The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-10703, in the name of Jamie Hepburn, on protection of Scottish Parliament powers. Members who wish to participate in the debate should press their request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible.
I call Jamie Hepburn to speak to and move the motion. Minister, you have around 13 minutes.
14:54
This debate fulfils a commitment that I made during a members’ business debate on a similar range of concerns, which Keith Brown brought before the Parliament. I said that we would bring forward a debate in Government time. I am glad to see that we can expect greater participation by Labour and Liberal Democrat members in this debate than there was in Mr Brown’s debate. In that regard, although I make it clear—it will not be a surprise—that the Government’s perspective is that the people of Scotland would be best served by independence, under the current constitutional arrangements there is little to disagree with in Neil Bibby’s amendment, which we will support. We will oppose Donald Cameron’s amendment.
Today’s debate goes to the heart of why, back in 1997, the people of Scotland voted so overwhelmingly to set up a Scottish Parliament. They did so in the face of fierce opposition from the Conservative Party. That opposition was predictable, because it was the reality of unelected Westminster Conservative Governments that drove, in large part, the devolution movement. People were sick of decisions being taken by Tory Governments that were rejected time and again by voters in Scotland.
That democratic imperative led to the establishment of this Parliament. People believed that decisions about Scotland should be taken in Scotland. Although there were, and are, differences between the other parties about the final destination of that home rule journey, the Parliament has narrowed, if not entirely eliminated, the democratic deficit.
As well as that strong sense of democratic renewal, there were practical policy reasons that led to the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament. The scandal of the poll tax was probably one of the worst examples of the imposition of policy against the wishes of the majority of the people who live in Scotland.
Since the establishment of the Parliament, there have been real gains, which have often commanded cross-party support. However, today, the Tories are intent on rolling back the gains of devolution—taking back to Westminster the control of policy and widening the democratic deficit once again.
The Conservatives have just six MPs in Scotland but, too often, they behave as if they can ignore and override our democracy. Alister Jack uses his position as Secretary of State for Scotland to act as some kind of on-high governor-general telling the elected Government and elected Parliament of Scotland what is or is not acceptable to him.
The Scottish Government has set out several ways in which the United Kingdom Government’s actions have constrained and undermined devolution. Those include reducing the effective powers of the Scottish Parliament through the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020; giving powers to UK ministers to intervene directly in matters that are within devolved responsibilities; undermining the Sewel convention; for the first time, blocking legislation on devolved matters that has been passed by the Scottish Parliament; putting at risk European Union laws on environmental protection, food standards and other devolved matters; and taking a direct role in devolved policy and decisions on public spending on devolved matters, bypassing the Scottish Parliament. Evidence on all of those is set out in detail in the Scottish Government’s paper “Devolution since the Brexit referendum” and in our evidence to Scottish Parliament committees.
Since the publication of that paper, there have been further developments on two of those issues, which I will explore in more detail in my remarks. The first is the UK Government’s continued erosion of the Sewel convention, culminating in its approach to the Energy Bill, which stands that convention on its head.
The second issue—the focus of the Government motion—is the emerging implications of the internal market act and its wide-ranging practical constraints on the ability of this Parliament to pursue policy objectives and implement the choices of the people of Scotland.
In highlighting those two areas, I do not want to underplay the other threats to devolution that we have set out. For example, we can all see the risks in the so-called “levelling-up agenda”, which attempts to give UK ministers a role in setting priorities and targets for devolved matters such as health and education. That strikes at the very purpose of devolution.
Similarly, the direct spending of money in devolved areas by UK ministers bypasses this Parliament, risks an incoherent approach to policy and removes clear accountability for public spending decisions on devolved areas in Scotland.
Will the minister give way?
Yes—briefly.
Much of what the minister has said carries resonance, but have the past 16 years not also been a missed opportunity for the Scottish Government to devolve power to local authorities, to bring it even closer to the people that we all serve?
The actions and the role of local government are of critical importance to the people who live in our communities. In that regard, we place the highest importance on our relationship with local government, as set out in the Verity house agreement, and we will continue to take forward that partnership working.
I return to the motion before us and today’s debate. With regard to the Sewel convention, members will be well aware that, since 2018, the UK Government has repeatedly chosen to ignore or override the views of this Parliament, and those of the Welsh Senedd, when they became an inconvenience to it. The UK Government has now breached the Sewel convention 11 times and, sadly, we can confidently expect the current UK Government to do so again.
Most recently, the UK Government has taken that approach further. During our negotiations on the Energy Bill, UK Government ministers indicated that the amendments that they offered were conditional on Scottish ministers recommending that the Scottish Parliament give consent to all relevant provisions in the bill. If the Scottish Government did not recommend consent, the amendments would not be lodged or would be withdrawn.
That approach effectively reverses the Sewel convention. The UK Government should respect the views of this Parliament and should promote amendments to reflect those views. Instead, it is threatening to revert to a form of the bill that is even less acceptable to the Scottish Government, and to this Parliament, unless there is a recommendation for consent. The Scottish Government has made it clear that such a negotiation tactic is unacceptable. It is tantamount to blackmail and incompatible with good-faith negotiation on important topics.
As I have clearly illustrated with regard to the hollowed-out shell that is the Sewel convention, instead of the need for legislative consent protecting the interests of this Parliament, the threat of proceeding without consent has become a weapon for the UK Government. Those concerns are coming not just from the Scottish Government. Mark Drakeford said:
“When it became inconvenient for the UK Government to observe Sewel, they just went ahead and rode roughshod through it.”
With regard to the Energy Bill, because we need certain provisions to further our net zero ambitions, we have, in effect, been forced to recommend consent to a bill that does not respect the devolution settlement. Other amendments that the Scottish Government requested have been rejected by the UK Government. The UK Government has refused to include statutory consent mechanisms for the Scottish Government in all but a very small number of clauses. Those amendments would have improved the impact of the bill, and would have fully respected devolved competence. That “Sign, or else” approach to devolution is not what people voted for in the referendum 26 years ago.
I turn to the main thrust of today’s debate: the UK Internal Market Act 2020, which illustrates all the actions that the UK Government has taken to undermine devolution. The 2020 act was passed after both this Parliament and the Welsh Senedd explicitly withheld legislative consent, despite its significant effect on devolved matters, after a minimal consultation period of just four weeks over summer 2020. If the Sewel convention can simply be ignored for legislation of such significance, that convention is clearly of little or no value in protecting Scotland’s democratic self-government.
Secondly, the 2020 act gives UK ministers powers, in effect, to change the devolution settlement unilaterally through secondary legislation at Westminster. UK ministers—and only UK ministers—can grant or refuse exclusions to the 2020 act, undermining legislation that is passed in this chamber. They can also decide to include or exclude whole sectors from the act, which means that areas such as health services, social services and water services can join the already long list of devolved policy areas that are at risk from the act.
No member of this Parliament should be comfortable with the thought that, with the mere stroke of a pen, UK Government ministers could open up our health service, or our water and sewerage, to the blunt market-access provisions of the 2020 act, and that we could do nothing to stop them from creating a hit list of public services that they wanted to target.
Thirdly, the 2020 act, like the levelling-up agenda, gives UK ministers a tool to dictate policy in devolved areas to this Parliament. We have already seen that with the deposit return scheme, which is wholly within devolved competency. The UK Government, at the eleventh hour, disregarded the agreed process and refused an exclusion from the 2020 act for our Scottish scheme, without providing any evidence for its decision, while we are asked to provide significant amounts of evidence throughout the process.
The UK Government was prepared to allow a scheme to proceed only if it reflected that Government’s policy for England—which does not even exist yet—and not the policy that was decided democratically in this Parliament for Scotland. We now find ourselves totally dependent on progress by the UK Government in England to implement a deposit return scheme without glass, despite the UK Government’s own evidence showing that aspect to be economically and environmentally beneficial to such a scheme, with which Scotland must align.
The potential problems with the 2020 act were obvious from the outset, but now it is starting to have practical effects in undermining and constraining devolved policy for Scotland. There is the issue of animal welfare, for example. We are taking steps to ban the use of cruel glue traps in Scotland, but, to end the use of those devices effectively, we need to ban their sale. Again, without an exclusion, we cannot do that effectively because of the 2020 act and, again, we are dependent on UK ministers’ agreement for us to implement effective policy in a wholly devolved policy area.
The 2020 act also creates new uncertainty about Scotland’s ability to legislate effectively in other areas where action is being considered. For example, in the area of public health, we have control of vapes—whether banning the sale of single-use vapes to protect our environment or exploring possible restrictions on vape flavouring and packaging to better protect the health of our young people. Other examples include the review of the minimum unit price of alcohol and other measures to control the marketing of alcohol, and environmental measures such as banning the sale of horticultural peat and introducing charges for single-use disposable cups. All of those might be affected by the 2020 act, which, crucially, empowers UK ministers to undermine this Parliament’s legislation.
Nor should we forget the other effect of the 2020 act. Just as we may not be able to fully implement decisions and matters within our responsibilities for Scotland, neither can we prevent decisions that are made by the UK Government for England from having an effect here. We have already seen that in the UK Government’s Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023, which removes gene-edited products from the scope of genetically modified organisms regulations in England. Despite that legislation not applying in Scotland, the 2020 act could allow gene-edited food and feed products coming from England to be sold in Scotland, unlabelled and unauthorised. If the UK Government relaxes other regulations on food standards or labelling, there is, again, nothing—not a thing—that this Parliament can do to prevent the relevant products being placed on the market here, despite different standards being set in Scotland.
As well as those direct effects, the 2020 act continues to undermine the common framework approach that has been agreed between the Governments of the UK. The Scottish Government has been an active partner with other Governments through common frameworks, and we have all agreed to manage some of the practical regulatory effects of Brexit in a manner that respects devolution and the democratic accountability of this Parliament. The Scottish Government continues to believe that the common framework process can provide a forum in which Governments can work together on matters of regulatory divergence, with principles of equality and respect. However, that relies on a system of working with mutual respect.
The 2020 act, in both its creation and its content, shows no such value. It radically constrains the powers of this Parliament, creates a massive power imbalance between the UK Government and devolved Governments, gives UK ministers exclusive powers to intervene in the policies of this Parliament and change our very powers, all without agreement or consent. The 2020 act is hostile to Scottish democracy; it is causing practical damage and it needs to go. Therefore, I commend the motion in my name to all members and ask them to vote for it at decision time.
I move,
That the Parliament notes that both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Parliament refused to give consent to the Internal Market Act because of concerns over its potential to undermine democratic decisions of the devolved legislatures; agrees that those fears have been realised to the detriment of the people of Scotland, and that the devolution settlement has been fundamentally rolled back by the Act, and calls for the repeal of the Internal Market Act and for the UK Government to stop taking back control to the UK Parliament of policy decisions that should be made in Scotland.
15:08
Our constituents elect us to this chamber to discuss, debate and scrutinise legislation and to assist them with their problems, whether they be ordinary or exceptional. Fundamentally, we are here to improve the lives of the people we represent.
Today, sadly, we do none of that. Instead, we stand here today debating one of the Scottish National Party Government’s favourite fantasies, namely that the powers of this Parliament are in peril and are being undermined by the UK Government. I know that the real reason for this debate is to distract attention from the current travails of the SNP. Plainly, all is not happy in its ranks. It is a divided, fragmented party, so it is doing anything to deflect.
