 Rwy'n gwybod, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio. Rydyn ni'n ddweud i'r wefnodd. Rydyn ni'n Fvalentina Sloan QC, y barysgwyr ar Moncton Chymbr. Mae'n gweithio'n tro o'r 3 o 5 webinarau, oedd o'r gweithio'n gweithio'r Chymbr a'r Ffacoledigol ar Cymbr. Rydyn ni'n gweithio'r webinarau arall o wneud i wneud eu rhysgolion i eu rhannu. If you've missed either the first two webinars, they are available to watch on YouTube, there are also helpful summaries on the EU Law Relations Blog, which is an invaluable resource of articles on this developing area. It's been pioneered by Jack Williams, a barrister at Moncton Chambers, who is a speaker at the first two webinars. A link to the blog and the earlier webinars can be found on the Moncton Chambers website. So today's webinar focuses on the topic of the internal market, and today we are fortunate to be joined by a galaxy of talent giving their insights on today's topics. If you wish to pose any questions to today's panellists, there is a Q&A function where you can post a question at any point, and we've allotted some time at the end of the webinar to ask our panellists some of those questions. So I am delighted to welcome the first of our extremely distinguished panel, and that is the first speaker is Joe Hunt, Professor of Law in the Cardiff University School of Law and Politics, and Joe is going to be speaking on the UK internal market, a solution in search for a problem. Thank you, Professor Hunt. Thank you, Valentina, and greetings from Penarth South Wales. What I want to do in my brief contribution is to consider why the UK internal market has become an issue that needs solving and provide something of a critique from a devolution perspective of the solution that's been posed so far. And I want to highlight certain substantive problems that we have in the proposals in the internal market bill, but also the problems that the bill poses in terms of the process that is laid behind its introduction, and what this says about contemporary states of intergovernmental relations in the UK. I intended not to have to think about the UK internal market because, although we've had 20 odd years of legislative devolution operating across the nations of the United Kingdom. There remain clearly powers that are reserved to the UK Parliament powers in areas which connect with key matters directly bearing on UK wide economic activities. So competition policy consumer protection product standards these areas are reserved. It's because in those areas which are devolved, such as agriculture, food and feed, the environment in those areas, divergence or potential divergence could be kept in check by the discipline of EU membership. And this is seen both in EU wide harmonising legislation in those areas, and also where we don't have legislation applying where there is no harmonising legislation covering a particular matter. And then we see the exercise of those horizontal free movement principles at work. And what the internal market bill, the UK internal market bill is is presented as a solution to the threat of regulatory divergence that may emerge within the UK that divergence has previously been kept within certain tolerances set by the EU by EU law. Of course, EU law hasn't demanded that all things are uniform. It has space for divergence and difference within EU law, both within the harmonising EU legislation, and when applying the free movement principles, where it's of course possible to objectively justify different regulatory processes, which may otherwise constitute hundreds as to trade on a range of public policy basis and this, this opportunity applies just as much to the devolved legislatures and governments as it does to the UK government. Yn dweud yn 2017, the agreed approach to managing the UK internal market as we segue out to the EU membership was through rolling over existing elements of harmonised EU law in devolved areas into new UK wide common frameworks. These are then sort of effectively a series of discrete regimes for internal UK intergovernmental governance, a way of managing divergence built around retained EU law. Some of these will require hard legislation some much softer forms of coordination. I mean sort of the first of these emerging for parliamentary scrutiny in areas such food and feed safety nutritional labelling, and all acknowledge the potential the possibility of divergence being an agreed solution across the UK in those areas. The fullback solution, in case the frameworks aren't in place by the time the UK leaves the EU and by the time they are needed, was provided in 2018. One solution in the 2018 withdrawal act, which provides a power for UK government ministers, having sought consent from the devolved governments to freeze the exercise of devolved competence in relation to specific provisions of EU retained law. It is also a particular political agreement on the part of the UK government at that time, not to take unilateral policy action in those frozen areas. So that was a sort of a collaborative joint way of working that was foreseen back in 2017 2018. Much more recently, we have this internal market bill, which takes a very different approach, and brings its horizontal market access principles to the use of devolved powers. Now the UK government maintains that there is no restriction on devolved competence introduced by the provisions of the bill. The governments and legislatures can continue to adopt their chosen policies within their fields of competence. But the effects of the market access principles is to prevent the application of those regulations to the producers to the service providers and to workers from outside the local territories. The Welsh Senedd law to limit the the access of single use plastics on the Welsh market would only apply to those producers within Wales would not apply to producers from other parts of the United Kingdom. The impact assessment to the bill explicitly recognises that this means that some of the societal benefits of policy choices by the devolved