Lidington takes his first steps to broker ‘power grab’ agreement
Theresa May’s latest de facto deputy, David Lidington, was in Cardiff yesterday for talks about Brexit. Martin Shipton reports
WITH a doctorate in Elizabethan history, David Lidington will need all the guile of a diplomat from that distant age if the UK government is to avoid a constitutional crisis over Brexit.
A personable man who inherited his current role as Westminster’s chief fixer from Damian Green, Dr Lidington would like to broker an agreement between the administration he serves and the devolved governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh.
It’s not always easy to get a Labour government in Wales and an SNP government in Scotland to agree, but Westminster’s plan to intercept powers from the European Union that by rights should go straight to the devolved administrations has managed to create unity of purpose between them.
So far as Wales and Scotland are concerned, the Conservative government at Westminster is seeking to steam-roller the “power grab” through. For Wales that could mean up to 64 separate powers in a wide range of policy areas ranging from carbon capture and storage to agricultural support to public-sector procurement rules.
It’s a matter of principle for Carwyn Jones and Nicola Sturgeon that the devolution settlement they both guard jealously should not become collateral damage at the time of Brexit. They are therefore looking for amendments to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill that will allay their concerns.
Up until now the UK government hasn’t put forward concrete suggestions about how the disagreement could be resolved. It’s promised to come up with amendments as the bill passes through the House of Lords, but a previous promise on the same issue was broken.
Earlier this week the Welsh Government’s Finance Secretary, Mark Drakeford, was in London to talk to cross-party peers about the matter. He claims to have received a positive response to his request that they support amendments backed by Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.
Mr Drakeford feels empowered by the UK government’s loss of its majority, which it would certainly have used to sweep all before it.
But with a minority Tory administration that’s split over Brexit, the Welsh and Scottish governments believe they are in a good position to get what they want, with the help of the Lords and those Conservative MPs who aren’t rabid hard Brexiteers.
After talks involving Carwyn Jones, Mark Drakeford, David Lidington and Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns, Mr Jones said: “The meeting with David Lidington was constructive, with the minister clearly interested in listening. He reaffirmed the commitment that the government has made in public to bring forward amendments to the devolution aspects of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill in a way designed to enable the Welsh Government to recommend legislative consent.
“There remains significant work to do, however, to find sufficient common ground and I stressed the need for this work to be progressed at pace.
“We also emphasised that we remain committed to working as closely as possible with the Scottish Government.”
Both Dr Lidington and Mr Cairns were keen to stress the importance of the UK Single Market and the need to have common regulatory arrangements across the constituent countries of the UK. This is the best argument they have to justify their interference in the devolution settlement – even if that may seem a little odd from ministers who want to take us out of the EU single market.
Asked whether he would be adopting a conciliatory tone if the Conservatives had kept their majority in last year’s general election, Dr Lidington said: “The general election has happened, and we work with the result the people have given us.
“But I think what is important is that we’re going ahead in our talks with the devolved administrations in a genuine spirit of wanting a constructive agreement.
“We want all parts of the UK to benefit from the Brexit negotiations deal, and we want all parts of the UK to feel fully involved and consulted.”
Asked how he could square the desire to have a single market in the UK with the aspirations of the Welsh and Scottish devolved administrations, he said: “I hope that neither the Welsh nor the Scottish governments would want to harm the UK Single Market – because it’s not about politicians.
“This is about a small business here in Cardiff being able to sell freely to a customer in Manchester or Birmingham. It’s about a customer in Wales, perhaps somebody in the middle of Breconshire, being able to order online from a supplier in Devon or in Inverness and know that there’s going to be ease of trade, that there’s a common consumer protection regime, that the manufacturer, the farmer, knows that there’s only one lot of regulators, not four for different parts of the UK. That seems to be something that’s in the interests of everybody in the UK.”
Would the UK government then back a single regulator, with all four UK countries working together as equal parties?
Picking up the baton after Dr Lidington rushed off for a flight to Scotland, Mr Cairns responded: “This is about coming to an arrangement whereby we work according to the devolved settlements. What is reserved [to Westminster], of course, we want to come to an agreement on that, respecting what is also devolved in the same process. So this is about working positively within a United Kingdom because the Welsh Government is a unionist party, as is the UK government, and I’m optimistic we can come to an agreement.”