Of course, as has been mentioned, we already had a debate on this subject in May, in a members’ business debate led by Keith Brown. That was not a particularly enlightening debate, but it contained a vast amount of hyperbole. We heard that Holyrood is
“under attack”
and that some
“within these walls ... are complicit in that attack”.
One SNP MSP said that we are being
“subsumed back into the pre-devolution years”,
and another accused the UK Government of deploying
“dictatorial tactics”.—[Official Report, 30 May 2023; c 79, 85, 92.]
I am afraid that nothing that we have heard from the minister today deflects from that.
Would Donald Cameron not recognise that what I set out on the UK Energy Bill was precisely that—it was a take-it-or leave-it approach? The UK Government is dictating to the democratically elected Scottish Government and this Parliament that it is “my way or the highway”.
I will come to that in a moment.
The arguments that we have just heard are not rational; that was just empty rhetoric from the minister. Let me state some hard truths to him.
Will the member take an intervention?
No—I will not. I want to make some progress.
As the Scottish Conservatives’ amendment states,
“the UK Government is investing directly in Scotland and is working with local authorities and other partners to enable people across Scotland to benefit”.
Poll after poll reveals one basic, simple point: people want the Scottish Government
“to work collaboratively and constructively with the UK Government”.
They like positive joint working. They also like programmes such as the city and growth deals and the green freeports.
The fact is that devolution is stronger than it ever has been—not least because the UK Government delivered powers to the Scottish Parliament in the Scotland Act 2016. Indeed, this Parliament is one of the most powerful devolved legislatures in the world. It is not the fault of the UK Government that, after 15 long years in power, the SNP has run out of ideas and is unable to make full use of the suite of powers that this Parliament possesses.
The Scottish Government’s motion returns to the debate over the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. Let me talk about common frameworks. The act does not undermine common frameworks: they are working and have been agreed. The UK Parliament passed that act without a legislative consent motion in order to protect Scotland’s trade with the rest of the United Kingdom. Some 60 per cent of Scotland’s trade is with the rest of the UK, and more than half a million Scottish jobs rely on it.
Let us remember that the Scottish Government tried to argue that there is no such thing as the UK internal market. The 2020 act properly seeks to address the tension between open trade and regulatory divergence. It creates two market access principles: the mutual recognition principle and the non-discrimination principle. Without those, businesses could suffer. In evidence to the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, both NFU Scotland and Confederation of British Industry Scotland spoke of the internal market’s importance precisely because the UK is a highly integrated market and it is imperative that we maintain the
“free movement of goods and services produced to the same ... regulatory standards”.
Let me touch on a few other issues, including section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 and the Sewel convention.
Will the member give way?
Very briefly.
I inquire about Donald Cameron’s view of the value of legislative consent motions. Should they be sought by the Westminster Government? If, for whatever reason, this Parliament chooses not to grant them, should the Westminster Government give an explanation of any exceptional circumstance that would enable it to proceed?
Mr Cameron, I can give you time back for interventions.
I totally believe in the need for a legislative consent mechanism, but I do not think that the specifics require an explanation from the UK Government—that is not necessarily advisable. After all, under the Scotland Act 1998, it is permissible for the UK Government to legislate in devolved areas. That is a matter of law and it is a founding principle of this Parliament. We have the Sewel convention to enable the UK Parliament to legislate in devolved areas where necessary. I will come back to Sewel in a moment.
Will the member take an intervention?
No—I am sorry; I do not have time. I have already gone through that.
Let me touch on a few other issues. Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 is frequently mentioned as representing an attack on devolution. As I have said on numerous occasions, section 35 is intrinsic to the 1998 act. It is part and parcel of the devolution settlement and it is not a new clause or concept. It was explicitly included in the 1998 act by the founders of devolution: the Labour Administration of the day. Fundamentally, it is risible to argue that the powers of this Parliament should be undermined for the use of section 35, which was included in the founding text of devolution.
I turn to the Sewel convention.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will in a second.
Every member of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee has acknowledged that the Sewel convention is under strain. However, it is simply not the case that it is on the point of collapse.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will in a moment. I will just finish this point.
As I have previously noted, we regularly pass legislative consent motions in the Parliament without a division. A legislative consent motion on the Energy Bill will be considered tomorrow. The Scottish Government is recommending consent. On characterising that as blackmail, I suggest to the minister that there are always discussions about those things at ministerial and official level.
The Scottish Government has to share some of the blame. What about the times when the Scottish Government has spuriously claimed that devolved competence is engaged when, on any reasonable view, it has not been?
Will you resume your seat for a second, Mr Cameron?
Minister, you know as well as I do that it is up to members whether to take interventions. Okay? You have made clear your desire to intervene, and Mr Cameron has made it clear that he wishes to proceed with his point. It is up to him if he wants to take an intervention at a later stage.
Please resume, Mr Cameron. You will get the time back.
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.
What about the times when the Scottish Government has brought ludicrous arguments about not consenting? I refer to the Environment Bill memorandum, for example. In 2021 alone, the Scottish Parliament gave consent to eight bills, and there are numbers of instances when the Parliament consented to what might be called Brexit or post-Brexit legislation on fisheries and farming.
Does Mr Cameron think that it is peculiar when he says that the Sewel convention is being used normally? In the period from when the Parliament was convened to 2018, there was only one instance—which was apparently inadvertent—when the Sewel convention was ignored. However, there have been nine instances since that period. That hardly seems to be a normal set of circumstances.
As I have just said, in 2021 alone, the Scottish Government consented to eight bills.
Will the member give way?
No, I will not.
The Sewel convention is working. To characterise it as at risk or collapsing is ludicrous. Week in, week out, we consent to Westminster legislation.
I return briefly to the issue of levelling up. Again, we have heard a few attacks on that. I have said before and I say again that at no point in the decades in which we were a member of the EU did the SNP ever complain about the EU injecting funds into local communities. However, now that the UK Government is doing the same, the SNP feigns outrage. The UK Government’s ability to directly invest in devolved policy areas is part and parcel of devolution. Such investment happens in Germany, Canada and Australia. If it is commonplace in those countries, why is Scotland the exception? Why is it positive for the German Government to invest in policy areas overseen by the Länder, but somehow negative for the UK Government to do so in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? I am talking about a ferry for the Fair Isle and £140 million announced this week for seven Scottish towns—£20 million each for Clydebank, Coatbridge, Dumfries, Elgin, Irvine, Greenock and Kilmarnock. Money is being provided to the relevant local authority where the UK Government intends to work with it and the Scottish Government. That is the latest in a long line of projects that have created jobs and rejuvenated parts of Scotland that have been forgotten about and overlooked by the SNP. Some £2.4 billion has been invested by the UK Government, but the SNP objects.
Yet again, we are failing to debate the important issues that people in Scotland care about. The constitution is far down the list of the Scottish people’s priorities, but the SNP cannot find anything else to talk about. It could have come to the chamber to talk about ferries and to say why the two vessels that are sitting in a dockyard on the Clyde are another £24 million over budget. It could have come to the chamber to talk about why councils are being forced to cut vital public services. It could have come to the chamber to come clean about reinstating its cut to Creative Scotland’s budget of £6.6 million. However, week after week, month after month and year after year, it is all about the constitution, more grievance and more pandering to the nationalist base.
We will use our debate time to focus on Scotland’s real priorities.
I move amendment S6M-10703.1, to leave out from “notes” to end and insert:
“recognises that the UK Government is investing directly in Scotland and is working with local authorities and other partners to enable people across Scotland to benefit from this investment; urges the Scottish National Party administration in cooperation with the Scottish Green Party to work collaboratively and constructively with the UK Government, as demonstrated by positive joint working on programmes, such as growing the Scottish economy through the City and Growth Deals and Green Freeports, and believes that the Scottish Parliament should focus its time on addressing the issues that matter most to people in Scotland in their day-to-day lives.”
I appreciate that we are going to have some excitable debate at times, but there is a bit of time in hand to take interventions, so contributions should be made as interventions and not as sedentary heckling.
15:19
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. After a number of turbulent years for devolution, I will start with a point of general agreement with the Scottish Government and the topic of the debate. Following Brexit, the UK Conservative Government has—regrettably—unleashed a particularly crude understanding of the role of devolution in the UK. These years have been characterised by unrest, disrespect and uncertainty.
The aim and ambition of devolution, as enacted in 1998 by the then Labour Government, has been consistently undermined by the current UK Government’s actions and attitudes. Far from showing respect for and appreciation of the diversity and difference of our UK nations, the Conservative Government has sought to constrain and attack not just the powers of this place but the authority of the devolved institutions as a whole.
Will the member give way?
No—I would like to make progress.
The UK Government’s approach has taken a number of forms. We can point to the legislation that it has passed irrespective of this Parliament withholding consent—as the Scottish Government’s motion correctly notes, the Conservatives passed the UK Internal Market Act 2020 even though the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd withheld consent. Members will recall that my party—the Labour Party—voted against that legislation here in Scotland and in Wales. We also opposed it at Westminster—that makes it all three Parliaments—because of the implications for devolution and concern about the market access principles.
We recognise the economic and wider importance of maintaining consistent standards and safeguards across the United Kingdom, but the Conservative Government’s approach to that is deeply flawed. We are clear that maintaining free trade across the UK is critical to Scotland’s national interest. I know that the SNP and the Greens might be slightly less concerned about that than we are, but it is crucial to our businesses, our workers and Scottish consumers.
Donald Cameron mentioned statistics. According to the Scottish Government’s figures, in 2020, 62 per cent of Scotland’s exports went to the rest of the UK and 67 per cent of Scotland’s imports came from the rest of the UK. We trade far more with the rest of the UK than we do with the rest of the world combined—basically twice as much.
I reassure Mr Bibby that the SNP and the Scottish Government recognise the need for free trade with the rest of the UK under the current constitutional arrangements and in the context of independence. Does he recognise—I hope that he does—that the process for negotiating such matters in the current context should involve equal respect with joint input, rather than imposition by the UK Government?
I can give Neil Bibby the time back for that intervention.
I generally agree with what the Minister for Independence said. I will come on to talk about Labour’s proposals, and I welcome the minister’s recognition of the importance of economic trade across the UK, which I very much agree with.
Given the statistics that I mentioned, it is little wonder and is unsurprising that economic modelling has suggested that increased regulatory barriers between the four home nations would have a negative effect on gross domestic product.
In maintaining standards and protecting free trade across the UK, we must ensure that there are effective agreed frameworks to protect devolution. We must manage the tensions between open trade and regulatory divergence without undermining the devolution settlement. That is not easy to achieve, but that is our approach and what our amendment sets out. That is also why we did not believe that it was right, without a proper voice for devolved Governments, to impose the rule that the lowest regulatory standard under one Administration must be the standard for all.
The interests of the people of Scotland are best served when the Scottish and UK Governments work together in co-operation with other devolved Administrations in the UK. However, for far too long, we have—unfortunately—seen conflict ahead of co-operation. That must change; we need effective and grown-up intergovernmental relations now and into the future that are not dogged by nationalist grievance or muscular unionism.
