United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-26
Topic: Mixed Topics
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support Amendments 1 and 2, to which I have lent my name; they are probing amendments to ask the Government a number of questions. The concept of the internal market in European Union terms is relatively recent: we have only had the single market since 1992. Of course, devolution followed some five years later, so both are still relatively new in terms of the British constitution British competition rules are loosely based on—and generally have always reflected—the original competition rules of the EU treaty on state aid in Articles 85, 86 and 92. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has been right to highlight that, in what we have been used to in terms of both EU competition rules and British competition law as applied by the CMA, what is missing in the Bill is a reference to consumers. The flip side of competition policy to make sure that companies behave well is to ensure fair competition as well as protection of the consumer. I wonder whether leaving out any reference to consumers, both here and in later parts of the Bill, was deliberate. Why is there is no specific reference to consumers in the Bill, as Amendments 1 and 112 would provide Equally, Amendment 1 relates to safeguarding and the environment. That begs another question. We are told that our current regulations setting out food safety can always be changed by secondary legislation and that we do not need an Act of Parliament to do so. But that could lead to the situation—particularly if it remains devolved, and the Government have repeatedly stated that this is their intention—where we have to ask: to what extent will divergence be tolerated? For example, if the Food Standards Agency of England made substantial changes to our food safety requirements, would Food Standards Scotland simply diverge and not necessarily follow those changes? In future, could a product produced in Scotland, meeting Scottish environmental and animal welfare standards—I will be supporting the forthcoming amendments regarding those—still be allowed to be imported into England if it no longer met those same standards? This seems to be an obvious potential crisis for Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh farmers some way down the road. The Government might want to rethink their idea of not having UK-wide standards. I would be most grateful if, when summing up, my noble friend could turn his attention to that potential conflict and the potential for divergence Turning to proportionality and subsidiarity, I absolutely agree with Amendment 2, to which I have lent my name, and later amendments. The Bill must clearly set out only what is necessary to achieve its stated objectives. My noble friend will probably answer that this is self-evident, but it bears repetition. Personally, I see some merit in having it on the face of the Bill. The principle of subsidiarity might seem clear now, but I ask my noble friend to consider the horrific situation, some five or 10 years down the road, when we may face a federal Britain. What impact would that have on subsidiarity On procurement, does my noble friend share my concern that despite all the potential benefits around procurement provisions that I envisage us enjoying by leaving the European Union—for example, we would no longer be bound by the threshold of €136,000, beyond which any public contract must be put out for tender, meaning that we could source many more of our English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish foods into public institutions such as schools, hospitals, prisons and others—we have completely lost that advantage because through the Trade Bill we are joining the Agreement on Government Procurement, which, surprisingly, has exactly the same threshold of $135,000? We seem to be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, without getting all the opportunities that were promised to our farmers by leaving the European Union, such as sourcing more local food to schools, hospitals and other public institutions. That will in fact not come about, because we will be bound by international rules on public procurement. Have the Government done a cost-benefit analysis on how much competition we will face from other providers to source their foods into our public institutions, as opposed to the potential benefits our farmers might have from tendering in other international jurisdictions to source our home-produced food there I look forward to hearing my noble friend’s reply to this little debate.