United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-12-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this group covers Amendment 8M, which relates to exclusions from the market access principles. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has made changes to the amendment since the debate was last in this House. These move the proposed exclusions text from Clause 10 to Schedule 1 and narrow the list of reasons for derogating from the market access principles to two: environmental standards and protection, and the protection of public health While this acknowledgement of the issues created by replacing Clause 10 with a lengthy list of exclusions is appreciated by the Government, it does not address our fundamental problems with this approach. The noble Lord’s Amendment 8M would cut right across the Government’s objectives and leave businesses exposed to new burdens and barriers. Despite the reduced list of aims, vast amounts of public policy could be excluded from the market access principles. I have previously explained that the narrow approach to exclusions that we have taken ensures that certain policy areas can work effectively within the clearly defined market access principles. Many of these, such as the exclusion relating to threats to human, animal or plant health, will ensure that necessary environmental and public health measures can continue to operate under the bespoke constraints necessary in those areas, all without the need for the wide-ranging environmental and public health derogations which the amendment, even in its revised form, would add to Schedule 1 However, the way in which the noble Lord’s list of exclusions would work with the test in his proposed new paragraph is also problematic, as I shall explain. To be excluded, a requirement must only "make a contribution to" the achievement of one of the aims from the list, meaning that a policy need only have an extremely tangential relationship to a social policy objective to be taken out of scope The amendment would also lead to uncertainty as to when the market access principles applied, not least by a very unusual use of the term "proportionate". It would fall to courts to determine the relative extents to which different policies met one of the aims, with no consideration of the burdens introduced. This would not deliver the certainty that business needs. The amendment could bring blatantly protectionist measures out of scope of the market access principles because it was unclear what "disguised restriction on trade" meant. We cannot accept protectionism within the UK In the previous debate, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also raised the differences with the EU system. It should be quite clear that the EU system is designed for different circumstances—that is, bringing together 27 countries. Now that we are an independent trading nation, the market access principles are naturally more tailored for the UK than they were in the EU system, so it is right that the approach to exclusions in this Bill should be more narrowly focused However, I must stress the following point to the House: the market access principles do not prevent the devolved Administrations introducing innovative policies designed to meet their own goals and objectives, including those relating to the environment and public health. We are adamant that requirements which prohibit the sale of a particular good should generally be in scope of the mutual recognition principle; otherwise, we would see a decrease in consumer choice, increased prices and additional costs for business. This is an outcome that I do not believe your Lordships desire, nor is it a good one for the citizens of the United Kingdom Of course, if there are initiatives that are of serious concern to the UK Government and the devolved Administrations, we should work together as a United Kingdom to implement them. Furthermore, manner of sale policies, which have typically been the most innovative types of policy, will not be impacted by the market access principles as long as they do not discriminate and are not designed specifically to circumvent mutual recognition. This covers innovative policies such as plastic bag charges and minimum unit alcohol pricing, which many noble Lords have cited. In this respect, our system has much greater flexibility in these areas than the current EU system would allow For all these reasons, I strongly encourage noble Lords to reject Amendment 8M.