Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Frost

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her comments; she is correct to say that the situation last year was different from this year. We did not invoke Article 16 in the end and many people were disappointed about that. Since then, the situation has moved on; it has deteriorated. I think this Bill is really the only way of resolving it.

Thirdly and finally, many noble Lords seem to believe that a negotiated way through this would be made easier by withdrawing the Bill. I profoundly disagree. It is very much the best way through to find a negotiated solution and that is what I wanted to do last year. The observed behaviour of the European Union, through last year and this year, is that it does not wish to negotiate about the fundamental core of the problem. The proposals it has put on the table are at the margin; they are not to do with the core of the difficulties in so many areas—not just trade but state aid, VAT and other issues that go into the depths of the protocol. I do not believe it will unless it is forced to engage with the fact that the UK Government have an alternative, which is to use the powers in this Bill. If we take the Bill off the table, we are removing such limited leverage as the UK Government have to deliver for their people, the people of Northern Ireland, a better outcome.

I will wind up there. It is very important that we do not show infirmity of purpose on this and that the Bill continues. I urge the Minister in winding up to make it clear that we intend to move forward with it.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

I did not plan on speaking in this debate, but I think it is only right that somebody should thank the noble Lord, Lord Frost, for explaining to us how bad things have become in Northern Ireland as a result of the treaty he negotiated. I am very happy to do that. I will, however, keep my speech brief and not make a Second Reading speech.

Of course, I support these two amendments but hope very much that we will not get to vote on them. To echo the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, we have been asked to put lipstick on a pig again. We have been asked to do that many times in the last couple of years, but to my knowledge, this is first time that the pig is not only ugly but illegal. On that basis, we should not get to vote on it. What we should do now, as others have said, is invoke Article 16. If negotiations are not working, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, there is a route open to us but passing an illegal Bill is certainly not it.

Brexit Opportunities

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Frost

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I have a huge amount of sympathy with the thrust of my noble friend’s comment. It is about bringing back democracy and restoring the authority of this Parliament. I recognise the controversy about the Henry VIII clauses, as he describes them. They deal with a particular situation involving the inherited EU law and the complexities of managing the legal transformation out of the European Union, and I hope that they will be seen in that very specific context.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister now boasts on his Twitter feed profile:

“You don’t get something for nothing, you can’t have freedom for free.”


Apparently, it is from a Rush song from “2112”. I do not recall him carrying that message around as he was leading us into Brexit. Since we have heard what we are going to do with that new-found freedom, in the absence of an impact assessment, can he tell us at what cost this freedom has been bought?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think it has been bought at any cost. I make no apology for standing up for freedom—free enterprise and freedom to think and debate—and that is what we did not have very much of in the final years of our EU membership until the referendum. It is axiomatic, in my view, that free debate, free enterprise, free economies and the ability to change your Government will always benefit the countries that have those things. There is a lot of empirical evidence around the world that that proposition is correct.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Frost

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I give both sides the courtesy of believing that they are negotiating in good faith. I am sure they are but, as I said frequently in the negotiations last year, the European Union spent a bit too much time speculating on our intentions and not looking at actions and what we said. To turn that principle around, we look at the actions of the European Union on Northern Ireland and the things it does and says about the protocol. Those actions and words, in the way we are operating the protocol, cause the difficulties we are facing, so I urge, as we always do, thought about pragmatic and proportionate solutions as the way forward.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, on 7 November 2019, the Prime Minister said of the Northern Ireland protocol:

“There will be no forms, no checks, no barriers of any kind.”


Can the Minister say how the Prime Minister reached that conclusion?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

At the time, we faced the need to find pragmatic and proportionate ways to implement the protocol in a balanced way, respecting all the dimensions of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement—east-west, as well as north-south. If we are to find a solution, it will be in re-establishing that balance and making sure that east-west trade is subject to as few difficulties as possible, so that the balance in these arrangements can be re-established.

UK–EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Meetings of Bodies

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Frost

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, unfortunately, I am not sure that I agree with my noble friend that we would be in a significantly different position if that committee had met. There have been quite a lot of discussions on SPS issues in various contexts over the past few months, although the committee has not met formally, and we have not managed to find constructive agreements on that subject—although we keep trying. I am confident that the committee will meet before the summer break, and of course we continue to discuss these matters extensively with the EU.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, in negotiating the TCA, the UK Government succeeded in putting the UK’s extradition arrangements with the EU on a similar unbalanced footing to those with the US. We continue to extradite to the EU, but 20 EU countries will not extradite directly here. Are negotiations going on to try to rectify that?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, extradition arrangements were indeed the subject of quite a large part of the negotiations, and in our view—the Government’s view—the agreement that we reached with the EU deals with many of the defects that were present in the earlier European arrest warrant system. It is part of the standard way in which extradition arrangements work that member states can, in certain circumstances, refuse to extradite their own nationals, and some member states have made that clear. We continue to discuss this issue with the Commission and all the member states concerned.