My Lords, I am going to say much the same things as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, but I will focus a little on my Amendment 65, which has been supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, as well as offering support from the Opposition Benches for Amendment 64 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and—if it is treated as consequential—Amendment 68.
The last time she joined us, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, responded to my amendment on the shared prosperity fund with a very full and useful speech, part of which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has already quoted. It was helpful to hear, because it was so clear what the purpose behind the new approach to the shared prosperity fund was to be. Although she may have to slightly change the way she expresses it when she responds in a few minutes, she confirmed, stressing the collaborative nature of the future, that this would
“allow the UK Government to complement and strengthen the support given to citizens in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, without taking away devolved Administrations’ responsibilities.”
That is all good stuff, but she went on to say—this was not quoted by the noble and learned Lord earlier—that
“the response to Covid has shown how the UK Government … can save jobs and support communities. This could only have been delivered strategically and at that scale by the UK Government.”
That interesting formulation has been much explored during this debate. I do not think the Minister will find much support across the House for that statement.
The Minister went on to say:
“The UK Government are uniquely positioned to level up across every part of the UK”. —[Official Report, 2/11/20; col. 596.]
That also needs to be challenged. It is the sort of thinking from which comes the “Westminster knows best” process, which has been criticised, and spending decisions being taken against the advice of those in the best position to know about them. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, this may lead to follies of the type of the garden bridge and, perhaps, the much-mooted bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland, which seems to be the answer to the Northern Ireland protocol problem.
I will talk a little about Amendment 65. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Rooker for talking about the work done in your Lordships’ House on a critique of the Barnett formula. He is absolutely right: if that formula had been replaced by something of a different nature, the funding levels in Wales and Scotland would have changed, because of inward immigration to Wales and external emigration from Scotland. There has been a change in the population levels which has not been reflected in settlements. The system does not command much love and affection, let alone support.
The proposal in Amendment 65 challenges the Government to think again about how they might wish to do the shared prosperity fund. If it is not clear, because the drafting is somewhat complicated, it is based on a model to which the closest analogue would be the Low Pay Commission. Despite allegations to the contrary, it weighs heavily on subsidiarity and proportionality as the principles under which it might be set up. Under the proposal in Amendment 65, it is the Secretary of State who sets the level of the fund, it is clearly the Government’s funding and their authority to set a level every year for that is not, in any sense, taken away. What the amendment does is to mandate consultation and provide an alternative, needs-based basis for judging the bids. As set out in proposed new subsection (11), this approach looks at an area’s proportion of children below the poverty line, low income, economic weakness, the age structure of the population, the impact of the pandemic and the impact of climate change—something we might want to consider more fully, though it has also been picked up today.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her kind words. For anyone in the Official Opposition to be ruled as “intelligent and thoughtful” is almost too much to take, but it probably rules out any further consideration of my amendment. It would not do to be seen to be endorsing that, would it?
As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, if Amendments 64 and 68 are passed, there will be a bit of a hole in the Government’s thinking on this area. They might want to think again about how do to that by looking at this amendment, certainly in the context of the responses to the now notorious box 3.1. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, on being able to adapt his speech to take account of the fact that he could have had only a few minutes to look at that box. His critique of it was spot on. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, box 3.1 is based on the assumption that the Government will receive the new financial assistance powers in this Bill—it says so straight out, at the beginning. It is also interesting that this is clearly a top-down approach:
“The government will develop a UK-wide framework for investment in places receiving funding and prioritising: investment in people … investment in communities … investment for local businesses”.
There is nothing exceptional or egregious about the list of things to do, but the idea that there is a top-down approach jars with everything we have been doing in the last 20 years to develop a much more responsive, local environment.
4.15 pm
It trumpets:
“Places receiving funding will be asked to agree specific outcomes to target within the UK-wide framework. They will then develop investment proposals to be approved by the government among a representative stakeholder group.”
What on earth does this all mean? However, it does say something that we might celebrate:
“Investment should be aligned with the government’s clean growth and net zero objectives.”
Is this the first time that the Government are prepared to accept publicly that there is a case for maintaining existing high environmental standards and net-zero objectives? If so, why is that not also being applied in the Bill to market access principles and the derogations from legitimate aims which the Government were dead against only a few days ago.
The whole approach being taken in this is redolent of what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, suggested was an attack on the devolution settlement and it must be opposed. This is not the way we do things. Amendment 65 is an attempt to think outside the box for the shared prosperity fund, but it is based on an assumption that there will be a continuation of the way in which devolution has worked. I hope that, when she comes to respond, the Minister will say that we are wrong about this, and that the Government’s proposals reaffirm their commitment to the devolution settlement. Their current proposals have exposed a centre that seems unable to listen and outlying areas that do not feel they are being consulted.
This power grab, and the rather ignoble assertions made by the Minister the first time round, exposes a key divide between us. Why do all the important things that she identified have to be done from the centre, when existing mechanisms allow these bodies, which have far greater knowledge of what is happening locally, to spend the resources more effectively? As I said in response to an earlier amendment about the common frameworks, it is now patently obvious that the Bill is actually about gathering powers, which should be devolved, to a relatively insensitive centre which is trying to imprison a multinational country composed of vibrant, diverse regions, with diverse histories and needs, into a straitjacket of a unitary state. We can, and need to, do better than that.