I strongly endorse what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. This is an incredibly important and rich debate in which detailed answers are required. It has been a very powerful debate because it has identified a range of problems, both of principle and detail, suggesting that either the Bill has not been properly thought out—subject to what the Minister says in answer—or that there are fundamental problems with it.
I strongly echo what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said—we want frictionless trade as much as possible. I do not know about the noble Baroness, but my experience of business is that if every five minutes one is in the courts trying to work out what is allowed and what is not, that is the classic recipe for a lack of certainty. This Bill, as said so accurately by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is creating a whole range of private rights not to be discriminated against, to be treated the same in one place as another. Unless the Bill is clear and has a practical impact, it will be an absolute goldmine for lawyers. It is therefore critical there is confidence this has been properly thought through and the principles work. I am dubious— I am not talking about Part 5 but about the internal market provisions.
We had a very important debate on Amendment 7 about imports, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayter. My noble friend and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, asked why the devolved Assemblies or Parliaments are excluded from having any voice on what is imported. We were treated by my noble friend Lord Rooker and the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, to an explanation of all the drawbacks of including food and animal foodstuffs in the arrangements. They gave a devastating series of reasons why these are wrong. Could we have detailed answers for the point made by the former chair of the Food Standards Agency? I ask the Minister to convince us if he can that my noble friend was wrong and the Government are right in the way they have approached this.
The amendments which were very powerfully introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, indicated legal issue after legal issue. I draw attention to two where an answer is important. First, how do the measures already in place apply, and why are they better than the common frameworks approach? Secondly, what is meant by substantive change, rather than significant change? That feels like an issue that could be litigated over for a long period of time.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble and learned Lord Hope, referred to the failure of the Bill so far to make any connection between the market access principles and the common frameworks principle. The noble Lord, Lord German, referred to a motorway, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, called it the blunderbuss approach. The market access process says the lowest level applies; the common frameworks approach is that before legislating, you see whether the four areas can agree. Surely that is the better approach otherwise people will ultimately go to the courts to resolve what their rights are.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, drew attention to the apparent inconsistency in the approach the Government took on 22 September by in effect excluding fertilisers and pesticides from the internal market approach, giving rise to the problem the Minister said they were trying to solve in the Bill. I would be very interested to hear the answer. Is the Isle of Man in or out of the UK in terms of services? Are universities providing services? If so, what is the impact of the Bill on them, particularly in relation to the different B structure?
Amendment 61 in my name would delete the first reference in the Bill to any part of the offending Part 5. For the purposes of good management, it is far better that instead of addressing that in this group, we wait until we get to Part 5. Amendment 61 was intended to be a paving amendment to the Part 5 debate, so I will leave that until then.