UK ministers assured Parliament at the time that: In those cases, the Secretary of State would be able to bring to the House a statutory instrument to exclude from the market access principles a specific agreed area of divergence. This would follow consensus being reached between the UK Government and all the relevant parties that this is appropriate in respect of any specific defined topic 1 within a common framework . 1 Lord Callanan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, BEIS, House of Lords, 15 December 2020. https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2020-12-15/debates/30D48FC1-D74D-4627-8045- 405C01172EAA/UnitedKingdomInternalMarketBill Scottish Ministers, special advisers and the Permanent Secretary are covered by the terms of the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016.