United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Commons, 2020-12-10
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): This shabby, shambolic, pernicious Bill should never have seen the light of day. It has already been delivered a historic defeat in the Lords—they rightly tore it apart—yet this Government overturned all their amendments and sent the Bill back. No sooner had they done that than there came the press release—as ever, bypassing this House—to say that the Government would be retreating from breaking international law with clauses that should never have been in the Bill in the first place, and that have only served further to diminish this Government and the UK’s already tattered international reputation. They are now reinstating these amendments Of course, it is not just the other place that this Tory Government ignore; it is almost everybody. When it comes to devolution and the nations of the UK, they are still determined to ignore the democratically elected Parliaments. As we have already heard, both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd have voted to withhold legislative consent on this Bill, yet this Government say that it is about working with the devolved Governments. It is not Lords amendments 48B and 48C pretty much deal with the shared prosperity fund that we have heard about. Under these amendments, the Government would have to agree with the devolved Governments on the way in which and where funds would be spent for matters within the devolved competences—roads, health and education, for example. The Government have said that the devolved nations will be represented, but Lord Thomas did not fall for that smoke and mirrors approach from the UK Government. He noted that, "the clause without my amendments would enable the UK Government to spend in devolved fields and bypass the devolved Governments and Parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who have been elected to be responsible for those fields. It would, in effect, hollow out the devolution settlements."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1293.] It is disgraceful that we still do not have details of the shared prosperity fund, just weeks before we leave the EU. I was asking about this in 2017, and we have still not had anything from the Government Lords amendments 50B and 50C set out an attempt to agree a common framework, which is a regime that can govern the control of subsidies. Lord Thomas warned that, without this, "Having changed the settlement for a policy that they have not yet devised, the Government then wish simply to consult…and then announce their decision. That is what I would call ‘way one’—the UK Government way."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1309.] The SNP will not accept this brazen power grab. State aid must remain a devolved competence We welcome the changes through motion C1 in the Lords. The amendment removes the law-breaking clauses from part 5 of the Bill. Lord Judge said: "They were constitutionally improper and a constitutional aberration. They subverted the rule of law."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 December 2020; Vol. 808, c. 1277.] They have even been knocked down by former Tory leader, Lord Howard.