Chamber and committees

Just to let you know, Professor McEwen, the interparliamentary forum has its first meeting next Thursday in London, and the deputy convener and I will be attending.

I move to questions from the committee.

We may come back to that. I do not want to take up the whole time. I will ask Mr Leheny a question. In your paper, you state:

“UK food produce is now treated as 3rd country status when entering the Single Market which has created a huge burden on GB exporters.”

Can you expand on what the impact has been on food producers in Scotland?

We had a couple of brief breaks in transmission during your response. I think that we have the gist of what you were saying, but you might want to come back and clarify. I think that we are okay in terms of understanding your point.

You mentioned some specific examples, which is always very helpful. There has been a lot of talk about farmers and seed potatoes in Scotland. That issue seems to be in a negotiation stage. Could you give us some specific examples of the types of products that may end up in this situation of uncertainty and, as things go forward, things that might happen to other goods?

Are you hearing us? That question was for Dr Melo Araujo.

I do not think that he can hear us. I am very sorry, but we are probably finished with our questions anyway.

I thank both our witnesses for their contribution and for the helpful briefings to the committee prior to the meeting. I will suspend the meeting for a brief break. Thank you.

Good morning and welcome to the 12th meeting of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. The committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the United Kingdom internal market. The aim of the inquiry is to consider the implications of the UK internal market for Scotland, including how devolution will work going forward. We have two panels this morning. In our first panel, we will hear from Seamus Leheny, Northern Ireland policy manager, Logistics UK; and Billy Melo Araujo, senior lecturer, school of law, Queen’s University Belfast. I welcome everyone to the meeting this morning.

We will move straight to questions and I have an opening question. Dr Melo Araujo, I will begin with your paper. You state that, even if Scotland continues to align with European Union law, it

“will not, however, remove regulatory barriers faced by Scottish business exporting to NI.”

Can you explain to the committee what that would mean for the competitiveness of Scottish businesses wishing to trade in Northern Ireland?

Mr Leheny, do you have any comments to make in response to Sarah Boyack’s questions? For example, do you have anything to say about the uncertainty that has been created?

The committee will now hear evidence from our second panel of witnesses on the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. I welcome Professor Jo Hunt, professor of law at Cardiff University; Professor Nicola McEwen, senior fellow in the UK in a Changing Europe initiative; and Professor Stephen Weatherill, emeritus Jacques Delors professor of European law at the University of Oxford. Professor Weatherill might be a bit late onboarding. No—he is here, so everybody is here.

I move straight to an opening question for Professor Weatherill. In your paper, you state:

“the EU’s internal market is designed to favour the claims of local regulatory autonomy over the claims of unimpeded trade significantly more than is the UK’s internal market.”

Professors Hunt and McEwen’s paper states:

“Whereas devolution prioritized political autonomy and the ability to do things differently, the UK Internal Market Act prioritises unfettered market access.”

Will you comment further on that?

On that note, I bring the session to an end. I thank all the witnesses for their attendance and for their helpful submissions to the committee.

I have a couple of final questions. Mr Leheny, you talked about the freight companies increasingly choosing to use the port at Cairnryan as a route from GB and the impact that that is having elsewhere. Do you have any concerns about capacity? Neither road route from Cairnryan, either to the south or to the north on the A77, is particularly good, but what are the capacity issues at the port? Are you concerned about that?

I will roll two issues into one question, because we are up against time. The internal market act did not receive consent from the Scottish Parliament, and I believe that a judicial review is on-going in Wales. How precarious is the situation, depending on the outcome of that court case?

We have talked a lot about the interparliamentary forum and ways of scrutinising. My understanding is that we have the power to scrutinise Scottish Government ministers’ actions in these areas but, as soon as executive power is used in a devolved area, we are not able even to call a UK Government minister to appear before a scrutinising committee of the Scottish Parliament. Should arrangements relating to security and transparency in such areas be formalised, perhaps through a change in the law? Even the interparliamentary forum is not yet a formal arrangement between the Parliaments. How could arrangements be firmed up to ensure that there is absolute certainty that the devolved nations can scrutinise in such areas?