European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. We could become involved in a constitutional battle with no end in sight. The Institute for Government, which I am sure is respected by Members on both sides of the House, has said that the Bill "has exacerbated the already serious tensions between the UK and the devolved Governments", and we see that day after day. The Repeal Bill Alliance concluded: "By returning all EU power to Westminster against the wishes of Scotland and Wales, the EU (Withdrawal) Bill is an attack on the principles of devolution." So time and again Committees of this House, independent bodies and respected bodies tell us that this Bill is deficient, is a power grab by the Government, and could be done in a different way The report of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee concludes that, on clause 11: "The overall concerns regarding the devolution aspects of the EUW Bill arise from the constitutionally insensitive nature of the UK. Government’s approach" I am trying through these amendments to take away some of that constitutional insensitivity, so as to be able to get to a place where we can be much more comfortable that the Government will do what they said they would do The Brexit Select Committee and its well respected Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), have also produced a report on the Bill and found that "the devolved administrations have insufficient trust in the process for agreeing these future relationships and have, accordingly, indicated that they will withhold legislative consent from the Bill." That is an incredibly serious issue, because the Scotland Act 2016 put the Sewel convention on a legislative footing that means the UK Government should not be legislating in devolved areas unless the Scottish Parliament, or any of the other devolved Administrations, pass a legislative consent motion. They are saying they will withhold an LCM as this Bill is currently constituted, which would mean we end up in yet another constitutional difficulty with regard to whether this Bill will even be passed What will the UK Government do? They will ride roughshod over the constitutional settlement, over the Sewel convention, and over the Scotland Act 2016, in which the convention was put on a statutory footing, in order to get this Bill through. But if they were just to work cross-party on clause 11, and, indeed, with some of their own Members from the Scottish Conservatives, they might get to a place that we could all support and respect It is worth working through some of the alternative solutions put forward by the Law Society of Scotland, particularly for the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire, who is desperate to find an alternative to this clause. The society is not saying that any of these solutions takes preference over the others; it is merely proposing some of the different ways this could be done to make it less constitutionally insensitive. One of them is: "Repeal the EU law constraint and amend schedule 5 to re-reserve specific competences to the UK level to enable UK Government to establish common frameworks." That would, essentially, allow us to devolve the vast majority of the competences coming back from the EU, and, with agreement, reserve some of the more complicated issues as may be required, agriculture being one that has been mentioned The society’s second alternative suggestion is: "Replace the cross-cutting EU constraint with new cross-cutting constraints, for example to protect the UK single market and/or to comply with international obligations. These might be more or less extensive than the EU law constraint in practice, but would have the benefit of (a) an underpinning principle and (b) catering for unforeseen cases." I am not advocating any of the suggestions, but it is worth airing that there are alternatives to clause 11 in this Bill. Another of the society’s suggestions is: "Repeal the EU law constraint leaving EU competences to fall as determined by schedule 5" of the Scotland Act 1998, "and any new common frameworks to be established by agreement between the UK Government and the devolved administrations." That provides a direct answer to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire. We could devolve everything, but come to an agreement with regard to some of the UK-type frameworks and common frameworks that might be required Alternatively, we could: "Adopt the provisions in the bill on a transitional basis only and subject to a specific cut-off date. At the expiry of the transitional period, powers in devolved areas would revert to the devolved legislatures, unless specific alternatives had been put in place." Indeed, we could clearly mix and match from the four alternative solutions from the Law Society of Scotland, but this goes back to the fundamental principle of trust—to the fundamental principle of whether the UK Government and devolved Administrations are truly working together to seek a solution or whether the politics of this trumps the solutions that might be required. That is why we should pass the Opposition Front-Bench new clause on the JMC I have proposed these amendments to try and take the edge off this Bill. We are heading into a constitutional crisis. The Conservative party has left this country out of the EU and is risking the constitutional framework of the UK. The question that cannot be answered by this Government is the same question that the Members of the SNP cannot answer, but in reverse: why are the EU single market and customs unions so important—as I believe they are, and on which we see the issues with regard to the island of Ireland—but the UK single market is not? Likewise, I say to the Conservative party, how can they have stood on a platform in the 2014 Scottish referendum saying that removing Scotland from the UK single market would mean a hard border, customs checks and no free movement of people from Scotland into England, and defending that principle, but do completely the opposite in terms of the island of Ireland now? We cannot have the single market and customs union principles on one hand, and then discard them on the other because it suits our political ideology It is clear that having a frictionless, seamless border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland while not staying in the single market or the customs union is utterly impossible to achieve. I say that because I was persuaded by the arguments the UK Government made back in 2014 that removing Scotland from the single market of the United Kingdom would require a hard border at Berwick.