My Lords, I will start by dealing with one or two of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed. He lives just north of the border and, as he is probably aware, I live north of Hadrian’s Wall but just south of the border, so we both have an interest in that area. I presume he noticed the announcement, among many others, by my right honourable friend the Chancellor in his Statement yesterday about the £260 million available for the new borderlands deal. He is probably also aware of what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland said about welcoming that deal. Irrespective of all other matters that we might discuss, this is a wonderful example of cross-border working which he and I, and no doubt others who have slightly less interest in the immediacy of the Anglo-Scottish border, would welcome.
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On the noble Lord’s point about these matters and to what extent they are devolved, it is Her Majesty’s Government’s view that regulation of state aid is a matter that is reserved for them. I recognise that there is a difference of view. However, given that the UK Government are closely aligned with the devolved Administrations on the substance of policy and given the limited scope to depart from mirroring the EU regime by using powers in regulations, it is not necessary for us to resolve the matter at this stage, because at this stage we are just bringing in no-deal regulations to deal with these points. We will come on to others, such as the shared prosperity fund, later. I appreciate that all noble Lords who have spoken want me to say more about it. There is a certain amount I can say but I obviously cannot go quite as far as noble Lords would want on guarantees and so on.