My Lords, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his fellow signatories on these amendments. Amendment 1 neatly turns this Bill on its head, so that market access principles will not apply to any decisions to diverge that are agreed through the common frameworks process. That means that common frameworks come first, and it is only when they do not provide complete cover that the provisions of this Bill need to come into effect.
The Government have maintained throughout these debates that they remain committed to common frameworks, despite their determination to avoid even mentioning them in the Bill. They have insisted that all they want to do is fill the gap left by our leaving the EU and that they have no intention of attacking devolution. The mask slipped on Monday when the Prime Minister called devolution a “disaster” and “Tony Blair’s greatest mistake”—which makes it a greater mistake than the Iraq war. The cards are now on the table.
3 pm
The Government have also hidden behind what they allege to be the requirements of the business community, and that is what I want to deal with now. That seems to have been a misrepresentation, too. Some noble Lords may have been contacted by the Aldersgate Group, which represents major businesses, professional institutes, civil society organisations and academic institutions. Its corporate members have a collective turnover of £550 billion a year and include Associated British Ports, Tesco, John Lewis, Siemens, Michelin and many more household names. The group wants this Bill substantially amended. It says specifically that, although it wants frictionless intra-UK trade,
“these objectives should be pursued in a way that allows individual nations of the UK to go above and beyond minimum common standards.”
The group points out that EU rules allow member states to go beyond harmonised rules relating to the environment, for instance, and that this has allowed the UK in the past to set higher standards on single-use plastic, for example. The group states:
“Allowing different approaches in different jurisdictions that are subject to common minimum standards can drive improvements and result in a race to the top.”
Finally, it points out that frictionless trade and encouraging a race to the top in environmental standards are not mutually contradictory.
I live in Cardiff and, like the noble Lords, Lord Bourne and Lord Wigley, I am an ex-Member of the Welsh Assembly. Therefore, I have a strong awareness of the successful efforts within Wales over the last two decades to encourage responsible and sustainable economic development. As a country, we know that we cannot win markets on the basis of our size and dominance, so we set out to win business on the basis of excellence and higher standards. That is a noble ambition and Wales—as I have pointed out before—is a perfect size for experiments and pilot projects.
It is common frameworks that lie behind the development of higher standards. I am a member of the Common Frameworks Committee. We have had evidence from academics, reports from officials involved in developing common frameworks over the last three years and conversations with Ministers from the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments. All these people say that the common frameworks process is working well, that collaboration is good and flourishing, and that they are a good and firm foundation for the future of the internal market in the UK. So this Bill is not needed—and certainly not without major amendment to cement the central and primary role of common frameworks, so that, as long as there is agreement
between Governments via a common framework, innovation and specific requirements for individual markets will be possible. My noble friend Lord Bruce is also a member of the Common Frameworks Committee and has specifically asked to be associated with my remarks on this today.
As it stands, the Bill severs all incentive for the development of best practice and stops innovation in its tracks, not just within the devolved nations but, by read across, in England as well, because there is no compulsion or incentive to raise standards. In the words of the Aldersgate Group, the Government’s proposals will “stifle innovation”. That is a long way from the world-beating post-Brexit economy of the Government’s imagination. At the same time, this Bill strikes quite deliberately at the whole basis of devolution. It is designed to roll back devolution, and I warn the Government, as several noble Lords have done already, that their tactics are dangerous, not clever, and that they are playing with fire.