European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between James Heappey and Sammy Wilson

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

I will go through the reasons why they are wrong. This deal emphasises a mythical problem on the border—a problem that does not exist. The current practice means that trade can go across the Irish border, with taxes being collected, with goods being checked for conformity with regulations and with animal health being protected, yet we do not need a hard border. Indeed, all the parties to this agreement have said that they will not, in any circumstances, have a hard border. Only a couple of weeks ago, the EU and the Irish Government were assuring us that even if there is no deal, a hard border will not be imposed, because a hard border is not necessary. What we have in this withdrawal agreement, with the Northern Ireland protocol and the UK protocol, is designed to do only one thing: thwart the wishes of the people of the United Kingdom to leave the EU.

That is because we have only a number of options. The UK as a whole could stay in the single market and the customs union. If the Government wish to free themselves from that, Northern Ireland has to stay within the single market and the customs union. I defy any Member of this House to say that they could go back to their constituents, tell them what the Attorney General told the Cabinet was going to happen to their constituents and find that they would not be chased. First, their constituency would have to regard the rest of the UK as a third country, with the implication that they could not trade freely with the rest of the UK. They would have barriers placed between their part of the UK and the rest of it, and businessmen would face all the impediments. Indeed, the legal opinion makes it clear that there would be friction in trade—in other words, there would be additional costs, delays and barriers, and there would be distortions to trade, yet that is what this agreement entails for Northern Ireland.

We can get out of that only by doing one of two things. First, we could reach a future trade arrangement that the EU says is sufficient to allow us to be out of that arrangement completely. It could even insist that if we reach a free trade arrangement, we still have partly to stay within those restrictions, including more than 300 EU regulations which would be applied to Northern Ireland. Just in case the EU has missed any, it says, “Any future new ones that fall within the scope of this would also have to apply”, so we would have different laws from the rest of the UK.

[James Heappey]

The Northern Ireland national farmers union has made it clear that the Prime Minister’s deal is in the best interests of farmers in Northern Ireland—why is it wrong?

[Sammy Wilson]

This is a surprising thing. If the Ulster Farmers Union read this agreement, it would see that article 12 of the Northern Ireland protocol makes it clear that because state aid rules would apply to Northern Ireland, even if this UK Government decided to subsidise agriculture, the EU could cap any subsidy. The subsidy could apply differently in the rest of the UK from how it could apply in Northern Ireland. I could take Members through a range of other things in this agreement that the UFU conveniently has just dismissed but that will have an impact on its members. That is one reason why many farmers in my constituency are raging with the UFU.

One way of getting ourselves out of this is by having a free trade arrangement, which the EU may or may not deem as allowing us to get away from these shackles. The Attorney General makes it clear that although best endeavours to reach a free trade agreement are required, the EU could still argue, “We have done our best but it is still not in our interests.” Sixteen years later it could still be arguing, “We are doing our best” and still not be in breach of the obligations in this agreement. We know—Scottish Members should be aware of this—that the French Government have already said that they will use this as a cudgel to get further concessions from the UK Government on fishing, aviation and other things. Every other EU country will be doing the same and using the same tactic, so that is not an easy way out and we could still be negotiating this.

Significantly, the other method of getting out is for us to extend the transition period. There is great ambition shown in the withdrawal agreement about extending the transition period. Many people think that when we talk about extending the transition period we are talking about a few months. Well, according to the document it could be extended to “20XX”—we could still be at this in 100 years. This place could be refurbished, or even rebuilt, by the time we have got a free trade arrangement to replace the backstop.

The impact of this agreement on the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom is that Northern Ireland would be treated differently from other parts of the United Kingdom, which is something the Prime Minister promised would never happen. Northern Ireland industries are more export-oriented than any other region of the UK, because we have a small local market. We produce a third of the world’s aircraft seats. If someone has sat in row C or F, they have probably sat in a seat made in Kilkeel. We produce 40% of the world’s stone-crushing equipment. All that goes to markets mostly outside the EU, yet we would be excluded from participating in any trade deals that our Government might arrange with the rest of the world because we would be permanently part of the customs union unless the backstop were lifted. The backstop can be lifted only if and when the EU decides it is time to lift it.

I say to those on the Government Front Bench that we had an arrangement to keep the Government in power and working between now and the end of this fixed-term Parliament. Promises were made. In December, we sat with the Prime Minister in Downing Street and she said, “I will make sure that Northern Ireland has the final say in this because the Assembly will be the final arbiter as to whether or not these arrangements are put in place.” Those promises were taken out of the agreement. There has been bad faith. The agreement and understanding that we had has been broken. As the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) said in his speech, that has caused tensions. Going down this road will create tensions. We want to see our agreement honoured because we want to see the United Kingdom preserved.