Richard?”, but apart from that I am very proud. I think it will be very difficult for the British Government to find anybody of suitable seniority from the Scottish Bar to step into his shoes, but I am waiting with some amusement to see who they might find.
Joanna Cherry
No, I am going to make some progress.
It is what we would call at the Scottish Bar a load of old mince. That is not just my view; as I said in an intervention, it is the view of the United Kingdom Supreme Court, which said in the first Miller case, at paragraph 55, that
“treaties between sovereign states have effect in international law and are not governed by the domestic law of any state.”
I am terribly sorry to disappoint Conservative Members, but no matter how much they love their doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty—no matter how much it means to them—it cannot trump the obligations freely entered into by their Government under international law.
Joanna Cherry
No, I am not going to give way.
It simply does not work that way: Britannia does not rule the waves any longer and has not done so for some time.
I regret to say that while I have the greatest respect and the highest regard for the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Government amendment that his efforts have secured is wholly inadequate to meet both domestic and international concerns about this Bill. I cannot do much better than repeat what the Irish Foreign Minister said this afternoon: a Government with an 80-seat majority having a parliamentary lock is not much of a reassurance to any of us. I really do not think I need to say any more than that. Once more, we have a ruse to solve the problems of the Conservative party rather than a ruse to address our international legal obligations.
My amendments 43 and 44, as I said, seek to deal with clause 45. The English Bar Council and the Law Society of England and Wales have said of clause 45 that it
“would exclude judicial review of any regulations made under clauses 42 and 43 on grounds of incompatibility with domestic law…as well as international law.”
That exclusion of judicial review would also mean excluding any human rights review under the Human Rights Act or, indeed, the Equality Act 2010. As my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) said in her very eloquent speech, human rights are of course integral to the Good Friday agreement. It is a travesty that regulations made under clauses 42 and 43 should not be subject to judicial review or to human rights review across Great Britain, but a particular travesty in Northern Ireland. It undermines not just the principle of the rule of law but the principle of access to justice. It also contravenes article 4 of the withdrawal agreement, which the British Government freely signed up to, in which they undertook to ensure a right for individuals to rely directly on withdrawal agreement provisions.
It is difficult to be certain how the courts would interpret an ouster clause such as clause 45, but precedent suggests that it would be quite hard for them to uphold it unless it is expressed in unequivocal terms. My amendments seek to clear this up. Amendment 43 would exclude the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights from the definition of domestic and international law, and amendment 44 would ensure that
“nothing in Clause 45 ousts the jurisdiction of domestic courts in respect of judicial review of regulations made under Clauses 42 and 43.”
Subsequent to my tabling those amendments, the Government tabled amendments 64 and 65, which appear to acknowledge that judicial review claims could still be brought in certain limited circumstances. I am interested to hear from the Minister what those circumstances would be. Do they include the normal judicial review grounds of illegality, irrationality or procedural impropriety, or will they also include review on the grounds of human rights? I look forward to hearing from him on that.
My final point is the most important point from a Scottish point of view. In so far as clause 45 seeks to interfere with judicial review in Scotland, it is interfering with a rather different beast from judicial review in England: the inherent supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session in Edinburgh. In doing that, it strays into devolved territory and would therefore require a legislative consent motion, which I very much doubt would be forthcoming. Put simply, the Scottish Parliament is not in the business of ousting the court’s jurisdiction on judicial review or human rights grounds—nor should it be and neither should this Parliament.
Most importantly from a Scottish point of view, the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session is an inherent jurisdiction, which is not conferred on it by legislation but has been there since its inception in 1532. It therefore predates the treaty of Union between Scotland and England in 1707. Legislation seeking to narrow the scope of that inherent jurisdiction risks falling foul of article 19 of the treaty of Union, which preserves the independence of Scotland’s legal system.
In Scotland, rather to our surprise, we learned from the UK Supreme Court that putting the Sewel convention on a legal footing did not protect us from the Government driving a coach and horses through it. As the legal position stands in the United Kingdom, it seems that the Government can get away with passing primary legislation that interferes in devolved matters without a legislative consent motion. A breach of article 19 of the treaty of Union might be a different matter, however, because the question of whether parts of the treaty are so fundamental that they cannot be overridden by an Act of this Parliament has been considered by courts north and south of the border, but never entirely resolved.
I simply remind Members that the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament is an English doctrine. Even Dicey, the great high priest of parliamentary sovereignty, was prepared to recognise that those who framed the treaty of Union between Scotland and England believed in the possibility of creating an absolute sovereign legislature that was still bound by certain unalterable laws. Many of us in Scotland believe that one of the unalterable laws of the treaty of Union is that this Parliament cannot interfere with the inherent jurisdiction of the Court of Session.
Both those problems—the in-roads into the devolved competence and the undermining of article 19 of the treaty of Union—will continue, notwithstanding Government amendments 64 and 65. I suspect that the Government have not really thought about that because, let us be honest, they do not often think about the impact on Scotland of what they want to do. Many people in Scotland, including my fellow members of the legal profession, will see that as another example of the Government’s total disregard for devolution and for Scotland’s separate and distinct institutions.
That is yet another reason why for Scotland the only way out of the mess that the Conservative and Unionist party has created over Europe is independence. I am glad that so many more people in Scotland are realising that daily. [Interruption.] It is a terrible dreadful bore for Conservative Members, but I remind them that we spend an awful lot of time listening to them bang on about the European Union and how it prevents them from having their way. Well, the Scots are pretty sick of this Parliament preventing Scotland from having its way.