United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-25
Topic: International Affairs
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I speak in support of this amendment, elegantly explained by my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord German, who amplified his points Yesterday, as already referred to, the Welsh Government’s Counsel General wrote to the Secretary of State at BEIS about Clause 44. That letter demonstrates clearly that the Welsh Government are seriously committed to trying to save the union of the United Kingdom and recognise the need to secure the internal market. Their offer to work intensively with the Government is clear and unequivocal. The Welsh Government have consistently put forward imaginative and thoughtful proposals about how to move the constitutional debate forward. Indeed, in Brexit and Devolution in June 2017, the Welsh Government championed the idea of common frameworks, subsequently taken up by Whitehall. If I may quote, they said: "From the outset of the debate about our collective future outside the EU, the Welsh Government has recognised a need to develop UK frameworks. It is clearly important that no new barriers to the effective free movement of goods and services within the UK are created as a result of EU withdrawal. The development of UK frameworks should be taken forward immediately on the basis of negotiation and agreement among the four UK administrations." This paper suggests a qualified majority voting system within a reformed intergovernmental system, where a decision endorsed by the UK Government plus one of the devolved Governments would be sufficient to break any logjam, thus addressing head on the issue of one nation wielding a veto. Last year, the Welsh Government’s comprehensive analysis in Reforming our Union championed shared governance, describing taking responsibility for codesigning legislation and policy where devolved and reserved competences intersect. It asserted that "devolution is concerned with how the UK as a whole should be governed, with proper account taken of the interests of all of its parts. It is a joint project between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, based on a recognition of our mutual inter-dependence, which therefore requires a degree of shared governance." It foregrounded common frameworks, seeking a common approach, shared delivery systems and joint governance arrangements that should be developed on a collaborative and consensual basis. So, the intervention from the Counsel General is not an opportunistic response to this Bill but the continuation of a patient, crystal clear commitment to common frameworks at the heart of intergovernmental relations Over these three days of debates, Members across the House have recognised the importance of these frameworks. The Welsh Government and, I believe, the Scottish Government are not arguing to be left alone to design and implement their own rulebooks for government subsidies. They would be mad to do so. In a free-for-all between Governments of these islands to attract and hold on to investment, the UK Government would be bound to win, because they have much more significant financial resources and can set their own budget. Rather than arguing to have an equal role in designing a fair system all can work within, they are committing to do this on a timetable compatible with the one the Government have set themselves and to take no legislative action in this space until at least autumn 2021 This is surely beyond reasonable doubt. If the efforts to reach agreement fail, the Government will have to introduce primary legislation to define the new subsidy regime, subject to the same constraints there are now, in order to achieve a coherent regime. We have repeatedly been told that this Bill does not diminish the powers of the devolved institutions, yet all we see and hear defies that. This clause explicitly and openly alters the devolution settlement by adding to the list of reserved matters in the Government of Wales Act and the other devolution statutes. I therefore urge your Lordships to support its removal from the Bill.