legislatures may be foregone. The bills described as filling the gaps that can't be filled by the common frameworks programme, but it doesn't identify what those gaps may be where they may fall. And indeed, it cuts that very common frameworks process off at the knees. Where is the interest in agreeing through collaboration a common framework if the devolved legislatures won't see the effective consequences of their local policy choices and if the UK government can have its preferred solution accepted under the market access principles. It also hasn't been explained why if a solution was needed to any potential emerging problem of regulatory divergence. Why we can't use the solution that we're all well used to the solution is provided by EU law. Why are the horizontal principles that are provided and the free movement law of the EU. Why are they not sufficient in a UK context where they have been up until this point. Why are we presented with very limited opportunities for objective general no opportunities for objective justification in a way that we've become used to in an EU context, but essentially a an absolute and unconditional market access principle with such limited grounds for opportunities for the local legislature to raise objections. And what we have is a real clash here in the approaches taken to managing the UK internal market. The collaborative consensual approach under the common frameworks approach, where there is space for market access concerns to be balanced with other policy objectives. And this top down approach that we have under the internal market bill, which leaves little space for anything other than a consideration of the free flow of goods and services across the UK market. Of course, all of this is important from an international trade perspective in terms of making it clear to potential trade partners that the UK government can commit the UK market as a whole to partners in terms of goods and services that might form part of any trade deal. And perhaps ensuring that this is in place before the end of the transition period is more of a driver for getting this legislation through than real concerns with internal trade domestic internal trade. And perhaps reflects there are the breakneck speed that the UK government is seeking to steer the legislation through its parliamentary stages. And here I want to reflect on that process. The bill deals with matters of UK wide concerned. It impacts on the four nations and on their roles, their responsibilities and their powers. And the bill should have emerged through a more collaborative four nations approach. We have a measure here that is emerged without any prior consultation, any joint working, and it's effectively presented to the other governments and parliaments of the UK as a fater comply. The resulting measures trample and devolve competences on the effectiveness of local policy choices, as well they introduce new spending powers for the UK government in devolved areas, which may cause internal impact on local priorities and policy commitments. And the approach is one that has not paid respect to the devolution settlements and has done little for the trust and good relations between the administrations that we have otherwise seen through the common frameworks process. Now according to constitutional convention the UK parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters without consent from the devolved parliaments. This is the soul convention. The Welsh government had produced a set of model amendments to the internal market bill that found supporters in the House of Lords. And we know that a number of those amendments have been made to the bill at this stage but with some way from expecting the legislation to take a final form when it gets back to the House of Commons final form that's acceptable to the devolved legislatures. So where does that leave us. We had legislation passed without devolved consent before. The withdrawal agreement act earlier this year. We had all three legislatures refused to give that devolved legislatures refused to give their agreement that legislation but the UK government pressed ahead there with the argument that this was not normal these were not normal circumstances. And it was stated that the circumstances withdrawing from the union was specific, singular and exceptional. Are we here again in a specific singular and exceptional situation where we see the government press ahead with legislation that both in its substance and its process are profoundly damaging to the into the intergovernmental relations across the United Kingdom. Thank you very much Joe. We're now going over to Alan for the second of the talks Alan is a barrister at Moncton chambers and a leading junior in EU law. We are taking on a market access commitment, the principles of mutual recognition and non discrimination over to you Alan. Good afternoon everybody. Yes, the principles of mutual recognition and non discrimination in the UK internal market bill. We have access principles that are set out in clause one. And they sound like essentially technocratic concepts, but anyone who has studied the development of EU law knows just how powerful principles like that can be in shaping law and also politics over time. I want to take a different approach from the EU treaties in that it seeks to avoid setting out principles in bold terms, and then leaving it to the courts and subsequent legislation to develop those principles and work out precisely how they bite clause one says that the principles have no direct legal effect except as provided in this part of the bill. And the bill then seeks to carefully define when and precisely how the market access principles will limit the ability of each part of the United Kingdom to impede or affect trade in goods originating from or services applied from elsewhere in the UK. But on careful examination, there is still much work I think for the courts to do the absence of any mechanism for laying down and developing harmonized UK wide standards in areas of policy