Chamber and committees

Only in relation to devolved responsibilities.

That is part of the debate, is it not? You could argue that the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is the legislation that is used to ensure that regulations are adhered to across the whole of the UK, rather than the particular bill that we are discussing today. The 2020 act is so controversial because the purpose and theory of the act is to override devolved responsibilities, whereas, here, we are talking about a particular bit of legislation on product regulation.

Apologies—I am not quite sure that I understand your question.

My understanding is that the UK retains the right to diverge from the EU, but that it has indicated that it would want to align with the EU on environmental law and in some other cases—I cited one example earlier. I guess that it will treat matters on a case-by-case basis.

I agree with your concerns. I can only assure the committee that there are wider conversations taking place between the Scottish Government and the UK Government about a lot of the issues.

That may well be so in some cases. Clearly, in a case whereby the UK Government came to us to seek consent on any secondary legislation impacting devolved issues, we would have to look at the merits of that. We do not know what would come in the future because it would be through future secondary legislation at UK level. We cannot just leave an open door, however, because there may be some occasions on which the regulation was not appropriate. The principle that we are trying to adhere to is that we cannot just say, “Even though this is impinging on devolution, maybe it is in our interests to have the same products across the UK.” You have to safeguard against the fact that in the future that may not be in our interests, so we have to make sure that we are consulted. If you were right and the regulations were uncontroversial, we might give consent—who knows?—but the point is that we should have the right not to give consent.

Thank you for the question. Our preference, because we could not see why the UK Government should object, was to ask for three things: the consent of Scottish ministers for any changes; devolved issues to be excluded from the bill, to reflect the Scotland Act 1998; and the potential for concurrent powers to allow us to take decisions under the legislation in Scotland. Of those three, the main one was to get consent given to Scottish ministers for any changes that affected devolution. There is a backstop in the Environment Act 2021 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990 for developing our own standards, which was used, for instance, for the banning of single-use vapes. Our preference would be to have concurrent powers, but we have a backstop in other legislation. As I said before, the other reason is the fact that the main thing for us was to get consent for Scottish ministers.

I will reiterate the Scottish Government’s position on the 2020 act, as you would expect, which is that we are wholly opposed to it, because it interferes with the principles of Scottish devolution. We are still looking for the relatively new UK Government to address Scottish concerns about that. It is the elephant in the room, to a certain extent.

We are opposed to the internal market act, because we could have this legislation that deals with product standards but who knows what would happen in the future if there was a divergence? If we used our own environment or environmental protection legislation—you know the background to this—we would, in theory, potentially have to deal with the threat of the UK Government using the internal market act to override decisions taken by this Parliament. It is difficult to answer on how that will interact in the future, but that is the backdrop that affects a lot of these issues.

I think that you are right to have that concern. As I said when I appeared before the committee last December, we were puzzled as to why we were getting resistance to respecting the devolution settlements. That is very unfortunate. What is the controversy over ensuring that the list of topics excluded under the bill reflects the Scotland Act 1998? Of course, the UK Government was not willing to accept that. As I said before, we asked for two or three things. We got the key one, which is what we are talking about: the obligation on the UK Government to seek consent from the Scottish ministers on anything that affects devolution. However, the fact that we encounter resistance for what, in our view, should be automatic, is a concern.

As the committee will be aware, the Scottish Government’s position is to align our regulations with those of the EU as far as possible. We have made those points to the UK Government, and there have been signs from the UK Government that it might reflect environmental law at EU level in UK domestic law. For instance, I have read that it has said that it will align with EU law on product regulation for radio equipment and related issues. Perhaps the UK Government is moving in the same direction as us, but it has retained the ability not to align, whereas our preference is that we should align with EU law.

What products might be affected is an open question. It just depends where the debate takes us in the future. However, as a principle, for all kinds of reasons, our principal position is that we should align with EU environmental law.