6. Statement by the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition: The UK Internal Market Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:43 pm on 15 September 2020.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 6:43, 15 September 2020

I thank David Rees for those questions. On the first point, he is right to say, as Jenny Rathbone was saying in her question earlier, that we set food standards, of which we're proud here in Wales, but if another part of the UK chooses to adopt lower standards on a particular basis, we would not be able to prevent those goods and foods being sold in supermarkets and shops in Wales. So, that would be a direct example for you of the kind of way in which the standards we would set and legislate here in Senedd couldn't be enforceable, in effect. 

We would have a more ambitious approach to the control of single-use plastics, I guess, than the UK Government on behalf of England, but we would have a challenge in enforcing that if the rules were lower in England, and would enable plastics to be on the Welsh market in a way we could not effectively enforce. So, there are a number of very practical examples about the practical limitations that we would face in implementing our priorities as a Government on behalf of the people of Wales. So, it isn't simply a constitutional argument; this is about the practical aspects of people's weekly shop, effectively. 

On the common frameworks, I'm asking the UK Government to redouble its commitment to the common frameworks, because I think that it's in the common frameworks that lies the way of regulating these sets of questions. So, we've been able to diverge for 20 years between the four Governments in the UK in terms of some of these issues, and we want to be able to continue to do that. And the way to do that is to do it on an agreed basis and managed. We won't always be able to reach agreement, obviously, but there'll be a process by which that can be resolved in a way that respects the fact that power is devolved in the UK in a way that this Bill does not do.

And finally, to your point on the shared prosperity fund. Effectively, the spending powers in the Bill, which the UK Government is taking to itself from devolved areas, will enable them, effectively, to run some aspects of the shared prosperity fund directly in Wales. We have always known, haven't we, that those powers have been devolved to the Welsh Government, and there have, in fact, been commitments, although never manifested, by the UK Government that those powers wouldn't be taken away? Well, there are powers in this Bill that would enable that promise to be broken.