Labour members have been clear that, if Labour has the privilege of forming the next UK Government, we want to create better working relationships between the UK Government and all devolved Governments and Administrations.
Will Neil Bibby take the opportunity to confirm that, were there to be an incoming Labour Government, the Sewel convention would be incorporated on a statutory basis? Yes or no?
Proposals on that are set out in the report of the commission on the UK’s future and we are carefully considering whether to take that forward. Obviously, the manifesto process is still to be set.
I hope that, at the next general election, Scotland will play its part in making that change possible, so that there can be a reset in relations and this disastrous chapter of Tory misrule is brought to an end.
Today’s debate is about defending this Parliament’s powers, and we are committed to doing just that.
It is great to listen to all those lovely words—it is like a word salad—but it does not add up to much. I have not heard anything that Labour is proposing to do that would create all the nice things that Neil Bibby is talking about. What exactly would Labour do? At the minute, it does not seem to be prepared to say or do anything.
I can give you the time back for that intervention, Mr Bibby.
As I think I have set out, we want to maintain free trade across the UK and we want to respect the devolution settlement through effective agreed frameworks to take that forward. That is the road that we will go down if we are fortunate enough to be elected.
The next UK Labour Government will transform the UK, with the biggest transfer of power out of Westminster, and deliver economic, democratic and social renewal across the nations and regions. Labour will replace the outdated House of Lords with an elected second chamber. The new chamber will have representation from across the nations and regions, including Scotland, and a specific role in protecting the devolution settlement.
A UK Labour Government will prioritise co-operation over conflict and ensure that Scotland’s view is properly represented in UK institutions. An example of that is our proposed new industrial strategy council.
Will the member give way?
I am sorry, but I have taken quite a few interventions and I want to make some progress.
However, we do not need change only at a UK level; we need it here, in Scotland, too. Yes, we have a Conservative UK Government that has no respect for this Parliament, having so casually undermined and disregarded the significance and value of it, but we also have an SNP-Green Scottish Government that too often hides behind the recklessness of the Tories to avoid criticism and accountability. That Scottish Government too often has its own lack of respect for the powers of this Parliament, which is demonstrated by ministers bypassing statements that should be made in this chamber and by the Government ignoring votes in this chamber.
This debate is certainly not the big event of Scottish politics this week; that will be the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election on Thursday. I have been in the constituency a lot, listening to the priorities of local residents and speaking to the people in that constituency, as well as those in my region. It is fair to say that, despite the merits of this debate, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is not the issue that everyone is talking about. In fact, to the extent that the issue of the powers of this Parliament is coming up, people are not protesting about what Scotland cannot do; they are asking what the Scottish Government is doing with the extensive powers of this Parliament.
Powers should not be sought for their own sake. Scotland today, after 16 years of SNP rule, is stagnating, our ambition is chained and our people are held back. On almost all measures of success, this Government is failing, betraying the powers that it has to achieve better ends. We have children who are missing out on education as school staff take strike action. We have councils that are forced to make impossible decisions because of underfunding, and the Government is showing them disrespect. More and more of the one in seven Scots on the NHS waiting list is having to go private, and islanders are just looking for some ferries. In addition, as has already been mentioned, the Government has hung the creative sector out to dry by breaking its promises on funding.
The Labour Party, which legislated for and delivered devolution, will defend, protect and enhance it if we have the opportunity to serve, but we also want to use the powers of this place to help to deliver the changes that people in Scotland need.
I move amendment S6M-10703.3, to insert at end:
“; agrees that the people of Scotland are best served by both the UK and Scottish governments working together cooperatively, and calls on the UK Government to develop a more consensual means of preserving common standards and safeguards across the UK that does not undermine devolution in any part of the UK.”
15:28
An old SNP press officer was fond of saying that Lib Dem press releases were a boomerang, designed to attack opponents but walloping the critic right back on the nose. Today’s motion is by its very definition a boomerang motion.
Many of the arguments about the criticism of the Conservative Government and its treatment of the Scottish Parliament have already been rehearsed today, and I agree with many of them.
I am in favour of a federal solution for the United Kingdom; I want proportional representation; I want a written constitution; and I also want the abolition of the House of Lords. However, it is really depressing that we cannot get two mature Governments just to work together to sort out these problems.
Will the member give way?
No, not just now.
This is the Scottish Parliament, and we are here to hold the Scottish Government to account for its actions.
Will the member give way?
No.
On 19 September 2018, the Scottish Parliament voted by 63 votes to 61 for a motion that called for the Scottish Government to halt national testing for children in primary 1. Five years on from that vote, more than 90,000 tests are still taking place every year for children as young as four years old. That is damaging young children, and it shows that our Parliament is being ignored. What was worse was that, immediately after that vote, the Scottish Government declared its intention to completely ignore the vote of the democratically elected Scottish Parliament—so much for respecting the authority of Holyrood.
The previous Scottish Information Commissioner criticised the Scottish Government’s handling of freedom of information requests. He found that there were “unjustifiable, significant delays” and that responses to journalists’ inquiries were delayed and released only when they were authorised by unelected SNP special advisers.
Will the member give way?
No.
The freedom of information laws are among the most important laws that have been passed by this Parliament, and they were some of the earliest to be passed, but when laws of this Parliament do not suit the SNP Government, it just ignores them.
In June, the First Minister said that Scotland has
“the majority of the renewables and natural resources”—[Official Report, 22 June 2023; c 16.]
in the UK. The correct figure for 2022 is 26 per cent. I do not think that that is a “majority”; it is not even one third.
What has this got to do with the debate?
I hear a member say, “What has this got to do with the debate?” The debate is about respecting the authority of the Scottish Parliament. Those terms are not set by the SNP; they are set by the Scottish Parliament.
We all make mistakes, but what makes this case worse is that it appears that independent civil servants retrospectively created statistics to justify an incorrect statement from the First Minister. Eventually, Mr Yousaf said that he intended to say “per capita”—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
Mr Rennie, could you resume your seat? Alasdair Allan has a point of order.
Members are expected to address the motion before them. Presiding Officer, do you have any guidance on when the member intends to come round to addressing the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020?
I thank Alasdair Allan for the point of order. Mr Rennie has made it clear how his remarks link to the motion. He can choose to address the motion in any way that he likes.
If Alasdair Allan would like to, he could look at the Business Bulletin, which is published every day, because it sets out my amendment, and it is in exactly those terms that I am speaking today.
Eventually, Mr Yousaf said that he intended to say “per capita” in his original answer, but it is statistical mumbo-jumbo to say that there is a majority per capita. The request for the First Minister to refer himself to the independent adviser on the ministerial code was unanswered for almost three weeks. That is not protecting the powers of the Scottish Parliament.
The SNP has been at this for years. Back in 2012, Alex Salmond was found out in relation to EU legal advice. The then First Minister, who was hailed as a hero by SNP members, repeatedly said that an independent Scotland would be an automatic member of the European Union. He asserted that that position was supported by his Government’s legal advice. When asked whether he had sought advice from the Scottish Government’s law officers, Mr Salmond replied:
“We have, yes, in terms of the debate”.
His then deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, undermined that claim when she admitted that ministers had not sought formal advice from the law officers. Tens of thousands of pounds were wasted in court to keep the non-existent advice secret. The SNP undermines this Parliament when it suits it.
The SNP repeatedly flouts the rule that announcements should be made to this Parliament first. Just last year, the Presiding Officer reprimanded Angus Robertson for releasing his latest independence report to the media before the Parliament. The SNP makes up the rules to suit itself.
On top of all that, there are the endless noddy debates while the SNP avoids the real debates that we should be having in the Parliament. We should be debating national health service waiting times; mental health waiting times; the yawning poverty-related attainment gap in schools; the closure of police stations; teacher unemployment; the sluggish economy; the failure to deliver 2,000 jobs at the Lochaber smelter; the selling off of ScotWind leases on the cheap; the ferries, the costs for which have almost tripled; the dumping of sewage in our rivers; the £50 million lost in relation to BiFab; and the failure to sell Prestwick airport. The list goes on and on, and the boomerang goes round and round and round.
Thank you, Mr Rennie. I would caution you that referring to debates in the way that you did is perhaps not entirely consistent with showing respect to members and to the Parliament.
We now move to the open debate.
15:35
I knew that the Scottish Liberal Democrats were irrelevant, but I did not expect them to prove it quite so readily today.
It all started with Brexit, didn’t it? Sold a dud by Tory Brexiteers who stoked and then played on fears, people in the UK took a leap into the darkness—apart from Scotland, which wisely voted by a majority to remain. It was not immediately obvious that the slogan “Take back control” really meant something entirely different. The lunatics in the asylum forced through a hard Brexit and a power grab by Westminster on our institution—this Scottish Parliament.
Sensible proposals to allow Scotland to continue to have access to the single market were ignored but were eventually conceded for Northern Ireland, with an admission from Sunak when he was chancellor that it had the best deal possible. The supine Scottish Tories are left defending the indefensible with a rictus grin as the evidence mounts up, with the latest poll showing that 58 per cent of UK voters are in favour of re-entering the EU. No wonder people were too embarrassed to turn up to the Tory conference.
The Labour Party branch office in Scotland is no better. “Make Brexit work” says Sir Keir Starmer, in an attempt to woo back red-wall voters. Even the Labour amendment, which can be summarised as saying, “Play nice,” is paltry, although it is good news that Labour agrees to repeal the UKIMA, as set out in the Scottish National Party motion. However, is that the response to an all-out assault on the institution that the Labour Party claims to have helped create? The Labour Party must be embarrassed by the Welsh Labour leader showing it how objections to the UKIMA are done. This Parliament made clear that it refused to give consent, as did the Welsh Senedd, but that, alongside a multitude of other Sewel motions, has been ignored. That is another by-product of the lack of respect shown by Westminster to this institution.
What, then, of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020? It will not surprise members to know that I lean towards facilitating business and so can understand the sensible approach that has been adopted by the Scottish Government in agreeing to common frameworks. However, the evidence heard by the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee was overwhelmingly that the UKIMA
“places more emphasis on open trade than regulatory autonomy”.
Therefore, in terms of balance and of fundamentally allowing devolution to continue to work—the whole point was allowing divergence on matters expressed democratically through the ballot box—the act is skewed. It was made clear that it would have an effect. That was not just my view but that of Professor McEwen, who told the committee that the act
“might in itself be introducing delays in the policy-making process, if not putting things into a long-term chill.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 2 December 2021; c 35.]
The UKIMA stifles innovation and a different way of doing things. Would the smoking ban have been allowed? Would the introduction of a charge for plastic bags have been allowed in Rishi Sunak’s climate-denying world? The same committee highlighted concerns around public health choices that were raised by the likes of Alcohol Focus Scotland, Action on Smoking and Health Scotland and Obesity Action Scotland. They collectively have
“serious concerns that the effect of the mutual recognition principle for goods will be to significantly reduce the benefits of introducing new devolved measures to protect public health.”
The real concern is about democracy, or rather the lack of it. The Fraser of Allander Institute said:
“The Internal Market Act can therefore be seen as enabling a range of UK government interventions that bypass not only the Barnett formula but the devolved administrations themselves.”
