Chamber and committees

It is interesting that the last point that Mr Kerr made is the complete opposite of what he said at the start of his questions about there being unanimity and consensus among the four witnesses.

In my view—I am speaking as a politician, but I realise that you guys are not—UKIMA was introduced for reasons of sheer political vindictiveness. It was a power grab that involved the reverse engineering of devolution. If people do not believe that, they have to consider what the rationale was.

We have talked about the asymmetry. It is hard to believe that there are people in this Parliament who are happy that England is set above the rest of the UK in the way that it is. Gene editing was the example that was given. You would think that the fact that the UK can legislate for England without needing to get any exemptions would trouble people in this Parliament, but it does not trouble all of us, which is unfortunate.

The UK internal market also sets itself against classical market theory, because it depresses ambition, aspiration and innovation. That is the effect that it is having—the chilling effect has been mentioned.

Therefore, there is no rationale for what has been done. UKIMA is a power grab. It is like when, after Brexit, the money that had come to Scotland from the EU was taken back by the UK, and it has disappeared ever since. I realise that that is my point of view, but it is interesting to see Brexiteers trying to wrestle with the contradictions of what they have created.

I realise that UKIMA’s repeal seems to be off the cards because the UK Government likes having power over Scotland that it did not have previously, and the new UK Government has gone back on the position of Welsh Labour and Scottish Labour, which advocated repeal. We can, however, do an exercise in our heads. If UKIMA were to be repealed—we have had indications that it might be replaced by a stronger legal framework—how would you envisage the so-called internal market within the UK working better? What would be the architecture if we were to do away with UKIMA? Is it just about building up legal structures that serve the same purpose? I ask Professor Horsley to answer first.

Are there any views on structures that are different from the one outlined by Professor Horsley?

But it would, like the Commission, have to be something that was not an interested party. At the moment, the UK Government has both political and territorial reasons for advantaging one area over another, so that approach would not work. In the past, we all had a say in the Commission, the Council of Europe and the European Parliament—now we do not. This sort of thing is decided at the caprice of the UK Government.

When the OIM representatives were before the committee, it seemed to me that it does not have any real powers at all.

My only other question does not necessarily require a response from everybody. I think it unlikely that political parties thirled to a centralised unitary state in the UK will cede this power voluntarily—that is probably hoping for too much—but, to me, one of the issues seems to be a political one. A UK Government will not want to be overtaken on the outside by Wales or Scotland doing something that is innovative and which takes them ahead of the game. It will not want that for political reasons, and it will dampen it.

More crucial, though, is the point that has been made about business. The one thing that businesses always say, and would say if they were here today, is that they do not like uncertainty. Indeed, Professor Horsley made that point. It is a bit like the planning system; for years, I used to rail against planning officials in my council, because all they would do was wait until somebody put in a design for a house or a development and then say no. Instead of engaging with them and saying, “This is how you can get what you want”, they would just say, “Try your best—and then we’ll usually say no.” That seems to be the space that we are in here, and if that is the space that we are in for businesses or anybody else who is trying to innovate, innovation and ambition will die. That uncertainty, given the sunk costs that one has to take on in order to develop something, is not going to be seen by people as a good prospect.

Is there any other change over and above those that you have already outlined that might help to address that uncertainty for business, even if we are stuck with this regressive legislation? Is there anything else that occurs to you, or have you covered everything already?

I have a question for Mr Hall first and then one for both witnesses. Mr Austin mentioned the limited examples of how people have chosen to do things differently. I wonder whether, because such choices—the DRS or the ban on glue traps—have been slapped down and people have been told, imperiously, that they will not do it, there is a feeling that there is no point in bothering to innovate or trying to do something different in future.

However, in the example of gene editing that you mentioned, Mr Hall, you rightly pointed out the asymmetry of the situation: the UK Government can just make the decision for England and does not have to answer to anybody but everyone else has to answer to the UK Government. I have no doubt that, had it been the other way round—had Scotland unilaterally chosen to go for gene editing and England had not—this outcome would not have happened. That is just the way that things go.

You made a comment in your opening statement that the system was designed to provide no competitive advantage or disadvantage. If that is the case, it is not really a market at all, is it? That is like going to a market where everyone is selling the same goods for the same price. Surely a market, by definition, has competition and elements to it that are more competitive and less competitive. Otherwise, it is not really a market.

Like Miles Briggs, I am keen to understand the context and what is behind the pressures that are bubbling up. I think that we can all see those pressures, whether they are due to 14 years of—let us say—restrained public expenditure or the pandemic. What is the situation as you understand it with comparison to England and Wales? I know that Newcastle University, the University of Sheffield and a number of others have some problems. What is your understanding of the situation in Scotland as compared with the wider UK?

My question is simply about what monitoring is done and what data is collected relating to people who move from the armed services into further and higher education. I am not asking about the armed forces covenant in that regard—although I and many veterans are sceptical of its worth—but what data is collected? What relationships are there between the military and further and higher education institutions and associated bodies, particularly in relation to resettlement courses and people moving from the armed services into further and higher education, especially since there are so many early service leavers these days?

We have been talking about some of the groups that you are getting data on. Is any data collected on, or is there any initiative in relation to, ex-service personnel entering further and higher education?

Is any of that based on relationships that institutions might have with the armed forces and resettlement schemes, for example?