United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Commons, 2020-12-10
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We all know the Prime Minister does not believe in devolution, and neither does the Leader of the House, who made more derogatory comments about it this morning. In fact, over the years, the Prime Minister’s comments are nothing less than anti-Scottish. I accept that the Government do believe in an abstract of the Union, but more important to them is Westminster sovereignty and the fact that we in the devolved nations should do what we are told and be grateful. It is quite clear that there is a huge resentment that the people of Scotland and the people of Wales vote for Governments who are non-Tory If this Government have any scintilla of respect for the Union and for devolution, they would accept these regional amendments that have come back from the House of Lords. Instead, what we have heard from the Minister is platitudes about collaboration and working with the Government, but in actual fact the Government will not allow the devolved Administrations to have consent. They will ignore the legislative consent motion votes in other Parliaments, so, actually, that is Westminster imposing its will on the devolved nations yet again Amendment 48 seeks to ensure that any Westminster spend in devolved areas is undertaken with the consent of the devolved Governments. What is there to argue about that? If we are talking collaboration, the Government should just accept this simple, reasonable amendment. The Scottish Tories always tell us that they want both Governments of Scotland to work together—as they call it. We were promised the best of both worlds in 2014. Well, this simple amendment would make a statement about the fact that the Tory Government are willing to work in collaboration with the devolved Administrations and show them the respect that they deserve If the Scottish and Welsh Tory MPs vote to strike out the amendment, they should hang their heads in shame, and it would show that it is all bluff and bluster when it comes to respecting devolution. In fact, doing so is confirmation of the Lords assessment that devolution is simply an inconvenience to the Tories and they are ignoring the advice from Lord Dunlop not to use their own votes to overturn these Lords amendments. It is absolutely disgraceful that we still do not know what the shared prosperity fund will look like. Again, the word "shared" seems a bit of a misnomer, given the attitude of the Tory Government. Why are we moving into a consultation phase after all these years? It is a disgrace that they have mucked about and mucked about, and nobody knows what will replace these vital European funds—funds that have helped many regions in Scotland to make up for a lack of spending from Westminster over the years If the Government do not agree to the formalisation of common frameworks, once again, that shows there is no real intent to work collaboratively with the devolved Administrations. What is wrong with formalising common frameworks? The Minister saying that it will cause uncertainty beggars belief. It does the opposite of cause uncertainty—it provides a clear way forward for us to work together. It seems to me that, yet again, this is another way for Westminster to impose its will on the devolved Administrations We know that there are too many free marketeers in the Government, and the fact that they will not allow state aid to be devolved or to be part of common frameworks suggests to me that there will be a race to the bottom in the future, when this Tory Government pull subsidies. There is a pretence at the moment that the argument with the EU is about how the Government want to provide more state aid—who’s kidding who? We know that in the long run, free marketeer rules will win, so it has nothing to do with supporting industry We have had 313 years of the Union and Westminster rule. We have only had 20 years of devolution. It is now clear to more and more people what has had the biggest impact on inequality and holding Scotland back, and it is not the 20 years of devolution. We look forward to independence, because more and more people realise that it is the only way forward.