which are devolved. Will I think perhaps mean an even greater role for the courts. And by that I mean that the extent to which the courts are involved in dealing with disputes about defining the limits on legislative and executive powers to regulate goods and services in specific situations will be greater. Precisely because the development of harmonized standards is not an easily accessible alternative for addressing the public policy concerns and sometimes course the precise way in which legislation affects the development of law and politics can't be predicted at the moment. And I think this is one of those bits of legislation, but I think in 10 years time when we look back, we'll see the way it has subjected the fishers in the UK constitution to extreme pressures which have had a truly transformative effect in terms of legal and political consequences. So focusing now on what the law will be. I'm conscious that for some of the people viewing this seminar, the bill will be familiar territory, but please bear with me as for many others it may be entirely new. And I know that means entirely new even to viewers of our previous seminars because whilst internal market law UK internal market law certainly interrelates with the relations law. It's going to be a major area of law, all on its own. So what I'm going to do in the time I have is briefly outline how the mutual recognition and non discrimination requirements in the bill work and also comment on some issues and difficulties that I think will arise. The bill itself is divided into a number of topic areas it looks at goods and then services and then recognition of professional qualifications. In the time I've got I'm going to just focus on goods and and see how the two principles work in that context. So beginning with mutual recognition. And this is a principle that seeks to ensure that goods that are made in or imported into one part of the UK, where they can lawfully be sold can also be lawfully sold in the other parts of the UK. And the bill provides the regulations about goods, where the relevant requirements will be displayed under mutual recognition. So what are relevant requirements that can potentially be displayed or their requirements that relate to the characteristics of the goods, their presentation, or the documents to be supplied alongside them. So if you've got, for example, I've got some marmite from breakfast, the content of it, how it's made, the ingredients, and also the labelling. They will all be relevant requirements, as will any documents that have to be produced and shown in order to regulate the safety of that product. It's important to note that relevant requirements in this context also include how the product is made, which is important in relation to things like animal welfare and social welfare standards that are concerned about methods of production. So that's what's within the scope of mutual recognition, where a product that meets those sorts of requirements in one part of the UK can also be sold elsewhere in the UK, even if that's on the face of it, contrary to requirements that apply in that part of the UK. Now, mutual recognition of relevant requirements concerned with products is to be distinguished from what are called manner of sale requirements. So things like rules that alcohol can't be sold to people under 18 or can't be sold during certain hours. They are a manner of sale requirements, and so they are outside the scope of mutual recognition, but would come within the rules of non discrimination that will come on to in a moment. And the same goes for advertising as well, where that would be advertising a product would also be outside of mutual recognition. The principle of mutual recognition is that products have to comply with the local rules in the part of the UK where they are made so determining the location of production will be important. And the bill defines produced as meaning the place where the most significant production step which is a regulated step has occurred. So things like actually formulating the product in its main constituent parts that's clearly going to be production, but other steps like preserving activities packaging and testing generally won't be a significant step but clearly there's going to be lots of room for argument in relation to that this because for example, packaging of a product is sometimes very significant in terms of the character of the goods or their purpose and the value that's attributed to the products by the consumer. So that's mutual recognition. What about non discrimination. Well the key thing to note is that both direct and indirect discrimination against goods coming from other parts of the UK is covered. That's a familiar distinction direct and indirect discrimination from you law and other contacts. What's the difference well direct discrimination is treating incoming goods differently from local goods and indirect discrimination is where the rules that apply to incoming goods are the same, but they put incoming goods at a disadvantage. And the definition of a relevant requirement which indirectly discriminates against incoming goods talks about putting incoming goods. Applying to incoming goods in a way that puts them at a disadvantage and then it defines that by saying good to put a disadvantage if it is made in any way more difficult, or less attractive to sell or buy the goods or do anything in connection with their sale. Then if the requirement did not apply. So that's a really rather broad sweeping definition of the ways in which incoming goods could be put at a disadvantage. The definition of indirect discrimination also talks about having an adverse market effect. And for that purpose you have to identify comparable goods so one can see that there's going to be litigation around which goods are properly comparable to each other based on their characteristics and also looking matters from the point of view of the consumer and how those goods will be used. So I think large numbers of measures are going to be caught in