Subsidy Control Bill

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Empey

Committee stage
Monday 7th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was pleased to add my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds. It is particularly because of the situation now in Northern Ireland that many of us want to raise this issue at every opportunity—it was raised also at Second Reading. I accept from the beginning that the Government are trying to deal with some of the problems that have come about. They were perhaps seen some time ago, but the Government are now trying to deal with the realities. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has given a clear outline of the detail of how the current situation will affect business in Northern Ireland. I want to speak more from the point of view of morality—the idea that, once again, Northern Ireland is being treated so differently and so separately from the rest of the United Kingdom.

At Second Reading, the Minister said—it was said a number of times:

“We are seizing the opportunities of Brexit.”—[Official Report, 19/1/22; col. 1712.]


As someone who was a passionate supporter of Brexit, I want to seize those opportunities, and I want the people of Northern Ireland to be able to seize them, but it is clear that we will have a different regime and that businesses will lose out, whatever happens, unless this is changed. It is a pity that we could not have a real debate and a vote on Article 10 at some stage in your Lordships’ House, but I accept that we cannot do it in this Bill.

We have a form of colony in Northern Ireland at the moment. Northern Ireland now has a foreign market, a foreign customs regime and a foreign VAT regime adjudicated by a foreign court, and now we will have foreign state aid. I know that the negotiations that are going on are slightly above the Minister’s pay grade, but I hope that he will do his bit as the Business Minister to realise and understand just how unfair this is for the people of Northern Ireland. I hope that he will be able to give us some comfort as to how the Government are going to take this forward if the negotiations with the European Union get nowhere, as I expect.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the issue of state aid goes beyond even the points that have already been made, because there is theoretically a possibility of reach-back into Great Britain depending on whether a product was subsidised before it left Great Britain and was part of, or added to, another product of a business in Northern Ireland. The truth is that the Minister does not know the answer to these questions.

I do not understand why there is surprise. The Minister may not wish to comment, but the situation in which we find ourselves is a direct consequence of the proposals made by the Prime Minister to the European Union. He proposed the protocol. When I hear the phrase “Let’s get Brexit done”, it drives me mad. Brexit is done for 97% of the United Kingdom; we are still in the European Union for as much as half of our activities.

This was entirely anticipated, but it was not worked out. So, the protocol came along in late 2019 as the deathbed plan to get Brexit done in a couple of months, and this is one of the pickles we are left in. I may have some issues with the wording of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, but its heart is in the right place. He said, if I picked him up correctly, that it is a probing amendment to try to get answers. I totally support that; it is the right thing to do.