European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 11 January 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mairi Gougeon Mairi Gougeon Scottish National Party

The Finance and Constitution Committee of this Parliament unanimously agreed that the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in its current state is incompatible with the devolution settlement.

The UK Government has failed to deliver on its promises to bring forward key amendments to the bill at report stage, which is deeply regrettable and a disgrace. It leaves Scotland’s fate in the hands of the unelected and undemocratic House of Lords. Does the First Minister agree that now is the time for everyone in this chamber to unite in a simple message: hands off Scotland’s Parliament?

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

The failure to bring forward amendments to the withdrawal bill at report stage in the House of Commons is not just a disgrace—although it absolutely is a disgrace—but in direct contradiction to the promise that the Secretary of State for Scotland made that the amendments would be tabled in the House of Commons and not in the undemocratic, unelected House of Lords. That promise has been completely broken.

There is no excuse. During the week, I heard Tory MPs say that the situation was unfortunate and due to the tight timescale. The Scottish Government and the Welsh Government jointly wrote amendments that could have been tabled or supported by the UK Government. We need to see amendments without further delay, but not just any amendments; we need to see amendments that properly address the issue.

Clause 11 of the bill is a power grab. That is the view of the cross-party committee of this Parliament and we will not recommend approval of the bill to this Parliament unless clause 11 and the other aspects that concern members across the chamber are properly addressed.

We hope that we can still find agreement and we will continue to work constructively in order to try to find agreement, but we have to prepare for that not being possible. That is why we have set out plans to bring forward, if necessary, our own continuity bill.

It is absolutely disgraceful that, having launched that power grab on this Parliament, the Tories have then broken all the promises that they have made so far about fixing it. Let us see that change sooner rather than later.