principle as being indirectly discriminatory. Unless that is, they can be justified, because indirectly discriminatory measures can be justified as a necessary means of achieving a legitimate aim, but that obviously requires that such a legitimate aim be identified. The necessity is shown. Now the key distinction between these rules on non-discrimination and the EU law on indistinctly applicable measures is that the potential legitimate aims in the bill are very limited. They're limited to protection of life or health of humans, animals or plants and also the protection of public safety or security. So that is more limited than the mandatory requirements that we're familiar with under EU law, which of course include for example public morality. There's an exclusion from the non-discrimination rules in the bill for existing regulations, so those that are existing at the moment and presumably compatible with EU law. Even if there is a discriminatory effect on goods from other parts of the UK, but if those existing regulations are significantly changed, then of course they will no longer benefit from that protection. There will then be different rules that will be scrutinised under the bill. So that I think is a disincentive for updating existing regulatory requirements because of the concern that that will then engage scrutiny under the provisions of the bill once it's an act. And the effects of course of rules being found to be discriminatory is very significant in that they are of no effect. So it's not that a trader has to actively challenge the rules or the application of rules to their product. They can wait to be prosecuted and then raise the discriminatory impact of the rules as a defence. Now, in the time available, I'm just going to very briefly say something about three areas of concern, I think. The first area of concern is, as I've already mentioned, the limitation on the legitimate aims, because social changes proceed incrementally and frankly it's easier to achieve bans on products where there's a lower impact on domestic production. You can achieve that ban first politically and then start to extend it in a way that's going to have greater impacts on domestic production over time. Public morality has been very important in EU law as a justification for environmental and animal welfare measures in particular. For example, the Hunting Act challenge in the Supreme Court discussed this. And of course the benefit of relying on the public morality derogation is that the courts in effect exert a lower standard of scrutiny on the justification where public morality is concerned. The second area of concern is I think that mutual recognition and non-discrimination rules in the bill could lead to a lowering of standards because of regulatory forum shopping. A lot of commentators have highlighted the particular difficulties for parts of the UK other than England who want to impose higher or different standards because although those standards can be imposed on domestically produced goods. Those standards can be rendered almost meaningless if most of the relevant goods that are sold in that part of the UK are made or imported in other parts, usually England. But I think there'll be a problem for England as well, because if England raises standards for producers, they can shift production outside of the UK and this is even more of a problem for services I think. It's relatively easy for a supplier to change the regulatory rules to which it's subject simply by for example changing its registered office to a different part of the UK. And then finally the third area of concern is the scope of application of these rules is to statutory provisions rather than to measures. In EU law, free movement applies to state measures which is a broadly defined concept and can include all sorts of executive action that's non-legislative. See for example the well known by Irish case. Will it be possible to challenge discriminatory non-legislative measures on the basis that they've been taken by a government minister under authority conferred by legislation. That will have to be litigated, but on the face of the bill it seems not. And also there's no application to private persons, even if the impact of what they do on the UK internal market is severe. So self regulatory bodies are not covered, even though the UK relies to such a high extent on self regulatory mechanisms which are often effectively binding. So that seems a major lacuna. Again, that's different from EU law, where free movement rights can apply to private persons who are by their actions seriously impeding free movement. And so that's been my whistle stop tour. Thanks very much. Thank you, Alan. That's provoked a host of really interesting questions that will have time to come to after these talks. So the third speaker is Kenneth Armstrong, Professor of EU Law at the University of Cambridge, and Professor Armstrong is going to be speaking on the impact of the UK internal market on devolved powers in Scotland. Over to you. Thank you. Thanks very much, Valentina. In this webinar series, we draw attention to the different pillars that make up the wider ecosystem of EU relations law. And Jack Williams has described these these four pillars as consisting of retained EU law, the law of the withdrawal process, the law governing the future relationship. And so, in terms of internal law, agriculture, official fisheries trade environment, et cetera. And today, I'm going to look at one aspect of that internal law, namely the internal market bill. I'm analysing these four pillars. What emerges clearly is a second analytical dimension, namely the interaction of a plurality of legal sources, international agreements primary and secondary law UK and devolved legislation. I want to develop that analytical approach in the context of the UK internal market. And in doing so, I also want to introduce a third dimension that is the interaction of hard and soft law. Now, given what has already been said by the other contributors, and given the constraints of