United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am one of no fewer than seven members of the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, including our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who we have already heard from, and the mover of this amendment, who are participating in this debate, which shows our interest—one of those interests you do not need to declare. I call it a debate but I fear that, sadly, even more so than usual, because of the hybrid nature of our proceedings, it is more a series of statements. That is a great pity and I look forward to the day when we can get back to all sitting round this Chamber and having a proper debate I also speak as a strong supporter of devolution since the early 1960s, when, as some of my colleagues here, who are nearly as old as I am, will recall, to be a supporter of devolution was not the most popular thing to be in the Labour Party. We had to work very hard to persuade the party to move in that direction. I say that now to put into context what I will say later, but I sound a cautionary note. People sometimes get on to a bandwagon, and it goes faster and faster, more and more people jump on, and they do not always know which direction it is going in and what the consequences and all the implications are We have had devolution for a very long time in Scotland, but mostly it was administrative devolution. We have had a different educational service for a long time. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who is a Scots advocate—not practising, as she keeps reminding us—could tell us, we have had a Scots law system that is entirely different. We have had that for decades—indeed, in some cases for centuries. However, for so long, legislation in Scotland was dealt with at Westminster right at the end of lots of other legislation, as a sort of afterthought or codicil. There was little time spent on it, or interest in it. I was a Member of Parliament, along with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others who will remember that it was not the main business we were dealing with. That is why we pushed hard The main argument in favour of a Scottish Parliament was to provide democratic accountability in relation to the administrative devolution that had already taken place. But we always understood—this is what I think some people have forgotten—that Westminster remained and remains ultimately responsible for the good government of the whole United Kingdom. That is something never to forget. Some people want us to forget it, but it is very important. We have a sort of quasi-federal system. It was supposed to develop throughout the whole United Kingdom, but the proposal that the Labour Government put forward for devolution in the north-east of England was ill thought out. It was put forward at a bad time and did not get through. Had we had devolution for the whole United Kingdom things would be very different from the way they are at the moment The other thing is that devolution is completely different from independence. The two are completely separate concepts, and it is important never to forget that. It is in the interests of the SNP, the nationalists, to obfuscate, to muddy the waters, to pretend that one and the other are very similar, and to say, "Don’t worry". Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister, recently showed that he does not understand devolution, but beware: equally, the SNP does not want us to understand devolution and is not using it as it is meant to be used, to benefit the people and improve the conditions of the people in Scotland Someone—I think the noble Lord, Lord Bourne—raised earlier that when we have Governments of similar political persuasions in Scotland and in the rest of the United Kingdom there are sometimes substantial difficulties. I know exactly that situation: I was Minister of State for Scotland in the United Kingdom Government and I dealt with an Administration in Scotland that was run by the Labour Party in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. We worked very well together. I used to meet weekly with Ministers in the Scottish Government. We had discussions about free personal care and how it should be funded. They were good, positive discussions and we all understood the position exactly I acknowledge as much as anyone—after all, I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament for four years, so I saw it as an MSP—the importance of involving the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliaments and Governments, consulting where appropriate, giving them powers, allowing them total control over all the devolved areas and having them involved in other areas through the legislative consent Motions and the Sewel convention. I know that, and I felt it myself. But it is equally important to remember that each of the devolved Governments are not always right. Sometimes I think that some people assume that they are always right. I worry sometimes that we in Westminster do not want to be seen as big brothers, or to impose on or upset them, so we take what they say as gospel. We give them a veto where it is not appropriate. Sometimes I wonder whether those who came late to supporting devolution are the strongest advocates of taking account of their concerns: it is the zeal of the convert, perhaps.