Chamber and committees

That takes me to the second part of my question. What is the scope for such disagreements to be resolved? We can think of the example of changes in climate policy, which are not necessarily experimental but are definitely good practice. What is the scope for interaction between devolved and UK Governments to resolve those issues?

I will follow up on Mark Ruskell’s question. It was said that the procurement process could be impacted. Your written submission says:

“whereas regulations affecting the production or sale of goods are subject to the market access principles, regulations affecting the use of goods are not.”

Does that mean that procurement or planning would not be covered by market access principles, because that is about how products are used through Government systems, not about whether products are made in a certain way? Could you draw out the difference? It is quite important that we have that on the record. I want to check that I have understood the representations that we have had.

I am keen to follow up on questions about divergence and accountability. I thank the witnesses for their briefings. Professor Weatherill, you and others have given us submissions that identify pressures from the UK internal market to lower standards, but other evidence that we have received suggests that divergence could have a positive impact. For example, the Institute for Government suggested that divergence could enable the testing of the effectiveness of policy implementation, evaluate success and encourage collaborative learning, and Fidra talked about its potential environmental benefits. Will you give us a sense of the space for devolved governments to apply policy change within their competence? You have said that that is limited. What is the scope to resolve any disagreements on those issues?

That was helpful—thank you.

My first question was about alignment with EU regulations, which triggered the question about transparency. There is alignment with EU regulations in Northern Ireland. Scotland is committed to doing that as well, but many of the commentators have explained the tensions that exist. How do we monitor what happens with divergence? People have said that the standards will go down, but Northern Ireland and Scotland want to stay aligned with EU standards. How will that impact on the rest of the UK market—the internal market that the legislation aspires to deliver?

How do people plan ahead? I am thinking of businesses, in particular. Dr Melo Araujo, several of the respondents to our questions said that there would be a “race to the bottom” in standards, but it is clear from your submission that Northern Ireland will align with EU standards, and the Scottish Government is committed to keeping pace with EU standards.

How will the issue of alignment with EU regulations have an impact on the wider UK internal market in the future, given that Northern Ireland will have that opportunity? How can we, as parliamentarians, have accountability or transparency, given that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are not involved in the transparency process through the meetings that take place between the UK Government and the EU? I realise that that is two questions.

We are still waiting to find out whether there will be the capacity for divergence. You also mentioned in your evidence the need for more intergovernmental and interparliamentary transparency. Can you say a bit about the recommendations that you made in that regard, and how this committee should be following them?

That is useful information, convener, thank you.

Professor Hunt, could you comment about the action that is needed? I very much welcomed the submission that you were partly responsible for, but we also had a submission from Scottish Environment LINK that raised the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and the issue of the importance of the accountability in Scotland of, for example, the Office for the Internal Market. To come back to the question that I asked Professor McEwen about parliamentary scrutiny, given that timescales are tight, how can we deliver better intergovernmental relations and also better scrutiny though interparliamentary liaison work? Could you say a little bit more about that, with reference to your submission?

That is a helpful answer. In particular, we might be interested in that issue about the closed process and to what extent there is any transparency on those issues from the Office for the Internal Market.

Could you finish by saying a bit about dispute resolutions? I mentioned that in relation to my first question to Professor Weatherill.

I was thinking about both those issues. An issue that came up in our scrutiny was the challenge for people to know what is coming next in Europe. We are no longer at the table there. A huge amount of EU legislation is being developed and we need a sense of where the EU is going so that it is not a surprise when issues finally go through the European Parliament. I was just thinking about how we do a bit of looking forward ourselves. Do any of the other witnesses have a comment to make on that?

That is a helpful answer.