Let me rephrase that—they bypass this democratically elected Parliament. In his recent speech to the Tory conference, Viceroy Jack delighted in his new understanding of devolution. No more “devolve and forget,” said he, emboldening the bypassing of the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Scotland.
He also said that he will give back a further £140 million of our money to seven local councils in Scotland—whose priorities is that based on? Who voted for that? How will it be monitored? The Finance and Public Administration Committee is still waiting for Michael Gove to make his promised return to account for the previous lot of money. Those funds are to be spread over 10 years at £26 million per year; compare that with the £183 million per year that the Scottish Parliament got from the EU.
The Scottish politicians who refused to stand up for Scotland during a cost of living crisis and turned down opportunities to make matters better—for example, they denied this place the ability to control employment law—will not be forgiven. Do not forget the rights of the people of Scotland—rights that remain and will not be removed. I look forward to a further exploration of the implications of that in our Scottish National Party conference in October. We need a clear path to independence. It is more vital than ever.
As I did with Mr Rennie, I make a comment at this point: I discourage the use of nicknames when referring to members of this Parliament or other Parliaments.
15:41
Although I respect what you have just said, Deputy Presiding Officer, I have to say that I agree with other speakers who have suggested that the debate is a complete waste of Parliament’s time—in all honesty, that is what it is. Again, we have heard a speech from Michelle Thomson in which she conflates Scotland with the SNP. Surely, SNP members can find a cure for the illness that they have contracted that makes them identify as Scotland when they are clearly not Scotland. That conflation is tired and time spent.
I thought that Martin Whitfield’s intervention earlier was telling. The truth is that the SNP Government has absolutely no respect for the concept of devolution; it is the most centralising Government imaginable. Everything that it can touch that is locally managed and near to the public gets brought to the centre and is horrendously mismanaged because of its incompetence. The Scottish people can now see that clearly.
Instead of spending time debating this nonsense of a motion, we could have been talking about things that are fully devolved. We could have been talking about the health service, education or policing—areas in which this Parliament plays a vital role. However, the SNP and the Greens do not want the scrutiny of this Parliament, which is a subject that I will come back to.
One of the things that we could have spent this afternoon talking about is how the Parliament works. I am afraid that, from the point of view of the Scottish people, our Parliament has for some time not been as effective as they expect it to be. Sadly, this debate is an example of that. We need far more spontaneous debate in this Parliament. For far too long, we have had a set-up in which the whips, the party managers and the parties manage the business and the speakers. To be frank, the lack of a back-bench culture has led to a straitjacketed and stilted approach to every issue that comes to the chamber.
Ultimately, the SNP Government will do anything that it can to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. As was mentioned earlier in relation to truth telling, the Government also falls short in that regard. The excessive and continuous flow of pointless motions squanders the precious little parliamentary time that we have, while urgent issues that Scotland faces remain unaddressed.
Will the member give way?
I will, out of respect, give way to Christine Grahame.
I was going to ask you to be spontaneous and take some interventions—
Through the chair, please, Ms Grahame.
I beg your pardon. I was going to ask the member to be spontaneous and take some interventions so that we could have a lively debate, rather than having him just heckle us and rant at us.
I am delighted to have been able to fulfil Christine Grahame’s wishes in an instant.
The SNP has long run out of ideas for Scotland—[Interruption.]
SNP members can heckle me and shout me down all they like. By the way, I know that that is from the classic SNP playbook: when someone says something that they do not agree with, they make as much noise as possible. They operate from the Nicola Sturgeon playbook—now the Humza Yousaf playbook, which is the same book with a different face on the cover—by creating as much distraction as they can through the manufacture of grievance.
It is hard for me to disagree with the member for Inverness and Nairn when he said last week that it is increasingly apparent that the SNP Government is not interested in putting Scotland’s interests first but, as always, it is interested in putting the SNP’s interests first. That is why the Secretary of State for Scotland was right on Sunday when he said that Scotland’s two Governments should work together for the benefit of the people of Scotland. That is a commonsense position that is supported by the people of Scotland and it is the position of the Scottish Conservatives.
For the SNP and the Scottish Greens to parade themselves as the protectors and defenders of devolution is laughable. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Scotland’s political history of the past few decades knows that the SNP was implacably opposed to devolution. It exists to destroy devolution and it scrapes together any excuse that it can to undermine and devalue it.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will give way one more time, if I may.
I am interested in the member’s view of history. Will he confirm that the SNP campaigned for there to be a Scottish Parliament and, contrary to what he has just insinuated, his party campaigned for there not to be one?
Dr Allan’s party exists to destroy the devolution settlement, so it takes every opportunity that it can to find any grievance that it can to throw into the works to make sure that devolution is as hard as possible for the Governments of the United Kingdom and Scotland to operate.
The truth is that there are regular and good working relationships between Scottish and UK ministers, and Scottish and UK civil servants who are based in Edinburgh. That those relationships do not exist is another myth that the SNP wishes to perpetuate that is absolutely erroneous.
The SNP seeks to destroy the Parliament. The evidence for that is found in the way in which its members conduct themselves. This is the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world and—guess what—it was the Conservative Party in Government that oversaw the devolution of more powers to the Scottish Parliament during the past decade. The reality of that can be seen by the fact that we now have 29 Scottish ministers, which is many more than we ever had previously. When challenged about the reason for that expansion in the number of Scottish ministers, the SNP says that it is because there is an expanded range of ministerial responsibilities and powers. Guess where they came from. They came from a Conservative Government at Westminster.
I will not be taking any lectures from the SNP Government about the undermining of the Scottish Parliament by the UK Government, particularly from an SNP-Scottish Green Government, when it is the Conservatives who have made the Scottish Parliament the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world.
I accept what Dr Allan said: I was against devolution and I voted against it. However, I now have the zeal of the convert. I believe in devolution, but the devolution that I believe in is one that reaches every town and village in every part of Scotland, so that people can feel that they are involved in making decisions for themselves, their families and their communities.
I will wind up, because I see that I am being encouraged to do so. There are many other things that I would like to have said, particularly about UKIMA, but I will not be able to get those in. I will conclude by saying that the Scottish Parliament needs to have a good look at itself. We, the members of the Scottish Parliament, should have a good look at ourselves. We should ask ourselves why the legislation that we send from this place into the statute book is often quite rightly regarded as unworkable, unenforceable and broken even before it leaves here.
You need to conclude, Mr Kerr.
We should also be asking ourselves about the powers of scrutiny and the structures and processes of the Parliament, and making improvements so that this place is worthy of the good people of Scotland.
I call Keith Brown. You have six minutes, Mr Brown.
15:49
In words more eloquent than any that I can summon, we have just heard from Stephen Kerr the basis of the Conservative attack on the Scottish Parliament. He has stated that the powers in the Scottish Parliament come not from the people of Scotland, but from the Conservative Party. He has also stated that he has the “zeal of the convert”—yet he is trying as fast as he can to run away from Parliament at the first opportunity. People can draw their own conclusions from that.
In my member’s debate in May, which was on a similar topic to this one, I stated that our Parliament was “under attack” by the UK Government. Five months later, the UK is, again, deliberately stripping our Scottish Parliament of its hard-fought-for and hard-won powers. In 1997, around 75 per cent of Scots voted for the creation of this Parliament. Along with my Labour and Lib Dem colleagues, who have been silent on this in recent months, I campaigned not just for the establishment of this Parliament but for it to have tax-raising powers, which the Conservatives bitterly opposed at the time.
Many of us can be guilty of forgetting that there was a time before this Parliament existed. It is important to remember that Parliament was not created by accident but came into being with the support of three quarters of the population of our country, in response to the real and pressing need for Scottish self-Government. The strength of support that delivered that result had built up over decades of Westminster misgovernment of Scotland. There was, not least, the mismanagement of oil and gas. Let us remember that the Labour Party concealed from the people of Scotland at that time, through the McCrone report, the real value of the oil and gas that were under the North Sea.
Let us remember, too, the industrial disputes of the 1970s and 80s, which I mentioned last week, with Westminster Governments being consistently rejected by Scottish voters but governing Scotland nevertheless. Those are just a few of the reasons why that emphatic result was delivered in 1997.
Given the motion that is up for debate, many members will focus on the technical or legislative aspects that have led to the power grab on our Parliament, so I will shift the focus on to the real difference that Parliament has made to the everyday lives of people in Scotland since it was established and will, thereby, prove why the powers of this institution absolutely must be protected.
The progress that has been made under devolution is far too broad to do justice to in six minutes. It includes: lower income tax for most Scots: I remind people that a bigger proportion of people in Scotland pay less tax than they do in the rest of the UK. It includes the lowest average council tax of any UK nation; the expansion to 1,140 hours of free early learning and childcare; the scrapping of tuition fees and prescription charges; free personal care for everyone who needs it; and the Scottish child payment—which, incidentally, supports 7,295 children in Clackmannanshire Council’s and Stirling Council’s areas alone—alongside many other benefits from Social Security Scotland. Those are just some of the measures, none of which featured in Willie Rennie’s speech, that various Scottish Governments have implemented since 1999 that make the lives of ordinary Scots better.
Every day, we can contrast and compare the situation in the rest of the UK and can clearly see the marked difference that this Parliament has made in Scots’ everyday lives. Research backs us up: according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Scotland has a lower poverty rate—at 18 per cent—than England’s 22 per cent and Wales’s 24 per cent, which alone proves the difference that governing our own affairs can make.
This week already—it is only Tuesday—we have seen in the news that the price of water in England and Wales is to increase by £156 a year in order to line the pockets of private shareholders. This Parliament has consistently kept Scottish water in public hands. We cannot compare things here with the fankle over HS2—high-speed 2—that is taking place at the Conservative Party conference; it is ironic to hear Donald Cameron talk about the SNP’s being in disarray when one looks at what is happening in Manchester today. In contrast with the HS2 fiasco, the Scottish Government’s action to scrap peak-time rail fares clearly shows the difference that Parliament can make to ordinary Scots.
Given what I have just said, let us pause for a moment and imagine the harm that would be perpetrated in our country in the absence of a Scottish Parliament, or even if the small degree of self-Government that our country enjoys were to be reduced further, which is exactly what is happening and has happened since the UK’s vote to leave the EU against Scotland’s wishes. The tagline of the Brexit campaign was, “Take back control”, but we did not realise that what was meant was, “Take back control of Scotland”. An example of how the Tory Government is taking back control is its decision to have held back money from Scotland and Wales and then subsequently to re-present it as a gift from the Tory Government.
The UK’s Internal Market Act 2020 has caused damage. We have heard ad nauseam from the Tories that the two Governments must co-operate. Where was the co-operation when Rishi Sunak announced the changes to net zero targets? There has been a complete reversal of some UK Government policies, and the impact that that has had on Scotland is huge, yet there was not a word about the changes beforehand. That is where there is a lack of co-operation, just now.
The damage that the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is doing to democracy in Scotland and in Wales cannot be overstated. Under the act, UK ministers have the power to undermine and override what limited powers our national Parliaments have—in some cases, unilaterally and without consent.
