My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s statement and will say how grateful I am, and I am sure that people in the devolved nations are, for the Government’s change of heart. It is important to recall that the devolved Administrations have responsibilities in the areas covered by the Bill. For example, in relation to Wales, both the Government and the Senedd have a responsibility for economic development and for levelling up.
One has seen this in policies and in the legislation that has been passed. I will give three examples. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, passed by the Senedd, showed how far-sighted the Welsh Government and the Senedd were in addressing inequalities and improving the well-being of people in Wales. Secondly, in 2020, A Framework for Regional Investment in Wales set out another set of policies designed to deal with economic regeneration, but in a way that dealt with inequality at every level of society
and did so in conjunction with sustainable economic growth. Thirdly, in 2021, Welsh Ministers published their Economic Resilience and Reconstruction Mission, outlining very similar policies. It is important that the policies, although they have the same objective as one hopes the Government’s policies have, are being pursued with very different objectives in terms of how they are done and the methods.
It was this problem that arose when the Bill came to this House. The UK Government simply did not seem to understand that they were trampling over devolved policies. It was their view that Part 1 did not require the legislative consent of the Senedd, and they had taken the position that the UK Parliament could legislate and place duties on UK Government Ministers to set missions in areas where there was substantial responsibility in Wales and active promotion of those of the levelling-up agenda. It seems that they did not understand that Part 1 makes provisions that are within the legislative competence of the Senedd. The provisions therefore should not have been introduced in Part 1; the Government should had left this to the Senedd where matters were within its competence.
However, this important constitutional point need not be dealt with now. This is what I would call a pragmatic compromise, which is why I welcome it, because it underlines what I hope many have been trying to say in this House: the union will not work unless we work together.
I take this legislation as a commitment by the UK Government to work with the Governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and with the legislatures in those nations to ensure that the objectives and the means of getting there are pursued with some degree of co-ordination.
The one area that concerns me, and I telegraphed this a little earlier when I spoke, is how the shared prosperity fund—as it was once called, now the levelling up fund—is going to be dealt with. Unfortunately, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act and the way it dealt with what was then called the shared prosperity fund brought to an end 20 years of co-operation between the devolved Governments and others to see whether we could pursue a consistent policy for the distribution of funds. It is clear from the way the shared prosperity fund was first dealt with, and the amendment to try to ensure that it is dealt with in a co-ordinated way, that it has been lacking in co-ordination. Therefore, I very much hope that what the Government have said in this amendment will ensure that we go forward as a union with spending the money in a co-operative way, avoiding duplication, waste and, above all, any use of funds for political advantage.
That is why I strongly support this amendment. It is not ideal, as it does not grapple with the constitutional points, but it is a vast improvement on the attitudes that began to be shown in 2019. Fortunately, since about August of last year, things have got a lot better, so I welcome it. I hope I am not being unduly optimistic. My name should really give cause to say, “Well, there should be doubts”, but, having looked at what has happened over the past few months, I think one can look forward to this with a degree of optimism and leave the constitutional issues to be argued about at another time—I hope, never.