United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, In moving Amendment 10, I also speak to Amendments 21, 41, 48 and 49, which together deal with various exemptions and derogations that we believe should be appropriate in the case of the market access principles. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Young and Lord Wigley, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Jones, for their support, and I look forward to their contributions. Now that we have accepted by a majority Amendment 1 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the Government have said they will not oppose Amendments 38 and 51, I hope we can assume that the common frameworks process will be at the centre of our future concerns about the internal market. We think it will ensure that the devolved nations will be able, within the limits of UK law, to formulate and apply policies that best suit their local circumstances, working together in order to enable the functioning of the UK internal market. Each devolved Administration will retain the ability to diverge from the harmonised rules in their territory within the mandate given to them by the devolution settlement, but only after consulting the relevant policy group to see if a common outcome can be reached and agreed to We fully accept that there have to be backstop powers retained by the UK Parliament that are subject only to the normal "consult and seek consent" modality, and we accept that that brings into play the market access principles system set out in the Bill. However, that does not operate by agreement. It is hard-edged; it is a set of strict statutory rules that do not permit any real divergence. For example, my noble friend Lord Foulkes mentioned in the last group that Clause 8, on the non-discrimination principle, refers to "legitimate aims" and limits them to "the protection of the life or health of humans, animals or plants" and/or "the protection of public safety or security." So it is very tight—but does it have to be that way? Surely we want exclusions to permit various exceptions from the lists, as set out in our Amendments 10 and 41. Others will make the case for the extension of the legitimate aims in Amendments 21 and the rest, affecting services The Welsh Government put around a note, which they prepared in response to the papers put around last night by the Government. They argue that the Bill’s limitations have been too tightly drawn and that they go much beyond current international regulations, and effectively put new restrictions on devolved competence. One of the policy statements issued yesterday by the Government said: "Each part of the UK will be obliged to follow a rigorous process to justify an exclusion. This will include suitable evidence and a risk assessment shared between UK administrations, to confirm the nature of the threat posed and the effectiveness and proportionality of any proposed measure in response." This is hard-edged. This is not the language of consult and seek consent, let alone of a Government trusting in the common framework process Our amendments seek to add significant exclusions to the market access principles for goods and services and in relation to the recognition of professional qualifications. We think they are justified, we think they are proportionate and, otherwise, will not have an adverse impact on the powers we think the UK Government must retain. I beg to move.