The big problem for the Scottish Tories is that, every year, for as many years as I have been in the Parliament, they uncritically accept whatever attacks there are on devolution, whatever cuts there are to our budget and whatever the latest injustice is to the interests of the people of Scotland. They support what happens every single time, because Westminster is where they take their orders from.
There have always been—there still are—many caveats in the Scotland Act 1998 that allow the UK Government to flex its muscles in Scotland’s democracy. The section 35 order is one such example, of course. Although I appreciate that there is a wide range of views on gender reform in the Scottish Parliament, we must surely all stand up for the ability of our national Parliament to make decisions—including decisions that enjoy cross-party support here—and to implement them, even when they are decisions that we, as individual MSPs, might not agree with.
One of the most shocking things in the power grab has been the complicity of the Labour Party—the self-proclaimed party of devolution. As we have heard already, the Labour-run Welsh Government has consistently stood up for devolution. Mark Drakeford has done that in a way that we have never heard from Scottish Labour members, even from some of the people who used to be at the forefront—as I was in 1983—for the campaign for a Scottish Assembly. They are now very silent on the attacks that come from Westminster. However, as we have heard, Mark Drakeford has spoken out consistently against the attacks on his Government and the Welsh Assembly’s powers.
You need to conclude, Mr Brown.
I thought that I had eight minutes. I apologise, Presiding Officer. The previous member spoke for eight minutes.
But, of course—
Mr Brown, can you resume your seat for a second? It is up to the chair how speaking allocations are made. I allowed a bit more discretion for members who took interventions. I had indicated how much time you had, and I allowed a little extra, despite your having not taken interventions, and I was giving you signals to wind up.
As Mr Brown has concluded, we move to Martin Whitfield. You have up to six minutes, Mr Whitfield.
15:56
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. Through the heat and fury, some interesting points have been articulated.
I will first pick up on something that we have already heard in the debate and that we also see across the UK, which is the occasional and sometimes deliberate mixing up of the concepts of defending a Parliament and defending a Government. Governments often say that it is their Parliaments that are being attacked and Governments are often held to be the villains attacking the Parliaments.
Here, in Scotland, it is the people’s Parliament, and the Parliament needs to be protected. It needs to be protected from people who feel that they can override issues and decisions that are dealt with in the chamber and can override issues and decisions that are dealt with by committees in this building. The members in the Parliament and on our committees were voted for by the people of Scotland to represent them and to hold their Government to account.
It is right to say that the Government in Westminster has a similar and—I note—quite low view of Parliaments and democracies across the way. In relation to the Sewel convention, I raised that very point. The Sewel convention was intended, first and foremost, as a convention to allow two mature groups to work together to solve problems that crossed borders. The wording in relation to the Sewel convention was specifically chosen to make it clear that it would not ordinarily be used, that it would not usually be used and that it would not commonly be used.
Unfortunately, over the past three to four years, we have seen the UK Government’s reliance on ignoring the convention that the Scottish Parliament have an opportunity to pass a legislative consent motion. In a way, that shows that there will be a challenge, going forward. A member asked what the Labour Party will do about that. Of course, we will do something about it, by talking it through with a devolution bill, if we have the privilege of having members in the Parliament and being in Government at Westminster. It is important that we take the communities of Scotland, England, Wales and, indeed, Northern Ireland with us.
We have also heard from a number of members, including the minister, about—
The member from Mr Whitfield’s party’s front bench was not able to clarify the Labour Party’s position on whether the Sewel convention should be put on a statutory footing. What is Martin Whitfield’s preference? Should it be on a statutory footing?
The devolution bill will allow the opportunity to discuss that.
Just before that very sensible intervention, I was about to say that we have been talking about honesty, maturity and grown-up conversations. One challenge that I see is that headlines are used to promote, or to pretend that there is, a war between two Governments whose sole responsibility is to act in the best interests of their people. We can disagree about how we should achieve a goal, but we must surely agree on that. I have heard so often, from across the chamber, that we will fight poverty, improve health and education and work for the betterment of people across the UK.
I welcomed the minister saying that there must—irrespective of what the future holds—be a way to facilitate UK-wide movement, purchases and sales. Without that, this relatively small country, on a relatively small island, sitting where it does, for historical reasons, on its line of longitude, must deal with countries around the world.
The Sewel convention should be looked at. However, as with many conventions and, I suggest, many acts of Parliament, no good will come of its not being respected by Government.
I am conscious that members from across the chamber have made myriad claims about devolution. I remind members that it was J P Mackintosh, who was an MP for the Lothians and a resident of East Lothian, who first articulated the idea of getting decision making as close as possible to the people who are affected by it. I intervened on the minister regarding use of devolution beyond the Scottish Parliament—down to local authorities and, perhaps, even beyond them, to smaller groups. Where people are close to a decision that affects them and feel that they are part of decision making and that that their voice has been listened to—even if, at the end of the day and for good reason, that voice is ignored in the final decision—they feel that they are part of the process.
I speak to people across South Scotland and hear from them, and from much of what is coming through the citizens assembly, that they feel there is distance between the Parliament, the Government and the people of Scotland.
I am conscious of the time. There is much that I would like to have said. It is important that we recognise that if this Parliament is to progress and if the Scottish Government is to succeed, we must look to move powers out of this place, further down and closer to the people who sent us here.
16:02
I am struggling with technology again—hang on a second. I beg your pardon.
I was there on 13 May 1999, at the inaugural sitting of the recalled Scottish Parliament, and I can quote the Presiding Officer, which I think will entertain you. He said:
“One of the worst habits of the House of Commons in the past decade has been the bogus use of points of order. I propose to be very strict; points of argument are not points of order. Points of order are for the occupant of the chair; if we degenerate into the habit of using them as points of argument, we shall develop some of the worst habits of a place that some of us have been glad to leave.”—[Official Report, 13 May 1999; c 16.]
I understand that Mr Kerr, who was as entertaining as usual, has just such plans to use the bad habits that he brought here with him.
I thought I would pop that quote into the debate to remind members, most of whom were not here in 1999, that bad habits can develop to epidemic proportions. We also thought then—naively—that, at the very least, devolution was secure, if not “a process”. In my 24 years’ experience here, I have never known a time when devolution and this Parliament’s democratic powers were under such overt attack.
In those early days, the Lib-Lab coalition proceeded hand-in-hand with Labour at Westminster. That was before the UK banking collapse of 2008, so there was ease of policy collaboration and funding between Westminster and the then Executive.
Indeed, while I support the constructive amendment referred to by Labour, I suspect that that would always be on Westminster’s terms—a kind of “take it or leave it” deal.
It was apparent in 1999 that Labour, in particular, but the unionists in general thought that it would always be the case that they would be in charge and that, even if the SNP did well, it would never be in power. The 2007 election changed all of that, and there has been a story ever since of tensions between devolved and reserved, with Westminster holding the purse strings. Of course, power devolved is power retained—a statement that is attributed to the late Tory MP Enoch Powell. That is a truism, and we are now learning that bitter lesson daily.
By the way, I ask Willie Rennie why, if the Liberals and, indeed, Labour are so opposed to the House of Lords, so many failed Labour and Liberal MPs and MSPs are happily sitting there.
Devolution statutes have increased our powers. The devolution of planning under the Scotland Act 1998 was, of course, a mega-oversight on the part of Westminster. The SNP Government can block—for the time being—the erection of nuclear power stations, although not the licensing of oil and gas developments at sea.
However, the Conservatives have never been happy with any of that. If they cannot exercise power through the ballot box, they have to find alternatives, so we have no section 30 order, thank you very much, even if an overall majority of MSPs stand on and for an independence referendum.
Once again, I turn to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—the orphaned child of the European Union and its internal markets act. It has proved an excellent unionist tool for prising open devolution. It has blocked the deposit return scheme and it can block the banning of the sale of glue traps, snares and shock collars. In fact, its blocking powers are wide ranging. If someone sells goods or provides services across the UK, the UK internal market act ensures that they can continue to do so. The leave of the UK is required if we wish to vary something. Would minimum unit pricing of alcohol have passed here if we had had the internal market act? I doubt it.
However, I am getting ahead of myself. Scotland voted 62 per cent remain in the 2016 EU referendum, yet the referendum’s consequences go beyond the all-invasive, indeed pernicious, internal markets act. Money that flowed from the EU to the Scottish Government for devolved projects is now filtered through the Westminster Conservative Government, which determines its destination. Under cover of “levelling up”, devolution is bypassed and areas that are favoured by the Tories, such as Dumfries, strangely find themselves being recipients, with projects being union badged and so on. You see, if you can’t beat them at the ballot box, try buying votes or, as Donald Cameron would say, investing directly—
Will the member give way on that point?
Of course, because I believe in spontaneous debate.
I find the assertion that Christine Grahame has just made utterly shocking, particularly as my Central Scotland constituency includes Falkirk, whose people have benefited because of the co-operation between Falkirk Council and the UK Government in relation to levelling up funds. The idea that Dumfries has somehow been selected and set apart from other areas is nonsense. In fact, when we look at the list of the amounts—
Mr Kerr, is your intervention over? Ms Grahame has 45 seconds left.
Yes. Well—
Had I known that, I would not have let him in. He has taken 45 seconds of my day.
Whatever happened to democracy? With only six Tories at Westminster, Alister Jack being one of them, we are having Tory policies and Tory funding directed against the democratic wishes of the Scottish people.
There is a lesson for all who defend democracy in this Parliament. The charge that is being led and laid at the feet of the Tories is that they will use every device they can to undermine what you, the Scottish people, have voted for, and they will use your money to do it. What an insult. It is beyond democratic and it reveals the vulnerability of devolution. Only independence guarantees that you will get the Governments, the policies and the priorities that you vote for. That might even—heaven forfend—be a Tory Government, but if you had voted for it, you would have to live with it. That is democracy for Scotland.
16:09
In what I hope will be a useful addition to Christine Grahame’s contribution, I note that I cannot remember a time before this Parliament existed. I was in nursery when it was reconvened.
The greatest sign of devolution’s success is how completely normal and undisputed the Scottish Parliament’s status is as the centre of Scottish public life, not just for people my age and younger but for those who remember the pre-devolution era.
Three in four people believe that Holyrood should have the most influence over how Scotland is run, compared with just 14 per cent who believe that of Westminster. Two thirds believe that Holyrood works in Scotland’s best interests most or all of the time, compared with just one in five who believe the same of Westminster. A majority believes that the Scottish Parliament has given Scotland a stronger voice in the UK; only one in 20 believe that its voice is weaker.
Although independence is the preferred outcome of half of voters—and of more than two thirds of young voters—abolishing devolution is a fringe position with no significant advocates. Our constitutional debate is about just how powerful the Scottish Parliament should be—about whether there should be devolution or independence.
Despite the primacy of this Parliament being the preference of the vast majority of people in Scotland, the UK Westminster Government is engaged in a direct attack on the fundamental principles of devolution, and on Scottish democracy. A Tory Government that Scotland did not vote for has used a Brexit process that Scotland also rejected to give itself a new power of veto over decisions that were made by the Parliament and the Government that the people of Scotland elected. That is all that the internal market act is: a power of veto to be used by UK Governments when Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland make decisions that such a Government does not like. That fundamentally changes and weakens the devolution settlement.