time, I'll try and focus on three points. The second point is a point about what we might mean by the hardness of hard law. In particular, I will speculate on whether the UK internal market bill can and should be conceptualised as an economic constitution in the making. But the effects of the UK internal market bill on other legal sources. This includes, of course, the specific effect of the market access principles that Alan's described on relevant requirements that fall within its scope. It's also about its place, however, in the wider EU relations law ecosystem. The second point echoes the point made by it by Joe and concerns the relationship between the bill and the development of common frameworks and the governance techniques of intergovernmental coordination. So that so that all our contributions can cover the UK, I will focus my remarks on examples. The first point is a point that Alan's said that comes from Scotland. And in that regard, I act as an advisor to the Scottish Parliament's Finance and Constitution Committee and its work on the UK internal market. So what I'm saying today I'm saying in a purely personal capacity. And my remarks are not attributable to the committee or the other parliament. So let me make some quick points about the constitutional or other qualities of the UK internal market bill. What I'm thinking about this as an economic constitution in the making is that the market access principles emulate and replace the legal discipline exerted by EU free movement law, which has itself been described as forming an economic constitution of the EU. Moreover, the effects of the application of these principles through the bill is of this application of rules. It is consistent with it placing it in a hierarchical position to these other relevant requirements. Now an economic constitution does not have to be super national in nature, meaning that the bill can be considered as part of a global family of enactments that have this sort of quality. For domestic terms, while the UK does not have a written constitution, some statutes are recognized as being of constitutional significance, and may even form a class of constitutional statutes. In the field of EU relations law, if the European Communities Act was a candidate constitutional statute, then the same good reasons to extend the characterisation to the European Union withdrawal act of 2018 and the European Union withdrawal agreement acts 2020 that amenza. Further, under the devolution settlement, certain acts of the UK parliament are protected against modification by devolved legislation. The 2018 act is one of those acts listed in schedule four of the Scotland Act as protected against modification. Now of course this was important in the case referred to the UK Supreme Court on the first Scottish continuity bill. Now while the Supreme Court rejected the UK government's attempt to reserve whole areas of post Brexit rulemaking, it did find that the continuity bill as drafted would conflict with the 2018 act. And so it's noteworthy that the UK internal market bill itself in clause 51 adds the bill to schedule four as a protected enactment. Now the downside risk of elevating the bill to this constitutional level was I think laid bare by none other than Lord Peter Lilly in the House of Lords. And he drew analogies with both the German constitutional court and the court of justice protection of their constitutional orders when faced with inconvenient international obligations. Rightly or wrongly, this clearly cast the UK internal market, UK internal markets economic unionism in constitutional terms in demanding that the withdrawal agreement yields to its demands. But even if we strip the bill of its constitutional character, we still need to think of the effects of the bill on a range of legal enactments and this is the second point I will try and say something very briefly about. Now elsewhere I've suggested that the market access principles could give rise to to future litigation even re litigation over any changes to the minimum units pricing regime for alcohol in Scotland. And I think more directly to the new deposit and return scheme for drinks containers that comes into force in Scotland in 2022. The bill also introduced a tension with the second Scottish continuity bill, which was introduced into the Scottish Parliament this year. Now recast as a keeping pace power, the continuity bill empower Scottish ministers to modify Scottish law to maintain its alignment with you rules. The capacity of the exercise of that power to create internal divergence would trigger the application of the internal market bill. And because that bill is protected against modification, it is not just second order rules that might be displayed by the UK internal market bill, but also first order legislative enactment seeking to maintain alignment with EU rules. Which brings me to my third and final point, the interaction between the hard law of the internal market bill and the softer governance of managing devolution and divergence through the common frameworks programme that Joe described earlier. Now any internal market is a product of its design and that design involves making choices and creating balances. These choices and balances are reflected in the governance architecture of the internal market. All of which requires a range of governance instruments to work together and to work consistently. The argument that is made for the UK internal market bill as Joe described earlier is that it's a horizontal instrument that can plug the gaps left by the sexual approach of common frameworks, but that's not how it works. Rather, it competes with and undermines common frameworks. All frameworks are an ex-anti means of promoting cooperation and coordination whenever modifications are made in the sphere of retaining new law that would create any new internal divergences. And common approaches may be sought, but divergence remains a legitimate outcome. The UK internal market bill is an ex-post means of reviewing new divergences and