A new report published today by Scottish Environment LINK calls for urgent changes to the UK Internal Market Act, passed in 2020 as a replacement for the EU Single Market rules. The legislation prevents the devolved institutions from acting independently on a wide range of issues, including environmental and public health policy, and was instrumental in the collapse of the Scottish deposit return system for drinks containers.
The intervention by environmental campaigners comes after the UK government announced a fast-track review of the Internal Market Act would launch this month.
Policy measures which affect goods at the point of sale in one nation now require support from UK Ministers to come into effect, under what the Act calls the principle of “mutual recognition”. This issue has arisen with regard to policy areas as diverse as bans on horticultural peat, minimum unit pricing for alcohol, and the sale of XL Bully dogs. Measures in all these areas and many more would currently require Westminster’s approval to come into force.
The report examines the consequences of this far-reaching change for policy-making and for devolution itself, and recommends a series of changes. Most importantly, as was the case within the EU Single Market, devolved legislation which is a proportionate way to achieve public policy objectives should be automatically exempted from this process. This would restore the bulk of the powers devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland while ensuring clarity for business, NGOs, and Parliaments alike.
Deborah Long, Chief Executive of Scottish Environment LINK, said:
“One of the key ideas behind devolution was to make space for each of the four nations to innovate, to develop local solutions to shared problems, and to learn from each other’s experiences. Over the years, this has been particularly true of environmental and public health policy, with measures like the carrier bag charge being adopted by the devolved institutions first.
“This approach – part democracy, part testbed – has come to a grinding halt under the Internal Market Act. Devolved governments and parliaments are now wary of prolonged tussles over measures which had been well within their power for two decades. If the changes proposed in our report today are not adopted, we face years of inertia, delay and uncertainty, just as all the indicators show we should be acting more urgently than ever before.”
James Mackenzie, author of the report, said:
“Devolution came to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with great fanfare and on the back of three democratic mandates. More than twenty years later, through the Internal Market Act, those devolved institutions were radically undermined in a way many people are still not aware of.
“Many have called for the Act’s abolition, or its complete replacement with something which fully respects the devolution settlement. A comprehensive replacement might indeed be better in the long term, but the relatively modest measures set out today would restore a level playing field along the lines of the EU single market. This kind of legislative “keyhole surgery” could also be done very quickly, if UK Ministers have the desire to see the devolved institutions flourish again.”
Kat Jones, Director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, said:
“We campaigned for ten years for a simple deposit return system for Scotland, something Scottish Ministers could have brought in at any point since 1999, thanks to the devolution of environmental policy. Right at the last minute the plug got pulled by UK Ministers, wasting years of work and vast sums of money, and ensuring millions of cans and bottles end up in landfill or littered in our towns and countryside.
“The Internal Market Act is entirely unfit for purpose. It works directly against the principles of devolution, which had been operating happily for nearly two decades before the Internal Market Act. I would urge UK Ministers to consider these proposed changes for the benefit of both democracy and the environment.”