Devolved governments face “years of inertia, delay and uncertainty” without reforms being made to a key piece of post-Brexit legislation, campaigners have claimed.
A new report for Scottish Environment LINK – a charity which brings together more than 40 different environmental groups – said the Internal Market Act had “radically undermined” the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The legislation, introduced by the Tories at Westminster in the wake of the UK’s exit from the European Union, set out to create a single market across the UK.
It caused difficulties for the Scottish Government when it attempted to introduce a deposit return scheme for empty cans and bottles ahead of the rest of the UK.
The report’s author James Mackenzie has called for there to be “legislative ‘keyhole surgery’” on the Act, saying this could help the “devolved institutions flourish again”.
Scottish Environment LINK chief executive Deborah Long 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”.
This has been “particularly true of environmental and public health policy”, she said, resulting in “measures like the carrier bag charge being adopted by the devolved institutions first”.
However, Ms Long said this approach – which she described as “part democracy, part testbed” – had “come to a grinding halt under the Internal Market Act”.
She stated: “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.”
Branding the Act a “a mechanism unfit for the governance of four nations”, the report said: “Changes to it can and should be made.”
One of its suggestions is that a qualified automatic exemption be introduced to the legislation for environmental and public health policy.
“Such a system could be implemented simply though the regulatory powers contained within the Act itself,” the report noted.
The Internal Market Act was introduced by the UK Government in the wake of the decision to quit the European Union (Aaron Chown/PA)
An alternative to that would be for the UK Government to consider a “package of wider changes to the Act via primary legislation”.
Mr Mackenzie said that while devolution had been introduced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with “great fanfare”, the introduction of the Act more than 20 years later meant that “those devolved institutions were radically undermined in a way many people are still not aware of”.
He said: “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.”
Speaking about the impact the legislation had on plans for a deposit return scheme in Scotland, Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, said: “We campaigned for 10 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.”
A UK Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to working closely with the devolved nations to ensure governments at all levels are making decisions that support the economic success of our communities.
“We are beginning a broad review of the UK Internal Market Act this month and will be consulting widely, which will allow us to quickly decide on next steps to make processes work better and bring growth and shared prosperity to all parts of the UK.”
Scottish Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said: “We know that the UK Government intends to launch a statutory review of the Internal Market Act.
“The Act was imposed on the Scottish Parliament without its consent and radically undermines the devolution settlement.
“The Scottish Government is clear that the statutory review must lead to the Act’s repeal, with the powers of the Scottish Parliament fully restored.”