subjecting them to new legal tests. So a divergence that may legitimately emerge from a common framework negotiated between the UK and devolved administrations may still be disapplied if found conflict with the market access principles. In short, enshrining regulatory competition in hard law through the bill will erode regulatory cooperation enshrined in the sort of instruments and frameworks of also the concordats that underpin the coordination of UK and devolved grow making. Now in a moment we will turn to Northern Ireland's position into internal markets, but to conclude it's not just part five of the bill that is a problem. Now while some attention has been paid to the Lord's amendments to the bill, excising offending provisions, we should also acknowledge those amendments which seek to rebalance the bill. And these include certain government concessions on consulting devolved ministers, but also the Lord Hope amendment to seek to protect regulatory divergences that emerge from the common frameworks process. Design, choice, balance, these are the key considerations when making an internal market. And for us as lawyers, that's also a question of how to organise a plurality of instruments of constitutional legislative and non-legislative qualities. Thanks very much. Thank you, Professor Armstrong. Our fourth and final panellist is Stephen Wetherall, Jack Dunlaw Professor of European Law at the University of Oxford. And he's going to be speaking on two internal markets, the position of Northern Ireland. Over to you. Right, thanks very much. So the two internal markets that I'm going to talk about, of course are the European Unions and the United Kingdoms. A rough summary of what I'm going to talk about is that the protocol protects the European Union's internal market, but disrupts the United Kingdom's internal market. So there's a preference for the EU internal market over the UK internal market. But a bit more to it than that, of course. Northern Ireland is bound to the EU's internal market as far as goods are concerned and some other matters such as customs and VAT. But Northern Ireland is certainly not bound to the entirety of the internal market, our key rules on the free movement of persons and of services are not binding under the protocol. And there's quite a substantial amount of secondary legislation adopted as internal market law pursuant to Article 114 TFEU, which is not within the protocol, which does not bind Northern Ireland rules on consumer protection, for example. So the internal market rules of the European Union have been split into two. It seems from the protocol that there is a hard core of internal market law, which must be applied, is applied in Northern Ireland pursuant to the protocol, which is sufficient to allow the European Union to leave an external border, that between Northern Ireland and Ireland, a soft or as invisible. And then beyond that hard core of internal market law, there's a different band of internal market law on persons, services and on consumer protection, which the EU is willing to discard for the purposes which apply in Northern Ireland pursuant to the protocol. Maybe this is just a story of Northern Ireland being an entirely unique set of circumstances, but I think it tells it a bit more than that. I think it tells us something about the concept of the EU's internal market. It's a bit more malleable. It's a little bit more fragile than the European Union itself sometimes insist it is divisible. Learning to that the UK internal market, the point of the protocol is there is significant regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland, on the one hand, and Great Britain on the other, mainly pertaining to goods, but also BAT customs, electricity, some other things. It necessarily means a hardened border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain to take account the fact of that regulatory divergence under the protocol. So the Irish seed becomes a border of regulatory and customs significance, which it did not have previously. So it's a really significant change within the UK's internal market. There are in the protocol four deceptions, four places, at least four places where what the protocol says is not really what the protocol does. The first deception relates to identifying the customs territory in which Northern Ireland sits. The protocol says that Northern Ireland is in the UK's customs territory, but in Northern Ireland the entirety of the EU's customs legislation applies. So the protocol says that Northern Ireland is in the UK's customs territory, but it treats Northern Ireland as being within the EU's customs territory. First deception. The second deception concerns west to east trade, so trade from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. The protocol says that shall be unfettered. But when you look at the detail of the protocol, it won't be unfettered, as a minimum it will be required that export declarations be submitted on trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain pursuant to the EU customs code, which is applicable in Northern Ireland under the protocol. There will be other legal obligations flowing from international obligations of the EU as well, such as checking goods to make sure they are not the products of endangered species. That follows from the protocol, it's not spelled out explicitly in the protocol, and it renders the claim in the protocol that west to east trade shall be unfettered, deceptive. The third deception is on east to west trade, so this is Great Britain to Northern Ireland trade. Nothing in the protocol claims that will be unfettered, and it certainly won't be unfettered. The protocol doesn't go out of its way to spell out exactly what shall be the extent of the burdens on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but they will be considerable as a result of the fact of regulatory divergence in goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It's prominent of all, there will be new and burdensome checks on products of animal