My Lords, I shall start by responding to a couple of the speeches that noble Lords have made this evening. First, I am delighted to hear references to home rule in this Chamber. Secondly, I wish to clarify that the Welsh Government also have tax-raising powers, and that raises all the issues that exist in Scotland.
I want to address Amendments 17 and 29 specifically and to dwell on the fact that there is an astonishing lack of understanding of devolution in the Bill, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, made clear. When I was a Minister in the Wales Office, one of our roles was to go round departments and to remind officials, and occasionally even Ministers, about devolution. Sometimes, we had to gently tell Ministers that their brief was actually Minister for England only. It is some years since then—it is eight years on—and the story of devolution should have permeated more deeply into government. Actually, I do not believe that the people who wrote the Bill did not understand devolution. I think they were probably under instructions not to understand devolution, and that is much more worrying.
Earlier this evening, while many noble Lords here were out grabbing a bite to eat, I had a Motion to Regret before this House. My regret hinged on the fact that the regulations concerned—they were highly technical so I will not go into them—removed the obligation on
the Secretary of State and the Competition and Markets Authority to consult the devolved Administrations. That was an obligation taken for granted when we debated the Subsidy Control Act and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act, the Acts from which the regulations stemmed. Both these Acts interrelate closely with devolved powers over economic development.
Tomorrow, we will debate the minimum service levels Bill, and the Welsh Government report a total lack of prior consultation on minimum service levels, even though the services affected are devolved. Most of the services listed in that Bill are devolved: education, health, fire and rescue and most of transport. So, a lack of consultation is already a theme in relationships between this Government and the devolved Administrations, and that is why these amendments are so important. Levelling up relies largely on economic development, transport and education, which are all devolved issues. If it is to work, it is fundamental that the devolved nations are fully integrated as part of the process because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, explained, the devolved Administrations already have their own primary legislation on many of these topics, and they are obviously not entirely at one with this Bill.
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The pandemic demonstrated to the whole UK on television at 10 pm each night that key services are run very differently in each country, with a different ethos and a different personality. What united them was the common desire to control the virus and minimise deaths. To do that, consultation was vital on a daily basis. There is no reason why the consultation should not be there in the long term on issues of this importance.