United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, my name is on Amendments 33, 34, 50, 55, 56, 60, 80 and 95 but, to be honest, all these amendments are trying to cover similar ground in slightly different ways. I suggest that they are trying to meet the gap that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, in his exceptional speech, characterised —in my words, not his—as the paucity of ambition that lies within the Bill. He also effectively highlighted some of the inconsistencies that crop up throughout it Amendment 50 seeks to add a range of additional conditions around the aim of legislation, and Amendment 51 does much the same. The noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Faulkner, talked specifically about public health, animal welfare came up with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and my noble friend Lord Teverson and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and other noble Lords, spoke very powerfully about climate change The last two speakers, and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in a way characterised where I had got to; the penny had dropped. I will use slightly different language. I am slow; after 15 hours of Committee I think I am getting there. The problem is that Her Majesty’s Government may hate devolution, or they may want to grab hold of the money and spend it in Scotland—those might be by-products of the Bill. The fundamental philosophy and thinking from the Government’s position, however, is that the only way to have to have a properly ordered internal market is, essentially, for everything to be the same. With non-discrimination and mutual recognition, in the end that is what you will get Your Lordships’ House, with the exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes— who very ably put once again the minority view, which is actually the government view—has taken a diverse approach and believes that there can be an ordered internal market that is not the same, but diverse. That is what the common frameworks are there to do. A number of noble Lords raised my noble friend Lord German’s twin highways and questioned how they will ever come together. The answer is that they do not because the Bill rides over the diversity that the common frameworks will deliver. Why are the two things happening together? One can speculate. One started three years ago with a different Government who probably had a different philosophy, and killing it is probably harder than letting it die I know that the Minister has been assailed with examples. He has had chlorinated chicken, whisky, all sorts of things—he even brought in hypothetical biscuits. I will give him an example that is the other way round. It is of where the devolved authorities could do things to England. England, very wisely, has banned the household burning of coal. Wales and Scotland have not. If I lived in Herefordshire all the time, I could nip over the border to Harry Tuffins, which is just the other side of Offa’s Dyke, buy a bag of coal, take it home and burn it on my fire in Leominster. So far, so good Within the terms of the Bill, I could—[Interruption.] Minister, you will have your chance. If I were heckling you, I suspect I would be told to sit down; I look forward to the debate. If I was a businessperson living in Leominster, I could go to Wales and import that coal. If the Minister tried to stop me, I would go to law and use this Bill to assert my right to sell that coal in England. Whether or not I won we would see, but all those things will be happening all the time. Because of the non-legislative common framework that it is covered by, where does it sit in law beside the iron-clad rules of non-discrimination and mutual recognition?