origin. Roughly what is going to be the consequence of the protocol is the trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, goods, matters covered by the protocol, will resemble trade between Great Britain and France, Great Britain and Belgium. The protocol is deceptive, it really doesn't spell out the magnitude of that change. The fourth deception concerns state aid. If you read the protocol casually you would imagine that the protocol controls only the grant of state aid within Northern Ireland. It's much broader than that. The grant of aid within Great Britain that will be used in Northern Ireland is likely to fall within the scope of the protocol and therefore be subject to the supervision of the commission and it will need to comply with the EU rules on state aid. The reach of the state aid rules under the protocol are much broader than one would imagine from a casual reading of the protocol, so there's four deceptions there. Of course, those are obstacles to the operation of the UK's internal market that may be set aside under individual waivers granted by the European Union or perhaps under a freight trade agreement concluded between the United Kingdom and the European Union, but I don't need to tell you that the clock is ticking on that. What troubles me most of all is that if you look at the four deceptions that I've identified in the protocol places where what it says is not what it does, they're all deceptions that go in the same direction. They're all deceptions which understate the commitments made by the United Kingdom. They're all deceptions which tend to conceal the extent of the rupture made to the UK's internal market by separating out Northern Ireland from Great Britain. I don't know anything about the inside story of the negotiation of this protocol, but those four pieces of evidence, all of which point in the same direction, strongly suggests to me the protocol was drafted deliberately on both sides to give the United Kingdom Government a certain amount of political cover to try and hide from those who would be horrified by the consequences. What really were the consequences? If that's true, then it puts into even more alarming light the consistent refusal of leading politicians in the UK, most of all the Prime Minister, to phase up to what was agreed under the protocol. And it puts into even more alarming light the United Kingdom Government's decision to introduce a bill which contradicts the obligations undertaken pursuant to the protocol. When you put that picture together, it leaves me with the conclusion that the level of bad faith that this UK government has reached is quite extraordinary. I'll stop there. Thank you very much. I'm rather sorry you've stopped there as enjoying humid flow. Right, we now have a lot of questions that have come in from all those from a very engaged audience, thank you, and provoked by those really stimulating interesting talks. So I think we'll go first back to Professor Hunt. So I'm Joe, I've got a question for you. And let me just read this out. The question of course is, whether the courts would ever be in a position where they get to answer that question, because if we look back to the Miller case, there was a devolution dimension to the issue about the questions within the Miller case about how do we notify withdrawal, and there were issues about whether devolved legislatures had to give their consent. And at that point, it was, it was highlighted that that civil convention that legislation you get upon that will not normally be passed in devolved areas or devolved matters without devolved consent. That actually had been written in to the devolution settlements for Scotland and Wales in amendments that were made back in 2017 2018. And that that made no difference. The point is this is a constitutional convention and the Supreme Court made clear, it is not their task to rule on those constitutional conventions that these are not just dishable, and that putting them in legislation had made no difference to that just dishability that it would have been phrased in a different way if it was meant to be legally enforceable. I think there are these supposedly to the constitutional protections for devolution, they are not legally enforceable once in the court won't get to to speak on them. Thank you, Joe. I've now got a question for Alan, which is in relation to how far UK courts I course in any part of the UK will be prepared to allow for different judgments on public health to be reached in different parts of the UK. How great a margin of appreciation with the courts give to different governments taking different views on public health and morality, etc. Alan, do you have some thoughts on that? Wow, it's a great question also a very wide one seems to me. And I think the first point to be made is that, as I said in my presentation, the potential legitimate aims recognising the legislation are narrower than the management requirements in EU law, so they don't include, for example, public morality. In terms of the standard of scrutiny that the courts would apply to see whether a measure is necessary, using the word necessary means of achieving a legitimate aim. I think the reality is that the scrutiny may well be stricter than it has been under EU law, because although in one view you don't have the same internal market, EU internal market imperative in the background, which calls for strict scrutiny in the way that the Supreme Court talked about in the Lumson case. You do, on the other hand, have a united kingdom where there is similarity in the political background and the regulatory background, etc. Against which these decisions are being taken, which is quite different from an EU context, where of course you're trying to deal with political and other considerations that can differ quite a lot. Across the EU, so I think in practice there will be fairly strict scrutiny of necessity and also proportionality I think is going to be a key part of this because the more that there is impediment to trade within the UK, the