United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-23
Topic: Government Operations
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is welcome that the Government, in the shape of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, have got up today and made some concessions to the position articulated in this House in Committee. We all welcome that, but he has not gone far enough. In Amendment 15 in particular, what he describes as imposing additional processes on government would actually be very valuable—particularly in the present political context, in which the Government have thrown a lot of doubt on their commitment to the devolution settlement In that context, I endorse the speech of my new Labour colleague, my noble friend Lady Clark. A serious political crisis is looming on the devolution question and, in everything we do, we have to behave with enormous sensitivity to the fact that that is a realistic prospect before us. Therefore, I do not see Amendment 15 as nitpicking, in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, described it; I see it as strengthening the principle that the Government have already conceded As a federalist and someone who believes in a federal Britain, I believe that this is an inadequate response to the devolution problem. I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, when he says that we should have an arrangement where none of the four nations of Britain can veto a proposal that the other three agree with. I do not believe that England can always exercise that veto through the United Kingdom Parliament—that is what we have to change. If we are to keep the United Kingdom together, I believe that we have to think of new arrangements where decisions are made by a United Kingdom council that properly represents the nations, and, I hope, the regions and cities of England as well. That is a personal point about where I think we should be going Therefore, I do not see this as a particularly radical amendment that will address the present growing concerns about the devolution settlement. None the less, it is a sensible amendment, which I support, and I hope very much that my Front-Bench colleague, my noble friend Lady Hayter, will divide the House on it, unless we hear in the Minister’s response that the Government will make a significant move in its direction It seems to me that the merit of this amendment is that, by saying that the Secretary of State "must" seek consent, it puts on the face of the Bill the argument that disagreement should be the exception and that we should go into this with all sides—particularly the UK Government—determined to reach consent. Where there is no agreement, to win consent for that decision it is very important that there is a requirement for an explanation of how it is consistent with the devolution settlement, where the principle that the Government have set out is that the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments will have more, not less, powers as a result of withdrawal from the EU. In that explanation, the Government would have to demonstrate why that was so. They have already listened to some extent but I very much hope that they will listen more to what those of us on this side of the House have said, and that the Minister will indicate that he might go further.