UK Parliament / Open data

Exiting the European Union

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why it is such an important issue, and we really are hoping and expecting that the Minister will confirm today that the Government will accept the amendments on this that were passed in the other place, because it is about how we as a country are coming to an agreement about standards. I am sure that these issues will be raised later in the debate.

The Government must respect the devolution settlement and work collaboratively, in good faith, with the devolved Administrations to build that strong and thriving internal market with common standards underpinning it. Not doing so would threaten our precious Union by putting rocket boosters under the campaign for independence in Scotland. I know that the Prime Minister is very keen to talk about Christmas at the moment, but he seems to be giving the Scottish First Minister all her Christmases at once by his constant undermining of devolution recently. He seems to have made another blunder on that recently, propelling her campaign for Scottish independence by, as I said, putting rocket boosters under it.

On that point, I wonder whether the Minister would also explain to us the status of this statutory instrument. It is my understanding that her colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), wrote to his counterparts in the devolved Administrations to seek their consent for him to lay this statutory instrument, which she is taking on his behalf, as some goods potentially affected by this instrument fall under devolved competence. I understand that consent has been received from the Welsh Government, but not yet from the Scottish Government—I do not know whether the hon. SNP spokesman wants to come in on this. I am not sure whether we can lay and agree to this statutory instrument today on that basis. What happens if the Scottish Government do not consent to it but Parliament already has? I do not know whether anyone knows the answer to that or if the Minister wants to rise to clarify that.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
684 c744 
Session
2019-21
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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