less acceptable that's going to be seen to be, even if both countries in the UK have adopted standards that on the face of it seem reasonable ways of meeting essentially the same policy objective. Thank you, Alan. I've got another question, which I think Alan, you might want to comment on, which is a question in from George Parrott's QC. Would it be possible for the Advocate General or Council General to refer bills of the Scottish Parliament or Senate to the Supreme Court on the basis that bills would be inapplicable due to the mutual recognition or non-discrimination principles? If we hear from you and then perhaps any other panellists who want to speak on that. I think in practice that's going to be very difficult because it's not really a question of the constitutional validity of the legislation that needs to be referred. One of the features of how this legislation works is a lot of national legislation is on the face of it going to still be fine because it can be applied to domestic producers. The question is whether or not someone from another part of the UK who doesn't obey those rules has a defence when they're being challenged. So those issues wouldn't necessarily come to life until there was an attempt by the National Authorities in say Scotland to apply the Scottish standards to goods coming in from England, for example. Professor Hunt, do you want to comment on that? I think we have Professor Hunt on mute. We do have Professor Hunt on mute. Apologies, it had to happen. No, just as Alan says there that this is, you know, it's not invalidating that legislation. It is saying that the devolved legislatures and also Westminster can pass the legislation but it's in terms of who that then applies to. And so there wouldn't be grounds for it to be questioned in terms of its lawfulness. Just a quick quick follow up on some of the questions that I've seen come up here about what impact it would have on the Westminster Parliament. I mean, it's very much a tool to keep the devolved legislatures under control, it would appear. Of course, if we have a later piece of Westminster legislation and that status, is it a very different place as a piece of primary legislation as opposed to primary legislation that comes from the devolved legislatures because this act is a protected enactment which means that the devolved can do nothing to it. Of course, the UK legislature is in a different position and could make changes to that legislation. So there's the absolute sort of asymmetry at work within this legislation. Thank you, Joe. Yes, Professor Armstrong, would you like to comment on that because we've got quite a few questions coming in, raising this point about parliamentary sovereignty. I mean, it's very much to echo that last point. I mean, when we think about the EU internal market and rulemaking within that, it's an internal market now in which 27 sovereign governments can engage in a rulemaking activity and there is at least formal equality between those sovereign participants. The participants in the UK internal market are not on the same constitutional level, the UK Parliament through the sovereignty of Parliament as reasserted most recently in the European Union withdrawal agreement act can of course enact rules which cannot then be questioned. Of course, insofar as the UK legislature is also the legislature for England, again highlights the asymmetry as between the four nations within this UK internal market. So it's another manifestation of the, I mean, to use kind of Steve's deceptions metaphor. It's another way in which the familiarity of the internal market concept as it existed under EU law when applied in the UK context tends to disguise and suppress actually some of the key differences, the key power asymmetries. So we've got asymmetries of power asymmetries of constitutional status and of course simple economic asymmetries between the sides of the different markets within this internal market, which is particularly important when you have the kind of regulatory competition that is set up under the bill. Thank you, Professor Armstrong. Professor Weatherill, we've had a couple of questions in regarding the position in Northern Ireland, and I wonder whether you might give some comments on that. But one of the questions is, will the Court of Justice of the EU deny that in the case of Northern Ireland there is ever a wholly internal situation, because it always concern the Northern Ireland protocol. Could UK law be invoked by the UK in case it's involving Northern Ireland, given that it will largely constitute third country law? And unlike the UK, the EU law has no obligation to recognise or given any effect to UK law. Do you have any comments prompted by that question? There are probably a lot of different layers to that question, which I can't fully engage with. The pattern of enforcement under the protocol is essentially the pattern of enforcement under EU law generally. Although one of the big stories of Brexit has been ridding the United Kingdom of the baleful influence of the European Court of Justice, that doesn't apply in Northern Ireland. This is another deception perhaps that the red line of keeping the Court of Justice out of UK life has been preserved with Great Britain but not for Northern Ireland. The protocol is enforceable according to the ordinary rules of EU law, including the role of the Court of Justice. The separation between UK law and EU law simply doesn't work in the context of the protocol in Northern Ireland. Thank you. Now that is all we have time for today, because our hour is up. I would like to thank each of our four distinguished guests for their excellent contributions today. I'd also like to thank the Cambridge Faculty of Law for hosting these webinars and to everyone in the audience who has joined us today. I hope you found that very interesting. I also hope that you will be joining us again at the same time next week for the fourth in the five webinars, and that's going to be on external trade relations. Thank you very much and goodbye.