My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, and indeed to agree with much of what he said. I support the amendments in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope.
I should declare an interest as the chair of the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee. The House will judge that I have a formidable group of Peers to do the work, and we have heard from some of them this evening. It has been splendid to hear so much exposure given to common frameworks because, as many other noble Lords have said, the Bill is silent on them.
It is a particular pleasure for me personally to support these amendments because they are a model of clarity and common sense. They track the history and purpose of, and the co-operation involved in, the common frameworks in the context of our membership of and exit from Europe, holding firm to the principle and practice of devolution.
The Government are silent on the common frameworks and silent on the years of hard negotiation that has gone into them so far to ensure that the principles that govern them bear fruit. I am surprised at that silence because in everything that the Ministers have said so far—and they have said it informally in communications with us, which we very much welcome—they have insisted that they still support the principles of the common frameworks and their role in stabilising the internal market, yet in effect these clauses drive a stake through them.
As my noble and learned friend Lord Hope said, the common frameworks allow for reconciliation across an enormous range of highly sensitive areas of policy—from the safety of baby milk to protections relating to the location and storage of hazardous waste, to maintaining future emissions trading. It has been a slow and careful process because the dispute mechanisms and the legislative frameworks have to be resilient if the internal market is to work with integrity in the future.
As the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, said, at Second Reading the Minister defended these clauses in the Bill on the grounds that this matter needs regulatory underpinning, because there are issues that fall around and in between the frameworks. First, as he also said, they are not entirely sector based, but the real puzzle for all of us is where these identifiable gaps are. If there are indeed gaps, could not other frameworks be developed as appropriate? We already have the models in front of us. Therefore, like the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, I would be very interested if the Minister
could now tell us in more detail what these issues are that fall around or between the individual sectors. What is the problem to be solved here?
The best clue that we have is that the Minister has suggested that the Bill is needed in case there are future developments that cut across seamless trade. Again, it is impossible to know what the Government think is likely to happen, why they cannot share that with us and why such developments cannot be accommodated. So far, no Minister and no officials, in formal and informal conversations, has come up with an instance of what this means.
It is the more frustrating because, by definition, the frameworks are dynamic. They will be under regular review—they are work in progress. If there is a push for further divergence, the reconciliation and dispute processes kick in. The union becomes the stronger because it acknowledges that culture, demography, local economics and geography drive diversity. If the Government fear that somehow, and at some point, unacceptable barriers to trade will be erected across the union, surely the frameworks are the solution and not the problem.
The Bill is important. It is also important not to exaggerate, but I believe that these clauses will exact an enormous price if they are not amended, as my noble and learned friend Lord Hope suggests. The mutual recognition principle becomes the default position, no matter what the devolved nations hope to achieve. The Government argue that, for example, we have the highest environmental standards in the world. Indeed, we might, but how can these be upheld in a highly competitive market where cheaper food invites cutting standards? How can each nation continue to drive down salt content in food if a cheaper product with a higher salt content becomes available for sale across the UK?
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The amendments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, address all these points. They do not dismiss the clauses out of hand. They make it clear that there is a principle and a logical sequence to be followed if the Government are to achieve their own aims. They strengthen the status of the common framework process by bringing in the application of the mutual recognition process as a final resort, once the common frameworks and the dispute mechanisms built into them have run their course and failed. Clearly, at this point, something else may well be needed.
I suspect the Minister will argue that the Government do not want the common frameworks to have statutory force. These amendments do not give them extra statutory agency. They are not a threat to the Bill. They identify frameworks in the Bill but do not give them additional powers. They do not elevate them above the mutual recognition process, but merely define and clarify the process to be followed, and what happens if they were to fail. This is not pre-emptive. These amendments are a logical solution to the problem that the Government say might arise, even if Ministers cannot actually describe how it might happen.
I know that when noble Lords say that they are trying to be helpful, Ministers roll their eyes. But I put it to the Minister that so serious are the threats implicit
in this Bill, and such is the anxiety that it has created, that these amendments offer a way forward that would meet the Government’s objectives and remove that anxiety. It would be a dignified way forward and I think it would command the support of the House. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the questions that have been asked around the House—and I look forward to him accepting these amendments.