My Lords, I do not intend to speak for very long but I begin by thanking the House and the Front Bench for allowing me to speak at all. I am afraid that I was wrongly advised about the timing of Motions today. I particularly apologise to the Minister; I was anxious to hear her maiden speech, which obviously was very successful, and I was particularly anxious to hear someone identified with north Oxford, where I have spent some of the happiest years of my life, so I am sorry.
The Bill has been described as very wide-ranging, global in its implications and, according to a House of Lords committee, “breathtaking”, but I want to focus on one aspect nearer home and try to point out how it is possible that the implications of breaking away from one Union, the European Union, can lead to severe and perhaps irreparable damage to another union, that of the United Kingdom. The Bill reproduces issues that we have examined before; we in the Constitution Committee have certainly looked at them. On the European Union (Withdrawal) Act there was much dispute when the UK seemed reluctant, it was said, to honour the devolution settlement and seemed less than straightforward in respecting the reserved powers accruing to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.
It seemed to me at the time that quite needless acrimony was created by that, and indeed that it was a gift for nationalists north of the border and the movement for independence, which I do not support and do not wish to see flourish. At present we have the same kind of division and conflict over authority in relation to the Agriculture Bill, with exactly the same points being made about where authority lies. We find there is a persistent threat of conflict every time the Government try to make wider or international arrangements that will follow Brexit and engage in the repatriation of powers from the European Union. We have the same kind of argument, which to me indicates again the lack of care and preparation taken, particularly in the astonishingly few weeks that remain for the implementation of Brexit.
Strong criticisms have already been expressed in this debate about the wide delegated powers given to Ministers—the greater powers of Henry VIII and other monarchs—which are going to be adopted very rapidly. The argument over devolution is more serious still and deeply worrying, since it affects the corporate structure of these islands. As a Welsh person, I find it deeply worrying that an area where no serious argument currently exists is now being fomented.
At the moment, we have deadlock. The Scottish Government have withheld consent from the Bill on principle and claimed that it lacks clarity about their role. The Welsh Government have been a good deal more moderate, but they have also withdrawn their consent to the Bill so far. Both devolved Governments feel that in health—which is clearly a reserved area, like agriculture and fisheries—the Westminster Government are riding roughshod and with little courtesy over their agreed competencies and ignoring much of the context in which the devolution settlement has continued; the Sewel convention seems to be completely set aside at this time. It seems to them—and one can see the argument—to be an almost colonial attitude adopted by English nationalists to unbalance a complicated and careful devolution settlement that has acted in a stable way and been extended over the last 20 years.
There are two issues. One is the simple intellectual issue about authority and whether international agreements about healthcare such as this one have anything to do with devolution. Are they an external matter or, as the Scottish Government have argued, since these measures have to be implemented by the devolved Governments—in areas of competence such as agriculture, fisheries and health—are they therefore their responsibility? The situation is very unclear; it is a permanent, unresolved, intellectual conundrum that has cropped up time after time and will go on doing so, damaging not merely our external position but the internal integrity of the United Kingdom.
The other question that we on the Constitution Committee have been asking in vain for a long time is: who decides how these matters are to be resolved? Quis custodiet? At the moment, we have the Joint Ministerial Committee and I can be completely impartial in saying that over the years it has been totally useless. Even being partisan, I say that it was useless under Labour, under a coalition Government and under a Conservative Government. We raised the fact that it has not been effective in the Constitution Committee the other week with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He said that these difficulties arose because, latterly, we have had different Governments—nationalist, Labour and Conservative—in different parts of the United Kingdom. That is of course a complicating factor but it is not the real issue at all because the essential point has not been decided.
It has not been decided because the Joint Ministerial Committee is an ineffective body, with erratic membership and occasional hours of meeting. There are more meetings at present under Mr Lidington, which is a good thing. But otherwise, speaking as an historian, it rather reminds me of Lloyd George, who did not have proper Cabinets; he had meetings of Ministers, carefully chosen or sometimes not chosen at all but simply
those who turned up. It has been rather like that. We have this very important constitutional issue affecting the integrity of our country and decided by a body that is not at all fit for purpose, particularly in handling very sensitive areas of intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom.
The question of intergovernmental relations has been very unsatisfactory and it is ironic that in discussing Brexit measures, which are designed to point out the centrality and integrity of the United Kingdom in standing up to its international situation, those measures may have the reverse effect. As previous speakers have said, Brexit is a totally disastrous prospect for this country. As we are already seeing, it will make it economically weaker and less confident. I fear that if we continue to have these divisive issues over devolution, the loosely associated union state that is the United Kingdom may find it difficult to be a country at all.
5.28 pm