United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Commons, 2020-12-16
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Any improvement to the Bill would be welcomed, but the proposed amendment does nothing to protect the devolution settlement—the Minister said as much in his opening remarks—and the provisions will simply allow this Parliament to overrule Scottish Parliament and Welsh Parliament decisions. It is incredible to hear Labour Front Benchers trying to take credit. They say that they led the way, but they have actually paved the way for this Bill to do that to the Scottish Parliament. They talk about the guile they have shown, but it is gall that they have when they talk about this. You can understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, why Labour has only one MP in Scotland Instead of taking this Bill apart, as they should have done, those on the Labour Front Bench spend more of their time talking about the democratically elected Members of Parliament that they have here, who, as I pointed out, are in vastly greater numbers than the one Labour MP from Scotland. They are not listening to Scotland—they never do—and Labour has allowed this aberration to come forward in this way by abstaining in the House of Lords The amendment does not protect devolution, as I said: the Minister has laid that out clearly today for everybody to hear. Westminster Ministers will still have the right to impose lower food, environmental and other devolved standards on Scotland, regardless of the view of Holyrood. This Bill is the biggest assault on devolution in the history of the Scottish Parliament. It undermines devolved policy making, grabs spending powers, and removes state aid from being a devolved responsibility. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly refused to give this Bill consent, and it is outrageous that the UK Government are once again ignoring the wishes of the people of Scotland as well as Wales In welcoming the amendment, Professor Aileen McHarg warned: "There are still significant problems with this Bill: it changes the scope of devolved decision-making; it reserves additional powers to Westminster; it empowers the UK Government to spend in devolved areas that have nothing to do with markets (eg prisons, sport, international student exchanges); and above all—unlike EU law—it has an inherently asymmetrical effect on decision-making for England and for the devolved territories This is a Bill which squarely falls within the scope of the Sewel Convention, and the necessity of which is deeply questionable." But of course the Government have not listened to that, and Labour has capitulated on it The only reason for this Bill as it now stands is to demolish devolution. If the Government take this Bill forward today, as they obviously will, that is what they will be doing. Any pretence thereafter by the Scottish Tory MPs that they respect the democratic rights of the people of Scotland will be blown apart if they support this today. In fact, they have already supported it, because it seems that it will go through. They have done nothing to protect the democratic rights of the Scottish people People in Scotland are watching. People in Scotland, when they see the effects of this Bill, will be angry about the fact that their rights are being taken away by these Tory Ministers, aided by their Labour bedfellows. They will be furious about the fact that their rights are being stripped from them. They are listening, they are watching, and they are seeing developments in this place. They are understanding, now, that the only way to protect their Parliament, their rights and their democracy in Scotland is to go forward as an independent nation—and they will be voting for that, I am sure, in due course.