Baroness Drake (Lab)

My Lords, I will not keep you too long. I thank my noble friend Lady Anderson for her fulsome reply. It is much appreciated. I think my noble friend Lady Andrews and I feel that there is a certain timidity on the positive engagement principle: having drafted something in 2022 does not necessarily mean that it is set in stone, so there should still be an aspiration to stay with that principle. If you win that principle with all the other devolved Administrations it will definitely be indicative of progress. On the annual transparency report, I am sure the committee will love to continue engaging with the Government. It is really a very important part of it; actually, if done correctly, it would be a clear statement of faith by the Government that they do want to change things. I did not refer particularly to the impact of the Council of the Nations and Regions because it was so new, but the follow-up report, Executive Oversight and Responsibility for the UK Constitution, which is heading this way, starts to pick up some of the issues that people have articulated today. I was delighted to hear my noble friend Lady Anderson say that she was upbeat and that the work of the Government was not done. That was very positive and welcome. The memorandum of understanding is certainly awaited with interest. I completely agree with her that it needs to be done correctly but, equally, it needs to be ambitious as well, we hope. On secondary legislation, the Government’s use of such powers and Henry VIII powers, there is actually a bit of a precedent with the Fisheries Bill, in a sense that somebody put their toe in the water first, which starts to embrace some of the things. The committee has not and never has proposed a rewriting of the constitutional settlement, but the most important thing, which we heard from the noble Lords, Lord Thomas and Lord Kerr, the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and many others, is that the danger for the Government is that if it is perceived that Ministers are empowered too easily with delegated and Henry VIII powers, with the intention of undermining the devolved legislatures, then that union cohesion comes under a lot of pressure. That is the issue that is being struggled with: that sense of faith, or otherwise, by the devolved Governments as to how the UK Government are behaving in that respect. Finally, as ever, one of the most perceptive comments came from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth—as an ex-chair of the Constitution Committee, I would not have expected anything less from him—when he said that the context of this report has to be understood. He is right: the Constitution Committee’s reports are predicated on a belief that the UK is a joint endeavour and shared asset for all the nations, regions and communities. That is our opening premise on which all of our analysis is made, and has been by Constitution Committees since they engaged with this issue. That is so important. That means that any Government not only have a responsibility to improve the relations of today—obviously, the current Government are seeking to do that—but have to build something that will weather future stresses. That is the bit that is still in play. Obviously, we will look to the Government to build something that has the capacity so that we do not see what we started to see with Brexit and other problems. I thank everybody who participated today. It has been a great debate, and good luck to the committee taking this forward with the Government.