Devolution was established with the consent of the Scottish people through an overwhelming majority vote in a referendum. It was expanded and strengthened by consensus. All parties agreed to the rounds of further devolution of the past two decades. However, the Tories have shattered that broad consensus since the Brexit process. The IMA is a Westminster power grab. The purpose of devolution is for Scotland to make different choices from those made at Westminster, when that difference is the desire of, or in the best interests of, the people whom we represent.
Not only does the IMA give UK ministers a sweeping power of veto; it is already creating a chilling effect on Scottish policy making. I will not be the only MSP who has spoken to stakeholders who are already curtailing their proposals because of an assumption that their boldest ideas would highly likely be vetoed. The IMA creates a pressure on the Scottish Government to scale back its ambitions. The Government must resist that pressure. Devolution within arbitrary limits, set by whichever Administration is in office at Westminster at any given time, is not what the people of Scotland voted for in 1997, or in any election to this Parliament or to Westminster since then.
Labour’s support for the motion, and its helpful amendment, are definitely welcome, and I hope that those indicate that an incoming Labour Government would prioritise the repeal and reform of the internal market act and the restoration of devolution.
Today’s debate could not be more timely, given the letter that was received by the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee just this morning from the UK Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack. Mr Jack used the power that he now holds as a result of the internal market act to wreck the Scottish deposit return scheme for bottles and cans. Since July, the committee has, understandably, sought a UK Government minister to appear before it to explain his actions, but that invitation has been refused and refused again. Why is Alister Jack hiding? What is he running scared of?
I will tell you. Mr Jack is hiding from the truth. He U-turned on his own manifesto commitment. He tore up the common frameworks that had been agreed between the UK and devolved Governments. He torpedoed Scotland’s DRS using his undemocratic powers under the IMA, and now he is trying to dodge scrutiny by Scotland’s elected representatives.
Will Ross Greer give way?
I would be delighted to hear Stephen Kerr’s support for having the UK Government minister who is responsible for exercising the IMA come to the Scottish Parliament to explain his decision simply.
I point out to members and to Ross Greer, in particular, that, in fact, the secretary of state supported the exemption for a deposit return scheme. He said that the UK Government—his office—was prepared to help the implementation. The idea that it was wrecking the scheme seems a rather strange notion.
The fact that Stephen Kerr could not even keep a straight face while he said that says it all.
The UK Government said that there could be an exemption and that Scotland could be granted it if the deposit return scheme matched the UK scheme in areas such as the level of the deposit. The problem was that the UK Government had not yet set a deposit. It still has not done so. It set deliberately impossible conditions for Scotland’s DRS. That is how it sabotaged the scheme.
Donald Cameron mentioned the common frameworks as a sign that devolution works just fine under the IMA. That begs the question, if Mr Cameron and the Conservatives are so happy with the common frameworks, why did Alister Jack rip those up and invent a new process for the DRS as he went along?
Mr Jack changed his language a number of times. [Interruption.]
Mr Greer, please resume your seat for a wee sec.
I do not want members to have conversations across the front benches from sedentary positions, or whatever it is that they were doing.
Ross Greer, please resume.
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
At first, Mr Jack claimed that “no request for an” IMA exemption had been received from the Scottish Government, despite a two-year paper trail demonstrating otherwise. He then changed his language to talk about a so-called official request, and then “a formal request”, but, under the common frameworks that have been lauded by the Tories this afternoon, there is no such thing as an official or a formal request for an IMA exemption. Exemption applications are dealt with through an iterative process. Mr Jack invented a new process simply to claim that the Scottish Government had not followed it. If that is not directly undermining devolution, I do not know what is.
I wrote to the UK cabinet secretary, Simon Case, to seek clarity as to whether the UK Government had unilaterally rewritten the common frameworks. However, I am still to receive a reply, although I am happy to correct the record if it came by some method otherwise unknown to me or my office.
That is odd, because my letter seems to occupy far more of the UK Government’s time than I would have expected. Mr Jack spoke about it, and me, at length to the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster; he wrote to Simon Case, and to the Presiding Officer, about me; and now, in refusing the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s invitation, he has sent his previous letter about me to my colleague Edward Mountain, the committee’s convener.
I am a bit baffled at the extent to which I seem to be occupying Mr Jack’s mind. I take this opportunity to suggest to him that he could get it all off his chest to Mr Mountain, on the record, at a meeting of the Scottish Parliament committee that is responsible for scrutinising what actually happened to the DRS.
Mr Greer, you have to conclude.
It is essential that this Parliament defends the powers that the people of Scotland gave us. That is exactly what we are doing this afternoon, in the face of an unprecedented level of hostility from Westminster.
16:16
I am delighted to be speaking in the debate, because it gets to the heart of why I am here, the heart of this place and the heart of our democracy.
I am really concerned that we have heard the debate dismissed as being about “grievance”; as irrelevant; as not current; and as somehow a waste of our Parliament’s time. In fact, it has been the bread and butter of my committee’s work since we were formed as the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee of the Parliament. We have produced repeated reports on the subject, including “The Impact of Brexit on Devolution” and our “UK Internal Market Inquiry” report, and we are about to publish—in the next few weeks, we hope—a report on how devolution is changing outside the European Union. That could not be more current or more relevant to the work and the heart of this Parliament.
I also feel that some members are tone deaf to the concerns that are being raised outwith the chamber. Concerns were raised at the interparliamentary forum on Brexit, which is the grouping of the Senedd, Stormont, Westminster, the House of Lords and the Scottish Parliament that was formed to deal with post-Brexit issues. All have raised concerns about how devolution is moving forward.
Some members are also tone deaf to the experts who have given advice to our committee. Michelle Thomson mentioned Professor McEwen; our committee is advised by Dr McCorkindale and Professor Keating; and we have also had expert witnesses, such as Professor Aileen McHarg, give evidence about their concerns about these issues. As a Parliament, we should not be tone deaf to those concerns.
This week, I hosted an event in conjunction with the Royal Society of Edinburgh, as part of its “Scotland in Europe” series. It was the sixth in a series of events that are continuing to examine what Brexit, the change in our status in relation to the European Union and the 2020 act have meant for civil society and for Scotland’s businesses. That is current—the best brains in our country are examining exactly what we should be talking about this afternoon. It should not be dismissed as “grievance” or as irrelevant, or as not what we should be using the chamber’s time for.
In our committee’s report on “The Impact of Brexit on Devolution”, we noted that there were
“substantive differences between the views of the UK Government and the Scottish and Welsh Governments regarding future alignment/divergence with EU law.”
Our report stated that,
“This raises a number of ... constitutional questions for the Committee”,
including
“to what extent can the UK potentially accommodate four different regulatory environments within a cohesive internal market ... while complying with international agreements”
and
“whether the existing institutional mechanisms are sufficient to resolve differences between the four governments within the UK where there are fundamental disagreements regarding alignment with EU law and while respecting”
the devolved Parliaments.
The House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, in its recent report, “Common frameworks: an unfulfilled opportunity?”, said:
“It is a matter of serious concern that certain common frameworks do not align with the Joint Ministerial Committee for EU Negotiation Principles ... This is particularly significant in relation to respect for the devolution settlements, especially when it comes to addressing the decision-making powers of the devolved administrations. These are the founding principles of the common frameworks programme and are integral to their success as consensus-based agreements. What is additionally concerning is that this lack of alignment appears not to be the result of deliberate deviation. It is instead the result of insufficient attention to detail in Government.”
Are we going to be tone deaf to the concerns of the House of Lords committee and not discuss those matters in the Parliament?
My committee has raised general concerns about the extent and scope of UK ministers’ delegated powers to legislate in devolved areas and the Scottish Parliament’s opportunity to scrutinise those powers. We should all be concerned, as democrats, about scrutiny of decision making by Governments. We should all have the opportunity to scrutinise the decision making that affects the lives of the people we are here to represent. My committee’s view is that it is an important constitutional principle that the Scottish Parliament should have the opportunity to effectively scrutinise and exercise legislative powers when the UK Government makes decisions in devolved areas. Otherwise, we might slip into executive power making. I could quote widely from our reports, which I recommend to the Parliament. People should read them and learn about the concerns that are out there.
Another thing that was mentioned today causes me concern. The European Government had always spent money in Scotland, and we did not make a fuss about it. Nothing was perfect before, and we challenged before—especially, perhaps, in 2013, when the EU awarded an increased amount of money because of historic low payments per acre to Scottish farmers. That money should have come to Scottish farmers, but the UK Government chose to keep it to itself and disburse it in a different way.
Ms Adamson, you need to conclude.
We have never been fully happy with what has happened with European money, and now we need to have a voice in making those decisions.
16:22
Martin Whitfield is not in the chamber, but he referred to John Mackintosh, and I do not want to let the opportunity pass to also pay tribute to him. As a young, active supporter of the Labour Party in the early 1970s, I was hugely attracted to John Mackintosh’s contribution to public life, and his premature death in the 1970s was a great loss to public life in Scotland. He had a lot to contribute and a lot was lost when he was no longer there to do so.
I have come to the debate at my time in life as a fair-minded man. I have no speech with me; I have notes that I have been making as I went along. I have heard the argument from Mr Brown and many others in the SNP and the Greens about the assault on the powers of the Scottish Parliament. I thought, “Well, I’ll come along this afternoon, because maybe there is something to it, and I would like to hear what the contributions of those who advocate this view are.”
I have always regarded Mr Hepburn as a fair-minded man. We came into this Parliament at the same time, and I have been very impressed with the work that he has done on skills and other areas of Government for which he has been responsible. However, this afternoon, he has done more of an impression of James Robertson Justice when he was playing the part of Sir Simon Sparrow in the “Doctor at Large” films, bouncing up, wiggling his finger and throwing his arms in huge gesticulation at the Opposition. For a minister who has so little to do in his portfolio not to have come with a better-articulated argument and to have been shown up by Clare Adamson, who made a better speech than he did on behalf of the Government department that he leads, was rather embarrassing. I looked beyond that to see whether more would be said from within the chamber.
I remember having arguments with Edward Heath, who used to go on—interestingly, I thought—about sovereignty. He said, “What is sovereignty? I keep hearing people in the Conservative Party talking about protecting sovereignty, as if it’s a little blue flame in a cupboard somewhere that we can all go to and pray before—as if sovereignty is something tangible you can touch.” He said that we were sharing sovereignty with the European Union, and I agreed with that view. We share sovereignty between the two Parliaments in the United Kingdom: the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament.
During the debate, I repeatedly heard Scottish National Party speakers stand up to talk about the need to respect, yet not one of their contributions gave any indication of when they respect the authority of the UK Parliament—not even when it is exercising responsibilities that are contained in the Scotland Act 1998 on which this Parliament is founded.
I was disappointed, too, in the contribution of Mr Bibby—and a little in that of Martin Whitfield, who gave one of his statesman-like addresses while dancing on the head of a pin. Mr Bibby did the classic Labour routine with which we are now becoming familiar. It is Keir Starmer’s and Anas Sarwar’s everyday chant: “Scotland and Britain need change. We are the change.” That is until we ask them what the change is, and then we are met with a great big blank canvas. In fact, in so far as we know what the change was going to be, Keir Starmer keeps abandoning it and then not replacing it with something else. When he was asked if he was in favour of something, we got, “Well, we hope to have a bill on all that.”
