14:27 The First Deputy Chairman (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)

“force Scotland to follow the lowest common denominator, especially where countries negotiating bilateral trade deals with the UK demand lower standards seriously undermining efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity decline.”

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15:15 Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)

Back in December, this Government won for themselves the right to implement Brexit in any way they chose. As a second choice to remaining in the European Union, I would have hoped for ambitious plans to manage a just transition away from carbon-emitting industries, with the creation of new green jobs and a highly skilled workforce. I would have hoped for a United Kingdom that looked to be a leader in promoting human rights, international development and the battle against climate change. Was it too much to hope that the promised sovereignty, which was so precious that everything had to be sacrificed to it, would be granted to Parliament to help steer the course of our independent future?

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15:30 Richard Holden (Conservative)

My new clause provides for a wider system of derogations, allowing an individual jurisdiction to refuse mutual recognition with the justification of legitimate public policy objectives and, specifically, on the grounds of measures to protect the environment. This is needed to begin more properly to address the need to improve environmental standards to deal with the climate crisis and nature’s stark decline. It is also needed to support and respect the devolution settlements by ensuring that measures taken by the devolved Governments in areas within their competence will not be undermined by this Bill.

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17:30 Drew Hendry (North East Fife) (LD)

After clause 46, which takes back control of spending in devolved areas, the mutual recognition clauses will have the biggest impact in respect of removing powers from the devolved Governments. Mutual recognition will mean that any devolved legislation to maintain or drive up standards will end up applying only to local producers and not to goods from elsewhere in the UK. That would, of course, put local producers at a disadvantage, without achieving the benefit that the devolved Governments were seeking. The EU single market is based on mutual recognition, but the EU generally sets higher standards rather than lower ones and, as was mentioned previously, new standards are agreed by all 27—previously 28—nations. Unlike the UK, the EU accepts derogations for social benefits such as public health, consumer protection, waste reduction or tackling climate change. The Bill has no such derogations at all.

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