Brief comment on this. From a #stateaid perspective, this will not be aid if it is investment on market terms. The involvement of commercial partners supports the view that it is, as long as they are investing on the same or basically similar (“pari passu” in the jargon) terms.
But even if it isn’t State aid, it’s fair to wonder what audit or governance process it went through. After all, there are real risks that big spending becomes a substitute for more effective action.
Also risks of groupthink:
And it is critical to be able to prove to the outside world that public money has been spent effectively.
It may well be that the Govt can explain clearly what the benefit of this spending is. It may well also have gone through processes that mitigate the dangers of groupthink and allow awkward dissenting challenges. But those are questions that are fair to ask.
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Some brief comments on the European Commission’s proposal to get a mandate to negotiate a youth mobility agreement with the UK. ec.europa.eu/commission/pre…
1. The EU is not there yet. The mandate has to be agreed by the Council of Ministers: probably by qualified majority. And it isn’t clear whether a final agreement would need to be ratified by all Member States as well as the EU itself.
2. If the EU does agree a mandate, that is likely to slam the door on any attempt by the UK to negotiate youth mobility agreements with individual Member States (because they have a duty of sincere cooperation). So any agreement would have to cover (say) 🇧🇬 as well as (say) 🇫🇷.
1. No plan to “stop the boats” (chase them into French waters, destroy them on (French?) shores) or to send refugees who do land here to other countries (safe, because otherwise UK public opinion, let alone law, won’t wear it) works without cooperation of those countries. Esp. 🇫🇷
2. Those countries won’t do deals or cooperate just because it suits the UK. And France is (and French voters are) well aware that France takes many more refugees than we do.
1. It is of course true that big business (and the professions) can be a bit politically uniform. When I started out in the early 90s, the commercial Bar ( the profession I know best) was pretty much solidly Conservative (and certainly conservative).
To the point that aspiring pupils were sometimes advised not to mention eg chairing their university Labour club in their application.
Full report Windsor Framework (WF) report by @LordsEUCom Protocol sub-committee here . I will concentrate on areas where I gave evidence to the Committee. https://t.co/eyeHRrgNjncommittees.parliament.uk/publications/4…
On State aid. I entirely agree with @jamesrwebber’s points, made separately. And with the conclusions. The basic point: Art 10 remains a serious issue for any major cross-UK subsidy programme (Green New Deal/pandemic subsidies): in practice it will have to be cleared by the EU.
It also remains potentially applicable even to measures that don’t immediately and on their face cover NI: see eg James’ car battery example.
This is a fascinating judgment that contains (in judicial language) pretty savage comments on the government’s (and in particular Kwasi Kwarteng’s) decision-making, and on its compliance with the duty of candour. https://t.co/NmPB017j68judiciary.uk/wp-content/upl…
Also some important public law legal points on the duty to consult and whether a court can refuse to quash the decision on the basis that it’s highly likely that the result would have been the same without the public law error.
Basically, the case is about the government’s decision in 2022 to remove rules that stopped employment agencies from providing workers to replace strikers. It was under a statutory obligation to consult representative bodies before it did so.