Mr Whitfield even said when challenged by Mr Robertson on the Sewel convention that the bill would allow us to have a discussion. We do not need the bill to have a discussion—we could have one this afternoon. When Mr Whitfield was asked what he thought personally, he was not able to tell us.
Neil Bibby said that Labour wants to protect the internal market and it accepts the argument for it. When Stephen Kerr asked,“Well, how?” he simply said, “We are going to have a discussion on it. We do not really know.”
It might be a forlorn hope, but would it be possible to hear what the member’s view is on the Sewel convention being raised on to a statutory footing? Will he give us a clear statement of his position?
It would be churlish of me not to respond. I believe that the convention is a convention and should be respected as such. So I hope that—
Jamie Hepburn rose—
Oh, no. I am sorry—I will not take an intervention from Jamie Hepburn. We have seen enough of the James Robertson Justice act this afternoon.
I also think that the internal market replaces powers that the European Union exercised. Mr Greer said he was not here in 1999, but he was not here in 2011, either, when the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Bill was coming through the Parliament. He referred to Europe. I remember that, when I was an Opposition spokesman, I went across to Brussels to argue with the European Union that its objections to minimum unit pricing, and the belief that it would contravene the internal market of the European Union, were misguided. Therefore the idea that the internal market is something completely new and that Scotland did not have to exist within a United Kingdom that, in turn, had to exist within the powers of the European Union is a nonsense.
Since Brexit, the internal market has seen more than 100—
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
I will give way to Mr Greer—
It will have to be a very brief intervention.
—even though I sometimes think that he brings all the sincerity of Draco Malfoy to our debates.
Very briefly, please, Mr Greer.
It is not surprising to hear that Mr Carlaw is a J K Rowling fan these days. Does he not understand the distinction between the limits that were set by the European Union, which the people of Scotland consented to be in, and those that have been set by an internal market act that is the result of a Brexit vote that people in Scotland voted against?
But the point is that the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. I was not one of them, as Mr Greer knows. I was a J K Rowling fan before and always will be—it is just a shame that I can be consistent in my support for things whereas Mr Greer cannot.
Then we come round to the defence of the integrity of this Parliament and its powers from two parties that are emasculating the powers of local government. Local authorities that have been elected on manifestos are being starved of the funds that they need to implement them. The power is consolidated here, through the Scottish Parliament dictating to local government what it can and cannot do by starving it of funds. Not a word has been said before now in the debate about the denigration of the powers of local government. I thought that Mr Rennie gave a devastating evisceration of this Parliament’s ability to respect its own decisions.
I was hopeful as I came here. Clare Adamson raised some legitimate points.
I hope that Mr Carlaw is concluding.
I hope that we can find a way to address the points that Ms Adamson raised in a constructive and engaging manner. Unfortunately, that was not to be found in this debate.
16:29
I would not want to oversing the praises of political consensus, but it is worth recalling for a moment that there used to be agreement in the Parliament about one thing, at least. Whatever our differing views about the eventual destination of the devolution process or, indeed, the UK Internal Market Act 2020, we were all once signed up to the assumption that it was vital that the Parliament should be able to act freely in the areas for which it had devolved responsibility. How deep does that consensus go today in some quarters of the chamber? As someone who spent his youth campaigning for Scotland to become a parliamentary democracy, I feel unsure about that.
We have heard the usual cries from the usual benches asking why Parliament is, supposedly, wasting valuable debating time on constitutional matters rather than looking at Scotland’s present impossible budget choices on public services. Let me give two brief responses to those objections.
First, developed democracies invariably have written constitutions—pace New Zealand. In all those countries, questions about constitutional principle are generally considered very relevant. I am unsure why those questions would be uniquely inapplicable in Scotland.
The second response is that we quite rightly spend most of our time in Parliament looking at how Scotland’s money is spent. From time to time, however, it is also important that we ask about the rules of that political game. I appreciate that that might throw up some difficult questions, such as why the total size of our budget is directed from another place or why the powers that we have to borrow or to alter tax are quite so constrained by the UK Government.
The relevant point is that, since the Brexit referendum of 2016, a whole range of new mechanisms has been invented by the UK Government to hem in what the Scottish Parliament does. Those mechanisms were largely undreamt of beyond the realms of hypothesis when the Parliament was re-established in 1999. I suppose that the changes since 2016 simply go to show the occasionally lauded flexibility of political life in a country without a written constitution.
A few of the developments that we have seen, which others have mentioned, are: the unprecedented use of section 35 powers to veto a bill passed by the Parliament, effectively intercepting it in the post on its way to the King’s desk; the Sewel convention—the previously unquestioned wisdom that the UK Parliament would never normally legislate in devolved areas without the Scottish Parliament’s consent—has now been breached on such a routine basis that it is doubtful whether it can still be said to exist; the gradual tendency of the UK Government to find new ways to spend bits of what should be the Scottish Parliament’s budget on our behalf on things on which it thinks they should be spent; the Subsidy Control Act 2022, with all the constraints that it imposes on devolved policy making; and, of course, the denial of the democratic and arithmetical reality that a majority of members of the Scottish Parliament were elected on a mandate to hold an independence referendum.
That is not to mention, of course, the wider hostile UK political environment, which seems to see everything that goes on here in the rebel province as a potential threat. At least one recent UK Prime Minister vowed to ignore the Scottish Parliament completely during her term of office, and she was, indeed, true to her word on that.
The motion focuses attention on just one of the new constraints put on the Scottish Parliament by the UK—the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. To take one example, that act gives a UK Government minister the power to subject Scotland’s NHS to what it considers to be market access principles. It means that any future legislation in Scotland to ban single-use plastics, or any measures to tackle obesity or alcohol abuse, for example, could be rendered ineffective if a policy difference was created with the rest of the UK.
As I recall, policy differences, where they were felt to be needed, were one of the very reasons why the Scottish Parliament was re-established. I certainly cannot imagine anybody anticipating, back in 1999, a scenario in which the Scottish Parliament asked—as it is presently likely to have to ask—for the UK Government’s blessing before we altered the law on rat traps. That is particularly surprising, given that changing that area of law does not involve our touching on any areas of law reserved to Westminster. Changing the law on rat traps leaves nuclear weapons, the date of Easter, the British Antarctic Territory and outer space all safely untouched by the Scottish Parliament.
It is not just the usual pro-independence suspects who warn about all the incursions on this Parliament’s powers. As we have heard from other members, such warnings come from elsewhere—not least from the Scottish Trades Union Congress and from Mark Drakeford, who is Wales’s Labour First Minister. Let us unite as a Parliament to recognise such attacks for what they are and recognise the UK Internal Market Act 2020 for what it is.
We move to closing speeches.
16:35
Labour is the party of devolution. We legislated for and enacted it and we will continue to advocate for and protect it when we are next in government. The UK Conservative Government continues to undermine devolution. As many members have outlined, over the past five years, it has repeatedly undermined and discarded the Sewel convention.
Unfortunately, the UK Government’s internal market act is no different. As the minister rightly outlined in his opening speech, that was made abundantly clear when, although the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd withheld consent, the UK Government went ahead and passed the act regardless.
As Willie Rennie pointed out, this debate is about respecting the Scottish Parliament’s authority. As Neil Bibby outlined, the powers of devolution were established in 1998 by the then UK Labour Government. The internal market act tramples on devolution. It undermines the Scottish Parliament’s authority and allows the lowest regulatory standard under one Administration to be the rule for all. It provides the potential for UK ministers to ignore or override legislation in devolved areas in Scotland, but decisions on devolved policies should be made in Scotland.
Donald Cameron was right to say that the Scottish Parliament is one of the most powerful devolved legislatures in the world, yet the UK Government continues to seek to undermine and roll back this Parliament’s powers. The internal market act does just that.
The UK Government must develop a better way to maintain common standards and safeguards—a way that does not undermine devolution in Scotland or any democratic decisions across all the devolved legislatures in the UK. As Keith Brown mentioned, that approach must not try to strike down powers from the Scottish Parliament, which more than 70 per cent of the electorate voted for in 1997.
As part of the party of devolution, Scottish Labour seeks to further strengthen devolution—not to undermine or weaken it. Scottish Labour would like Scotland to be strengthened as part of a modern and changed United Kingdom.
As my colleague Martin Whitfield outlined, we would like power in Scotland to be based as near as possible to the place in which it is exercised. We would like power to be restored to the hands of local authorities and communities. That is why the next UK Government will transform Westminster and abolish the outdated House of Lords. It will transfer power out of Westminster and into local authorities, so that regions can better control the issues that impact them most.
I think that I am right in inferring that the Scottish Labour Party will support the amended motion, given that we will support the Labour Party’s amendment. In doing so, the Labour Party will be supporting the repeal of the internal market act. When would an incoming Labour Government repeal that act?
I think that my colleagues have answered that question. That is something for the incoming Labour Government to look at.
Scottish Labour is focused on protecting devolution. However, instead of strengthening devolution, the Scottish Government is doubling down on the politics of division. Many of my colleagues in the chamber today have outlined that Scotland needs two mature Governments that will work together.
Will the member give way?
I want to make some progress.
The member is concluding.
Scottish Labour believes that the interests of the people of Scotland are best served when both the Scottish and UK Governments work together in co-operation. The Scottish Government has continually made relations with the UK Government strained, instead of finding consensus. When the two Governments cannot reach agreement on anything, the people of Scotland are the ones who suffer.
With regard to the internal market act, the two Governments must seek to work together. The UK Government must find a better way to regulate the market, which does not undermine devolution. [Interruption.]
I hope that the member is just about to conclude.
Yes. A rule that allows for the lowest regularity standard in one Parliament to be the standard of all disregards devolution and the authority of other legislative bodies across the board.
Scottish Labour is focused on strengthening devolution and on being the change that Scotland needs: a fresh start.
16:41
I am delighted to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. I will be supporting the amendment in the name of Donald Cameron.
Looking at the title of the debate—“Protection of Scottish Parliament Powers”—a bystander could have been forgiven for thinking that it might be a celebration of the powers of the Scottish Parliament and of the accomplishments of devolution. They might even have thought that it would be a discussion about the importance of devolution and how the Parliament’s powers could be used to improve the lives of the people of Scotland.
Such a debate would have been appropriate, given that this Parliament is the most powerful devolved legislature in the world, as has already been mentioned. However, anyone who knows the SNP Government well enough would not expect to get that, and that has been the case today.
By this point, the Conservatives have become wise to the way in which the Scottish Government always seems to follow the same pattern in tackling issues. Sure enough, today’s motion contains no surprises. We have heard nothing new from the SNP Government this afternoon.
Will the member give way?
I am happy to do so.
The member said that there are no surprises in the motion, but I am very surprised by the Labour Party’s position in respect of the motion, if amended by its amendment. Does he agree that that puts Keir Starmer in a most awkward situation, in which he is against the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 but his party has nothing to replace it with?
Common frameworks.
I thank my colleague Stephen Kerr for that intervention. This afternoon, it very much appears that the Labour Party wishes to repeal the internal market act without having anything to replace it.
Common frameworks.
Cabinet secretary, please.
