Meeting of the Parliament 24 September 2019
In carrying out some research for the debate, I came across the Institute for Government’s article “Common frameworks, devolution and Brexit”, which explains the background to the committee’s report. It explains that, if the UK leaves the European Union,
“powers exercised at EU level will be ‘repatriated’ to the UK.”
The article highlights that much of EU law
“intersects with the legislative competence of the devolved institutions”
and that
“powers currently exercised by EU institutions will transfer to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”
in areas such as
“environmental regulation, agriculture, public procurement and aspects of justice, transport and energy”.
The article continues:
“When the UK leaves the EU, if no changes were made other than to remove the statutory requirement to comply with EU law, these policy areas would fall completely under devolved control.”
That is the position that I would prefer. However, if there is a need for common frameworks in certain areas, they must be created by agreement. The committee’s conclusion on that states:
“we strongly believe that common frameworks must be arrived at through agreement and not imposed. We consider that key to this is resolving by negotiation the extent to which policy divergence can exist within common frameworks.”
If we are to have common frameworks, it is important that there is a role for the Parliament. The committee’s report states:
“There are a range of reasons why Parliamentary scrutiny is considered to be essential to developing effective common frameworks”.
The report goes on to say that such scrutiny enables Parliaments
“to fulfil their scrutiny role in holding government to account for their actions”
and
“to judge between potentially competing interpretations of intergovernmental discussions”.
The committee points out that Parliament can
“provide a mechanism by which wider sectoral and stakeholder engagement can be delivered”
and
“ensure that in making final decisions, the different vested interests are properly balanced.”
The committee commissioned comparative research on agreement-making in Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Norway. One interesting point from the research on Switzerland is that there is a set of guiding principles that state that
“Where possible, tasks should be allocated to one single level of government only”,
and that
“Decisions should be taken as close to the citizens as possible”.
The research goes on to say that
“Where a task cannot be allocated to one level only, common frameworks come into play.”
The Swiss political system is oriented towards consensus, and co-operation is the preferred strategy. I hope that the UK Government’s response to the committee’s report is in that spirit of co-operation, when it states:
“The UK Government is committed to working with the devolved administrations to create frameworks that offer stability and certainty to businesses and individuals as decision-making powers return from the EU to Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.”
I will conclude by referring to another of the committee’s unanimous recommendations. It states:
“We strongly agree that the ongoing work to define the UK internal market also respects the devolution settlement such that enabling the functioning of the UK internal market must not and will not be at the cost of adjusting the devolved competencies without the consent of the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament.”