THERESA May’s number two has “given the game away” over the great Westminster power grab, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claimed yesterday.
During First Minister’s Questions, the SNP leader said comments from Tory Damian Green, effectively the deputy prime minister, showed the UK Government wanted to seize powers that should go to the Scottish parliament after Brexit.
In an interview Green seemed to suggest that if agricultural powers went to Holyrood and the Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments there would be subsidy wars within the UK. For the country-wide system of rules to be kept intact, then some EU powers on fishing and agriculture, currently exercised by devolved parliaments, will have to be kept in ‘‘national frameworks” and be reserved at Westminster, Green suggested.
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For example, agriculture subsidies currently decided by the EU and distributed by the Scottish Parliament would be decided by the UK after Brexit.
In an interview for a website, Green said: “We must ensure the benefits of free trade around the UK, which we’ve all taken for granted because we are one country, are preserved after Brexit because a lot of the rules about trade have been operated at a European level rather than at a UK level.
“Agriculture is clearly an area where most of the rules were set at European level but those that weren’t are devolved down and we want to continue that.”
But he added: “We need to make sure that we don’t have subsidy wars to try to help sheep farmers, some in Scotland and some in Wales and so on.”
It was the first tacit admission that some agricultural powers would not go to Holyrood and be kept by Westminster.
Yesterday during questions at Holyrood, Richard Lochhead, a former agriculture secretary in the Scottish Government, asked Sturgeon if she was aware of Green’s comments.
“In other words, he wants framework agreements to be drawn up to smother and silence devolution and this Parliament’s right to decide what is in the interests of Scotland,” Lochhead said.
The First Minister said: “This week, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the devolution referendum. The Scotland Act 1998, on which this Parliament is built, is based on the important principle that everything is devolved unless it is expressly reserved.
‘‘The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill turns that principle on its head and means that every power, if it comes back from the EU – even in devolved areas – is reserved at Westminster unless a United Kingdom government decides that it is going to devolve it.
“Damian Green, in the comments that were reported today, gives the game away. The UK Government wants to take that approach in order to restrict the freedom of decision and manoeuvre of this Parliament in devolved areas.
“There are deeply concerning aspects to that. Take agriculture for example. Damian Green talked about ‘subsidy wars’. Is that code for wanting to reduce the funding that goes to our farmers?
“Right now, farmers in Scotland get 16 per cent of farm funding. We should get more than that, because of the percentage of land. Does the UK Government want to see that amount reduced?
“This is a serious issue. It has serious consequences for different parts of society and our economy; it is also serious in principle. Matters that are devolved should be for this Parliament to decide; they should not be re-reserved to Westminster to allow a Westminster Government to do whatever it sees fit. It is a big issue of principle, and the Tories would do well to start standing up for this Parliament, instead of just doing what their bosses at Westminster tell them to do.”
Meanwhile, in Brussels, Jean-Claude Juncker said Brexit had “already become the past” for the EU.
“I don’t want to preach to people or try and educate them about Brexit, I’ve had many opportunities to do that. Brexit isn’t the future, it has already become the past,” he said.
Scottish Brexit minister Michael Russell has already attacked Westminster’s plans to use so-called Henry VIII powers to enact legislation changes after Brexit without normal parliamentary scrutiny.
The Hansard Society has said of the powers that ‘‘the inadequate constraints placed on them, and shortcomings in the proposed control of the delegated legislation that will be made for using them, constitute a toxic mix for Parliament”.
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