My Lords, like others, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, on his campaign. The Government have listened to it and that has resulted in a number of good and important changes to the Bill. He exerts great influence on our work, and long may it continue.
I admire the thinking that has gone into Amendment 75, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and his supporters. It proposes a response to another of the gaps that we keep encountering in the Bill—the need to reform the JMC system and the need for a mechanism for getting agreement, with particular reference, in this case, to the market access principles, about which we have different views. This may not be the time to bring this particular proposal in, but it shows us the way forward and I hope that that will influence the Government’s thinking in other ways and in other parts of our political consciousness.
Amendment 76, in my name, was intended as a fallback, in case our plans for ensuring that the common frameworks programme was made the centrepiece of the process for agreeing the rules required to underpin the UK internal market fell by the wayside. However, this House has strongly supported the amendments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on the common frameworks, and we hope that, in time, we can persuade the Government that they can and should do likewise.
I am less sure that we have persuaded the Government about the damage they will do to the devolution settlement if they do not change tack on how state aid is to be organised and their current top-down plans for the shared prosperity fund. I urge them to reflect on the opportunity they have been given by the votes today, but I do not think Amendment 76 will actually take the trick that it was intended to in this case, so I shall not be pressing it to a vote.
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