As I have already said, we have had no surprises from the Government. The grievance-filled arguments that have been brought to the chamber previously continue to be made. Those attempts to convince the Scottish public that the Parliament’s powers are under threat are just as empty and without substance as they always have been.
Will the member give way?
I will do so in a few moments, as I wish to make some more progress.
This afternoon, we have heard from the Government about prioritising the powers of the Scottish Parliament. However, for the SNP, protecting the Parliament’s powers means objecting to UK Government investment in Scotland just because the money is being spent in devolved areas.
I am happy to give way to the minister.
I am delighted that a Conservative member has finally given way. Mr Stewart mentioned that the people of Scotland need to be made aware of the threats to the Scottish Parliament, but he seems to dismiss those threats. Can he therefore explain why there was only one breach of the Sewel convention between the onset of devolution and 2018—which was inadvertent and remedied—whereas there have been nine in the period since then?
We have already heard much about the Sewel convention this afternoon, but I think that Jackson Carlaw put it best when he said that the convention is just that—it is nothing more than a convention.
Of course, the SNP’s objections come despite the fact that the UK Government’s ability to make investment in devolved areas is very much part of the devolution settlement. Similarly, we have heard familiar complaints about the UK Government’s use of a section 35 order, despite the fact that such a power is written into the devolution settlement.
However, certain things are absent from today’s motion. For example, there is no mention of the Supreme Court’s damning verdict in 2021 on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill, which talked about the SNP deliberately exceeding the powers of the Scottish Parliament when drawing up the bill.
Will the member reflect on the evidence that was given by Philip Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union from 2017 to 2019 and a senior civil servant Cabinet Office official on devolution from 2012 to 2019? He told our committee that
“you have to see Brexit as a break point in all sorts of ways, including with regard to the management of relationships between the four Governments of the United Kingdom ... it will require a reconfiguration and reconceptualisation of how those relations are managed.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 9 March 2023; c 14.]
In the face of overwhelming evidence that there are problems, how can the Conservatives continue to be tone deaf to the issue?
I will give you the time back, Mr Stewart.
I thank the member for her lengthy intervention, but none of us is tone deaf to the issue. The United Kingdom as a whole made the decision to leave the European Union. At the end of the day, the SNP has never come to terms with that. Yes, SNP members have made the point that Scotland did not like it, but the United Kingdom did and the United Kingdom is still the United Kingdom at the moment.
The motion also does not mention the fact that, despite the Supreme Court judgment having been made two years ago, it is only this week that we have learned the timetable for the reconsideration stage of the bill. When a party deliberately exceeds the power of this Parliament and then fails to use the powers of this Parliament to fix things as quickly as possible, it really lacks credibility.
I will talk about some of the points that have been made by other members. As I said, Labour members talked about repealing the 2020 act, and we look forward to seeing how that progresses in the future.
My colleague Donald Cameron said that this debate is more about deflecting from where we are, and he said that people across the country want the United Kingdom Government and the Holyrood Government to work together. They want to see a stronger relationship and trade taking place. Those points are very valid. He also said that, although, in the past, funding came from the EU, there is no suggestion that the funding that now comes from the UK is any different. The UK has provided £2.4 billion to Scotland over the past few years.
Willie Rennie made some very valid points about respecting the authority of this Parliament. He gave a very good example relating to freedom of information that exposed the SNP as following rules only when it suits it. We have debates that do nothing more than cause controversy and that do not show respect to the Parliament.
My colleague Stephen Kerr made a powerful speech. He talked about the scrutiny that is not taking place, and he said that there should be milestones and better governance.
My colleague Jackson Carlaw talked about being fair minded. It was quite hard for him to find evidence of fair mindedness in the chamber—he might well be fair minded, but we have not had much fair mindedness today.
Labour members then made comments about how Labour would manage or repeal the 2020 act—we look forward to seeing where that takes us in future.
I hope that you are concluding, Mr Stewart.
I am just about to do so.
As my colleagues have highlighted, the real problem is that the current Scottish Government is failing to use the powers at its disposal effectively. The Government claims that it wants to protect the powers of the Parliament. For the Scottish public, however, it is clear—[Interruption.]
Please resume your seat, Mr Stewart. Could we not have conversations across the front benches, please? It is very discourteous to the member who has the floor.
Mr Stewart, please conclude.
Thank you.
It is clear that the Scottish public wish to see that the powers that are here are not squandered. The SNP has squandered those powers and it continues to do so. It squanders resources and it squanders opportunities. It should use the powers that support Scotland’s economy—
Mr Stewart, you will need to conclude.
—its justice and education systems and the environment to enhance our country, rather than squandering those powers.
I call the cabinet secretary, Angus Robertson, to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Government.
16:50
It is a genuine pleasure to wind up this debate, in which we have discussed a motion that draws attention to the fact that the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd
“refused to give consent to the Internal Market Act because of concerns over its potential to undermine democratic decisions of the devolved legislatures”.
The motion goes on to say that we agree that
“those fears have been realised to the detriment of the people of Scotland, and that the devolution settlement has been fundamentally rolled back by the Act”,
and that we call for
“the repeal of the ... Act and for the UK Government to stop taking back control to the UK Parliament of policy decisions that should be made in Scotland.”
That is an eminently sensible statement of fact that should command the support of members from across the Parliament. I pay tribute to my colleague Jamie Hepburn, who made a powerful and persuasive opening speech regarding the erosion of the Sewel convention and the implications of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020.
It was a pleasure to listen to much of the speech from Neil Bibby on the Labour front bench. His party’s amendment calls on the UK Government
“to develop a more consensual means of preserving common standards and safeguards across the UK that does not undermine devolution in any part of the UK.”
In one slight criticism, I say that, at some point, the Scottish Labour Party will have to be clear about what it will or will not do with the Sewel convention. Frankly, given what we have learned about how the convention is abused by the UK Conservative Party, the only way for that to work is on a statutory basis. I hope that the Scottish Labour Party will move to support that in time.
We also heard very positive contributions from Michelle Thomson, Keith Brown and Martin Whitfield. Again, I have one minor criticism, on the Scottish Labour Party’s inability to commit to incorporating Sewel on a statutory basis. We heard powerful interventions from Christine Grahame, Ross Greer and Clare Adamson, who reminded members of the advice that her committee has received from Scotland’s leading constitutional academics.
What we are debating this afternoon are well-established facts about the undermining of devolution.
I wonder whether the cabinet secretary was actually here listening to the debate. He said that he agreed with Martin Whitfield, whose whole speech was a criticism of the SNP’s moves to centralise powers and its tendency to want to gather everything to the centre. He was calling for—I support this—devolution of power to communities and to the people where they live, which is the very opposite of what the SNP stands for. Was the cabinet secretary listening to any of the speeches that were offered today?
Clearly, in summing up, I am reflecting on all the contributions, and I will come to Stephen Kerr’s shortly.
I pay tribute to Dr Alasdair Allan for his speech and to Foysol Choudhury for his summing up, although, again, I raise with him the question of when a Labour Government would repeal the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. Some commitment will have to be made on that front, and on Sewel.
I turn to disappointing contributions from colleagues, and I must start with the learned gentleman on the Conservative Party front bench, Mr Cameron. I will concentrate on what he did not say, because, although what we say is important, what he did not say is of note. He did not, or could not, condemn the overriding of the Scottish Parliament or the Senedd, which, as has been pointed out a number of times, Mark Drakeford has been able to do very powerfully. I quote from Mr Drakeford, giving evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee on 17 July 2021. He said:
“When it became inconvenient for the UK Government to observe Sewel, they just went ahead and rode roughshod through it.”
He also said:
“More recently, I am afraid, the Sewel convention has withered on the vine.”
He has been prepared to be outspoken, and the Conservative Party should be as well. Mr Cameron also did not, could not or would not criticise the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, and its, frankly, malign impact on devolution. He prayed NFU Scotland in aid at one stage. It would be helpful to read the record of the views of NFU Scotland. Its written evidence, from Jonnie Hall, went as follows:
“it is the clear view of NFU Scotland that the principles now embedded in the UK Internal Market Act (IMA) 2020 pose a significant threat to the development of Common Frameworks and to devolved policy.”
I cannot omit a point that was made by the members on the Conservative front bench, Donald Cameron and Alexander Stewart. First, the comparison with the European Union is spurious, because the difference between UK devolution, which is not functioning well, and European Union additionality was that, in the European Union, Scottish legislators in the European Parliament had oversight of EU spending, and those funds were disbursed through the Scottish Office, which became the Scottish Government.
The claim about this Parliament being the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world will come as news—especially on the day of German unity—to anybody who knows anything about government in Germany, where the Bundesländer are involved in federal decision making.
I could go on to speak about Willie Rennie’s contribution—the Liberal Democrats were once the proud party of home rule—but he had nothing positive to say, describing these constitutional questions as “noddy debates”. Stephen Kerr would not even acknowledge that his party opposed devolution. Jackson Carlaw said that the Sewel convention should be “respected as such”, but the point is that it is not, and his party should reflect on that. Alexander Stewart said at one point that there is nothing to replace the 2020 act, which is factually inaccurate, because common frameworks were established to do just that, before the Trojan horse of the 2020 act was passed by the UK Government.
Since 2016, the UK Government has taken a range of actions that have damaged devolution and the powers of the Scottish Parliament. As we have heard, the UK Government has passed legislation without the Scottish Parliament’s agreement, that reduces the Parliament’s powers and allows UK ministers to make further changes unilaterally, such as making provisions on healthcare subject to the 2020 act. It has given powers to UK ministers to intervene directly in matters within the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament—again, without the Scottish Parliament’s agreement. It has undermined the Sewel convention that the Westminster Parliament
“will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.”
It has now done so on 11 occasions and has turned the Sewel convention on its head by insisting on consent as a condition for lodging agreed amendments to the Energy Bill, as we have heard.
The UK Government has for the first time blocked legislation on devolved matters that has been passed by the Scottish Parliament. It has taken forward legislation, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, that puts at risk EU laws on environmental protection, food standards and other devolved matters. It has taken a direct role in devolved policy and decisions on public spending on devolved matters, bypassing the Scottish Parliament and diverting funding from priorities here.
There was always a risk that the Brexit process would result in greater centralisation in Whitehall and Westminster. Fundamental changes can now be seen in the relationship between the Governments and the Parliaments of Westminster and Holyrood—as well as, incidentally, the Welsh Senedd, which is, obviously, not led by the Scottish National Party. My view is shared by the Welsh Government, as it is by the Scottish Government. No doubt, if there was a functioning Government in Northern Ireland, it would also share those views.
Far from the Scottish Government provoking constitutional clashes, it is the UK Government that has intervened in devolved areas either to prevent the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament from progressing with our policies, whether it be recycling or gender recognition, or to impose UK Government policies. The UK Government’s approach increasingly asserts Whitehall and Westminster’s authority over the Scottish Parliament and Government in a way that has not been seen previously.
The Scottish Government is clear that the Internal Market Act 2020 should be repealed, and we invite the Parliament to support that view. The threat to the powers of the Scottish Parliament and the undermining of the institutions of devolution are real and urgent. They should concern everyone who supports the Parliament, regardless of their party allegiance.
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