My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 92 and 93 standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and myself. I am sorry that he cannot be here to speak to these amendments, but I understand that it is in order for me to do so.
These amendments would restrict Ministers of the Crown from being able to amend or repeal the Wales Act 2017 and the corresponding Scotland Act using regulatory powers. The fact that these amendments are necessary underlines a perceived disregard the UK Government have for the sovereignty of the two devolved parliaments. If the Northern Ireland parliament were in existence, I am sure there would be feelings along similar lines.
The Bill gives sweeping powers to Ministers of the Crown, with which they can do what they like, including amending and/or repealing the devolution settlements. This was exemplified last Friday 9 March, when, despite no agreement being reached at the JMC (EN) meeting on the status of powers being repatriated from Brussels, the UK Government pushed ahead and published their framework analysis. This was essentially a list of devolved areas of policy that the UK Government will take over themselves—I will not list them or go into
that, because they will mainly come under Clause 8, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, mentioned a moment ago.
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Under the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, the UK Government will have the right to take control of any of the items on the three lists that have been published which I have seen. The publication of the categories demonstrates that the threat is most immediate in key devolved areas such as agriculture, GM crops, fishing, environmental policy, public procurement, food standards and a range of other areas. Unless the Bill is changed drastically, Westminster could soon be in control of these policy areas, which would confirm many of the worst fears felt in the National Assembly for Wales and in the Scottish Parliament. It has been described as a “major power grab”, and it is feared that it is rewriting the devolution settlement that the people of Wales voted for quite decisively in 2011. I am further alarmed to see the powers included in the second category, which the Government say are reserved and would therefore in their view not even require consultation with the Welsh Government. These include geographic food indicators and state aid, which, I have no doubt, the Economics Minister in the National Assembly will have opinions about.
What happens to any devolved power relating to Wales must be a matter for the National Assembly for Wales. There may well be certain policy areas where it makes perfectly good sense to have a UK-wide framework—for example, on the environment, on which I proposed an amendment myself only last Wednesday, and which was welcomed by the Opposition Front Bench. The Government themselves saw the sense of having framework agreements that are agreements, so that the three or four Governments come together and agree a matter, the solution not being imposed on them by Westminster. This must be a matter for the Welsh Assembly to decide in conjunction with the UK Government, not the UK Government laying down entirely what is essentially a central diktat on such matters. Parties in the National Assembly, including my own, Plaid Cymru, are not opposed to working together on joint frameworks in some areas, but they have been given no assurance at all on how the frameworks will operate, who will make the decisions about them and how AMs will be able to ensure that Wales’s interests are properly protected.
Incidentally, aspects of this list contradict what the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said in response to my intervention last week on agriculture. Agriculture is one of the most prominent policy areas on this framework analysis, yet the Minister told me that the agricultural Bill, which will be forthcoming, will be England-only, and that,
“Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be able to pursue their own policies in this regard—which is another benefit of Brexit”.—[Official Report, 7/3/18; col. 1156.]
That benefit of Brexit did not survive more than five days, as agriculture clearly is not being left to the Scottish and Welsh Governments in the way that was implied by the Minister last Wednesday evening.
We have something approaching an utter shambles in these matters. The Government should never have got themselves into such a tangle, and it must be the
duty of Parliament to save the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament, and, I hope, the Northern Ireland Assembly, from the folly of the Government’s approach. There are possible solutions, without having the sort of diktats which the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and my amendment address, and which we will come on to in Clause 8. However, the Government have not reached out in a way that carries people with them and which enables there to be agreement by willing partners rather than to have solutions imposed upon them.