European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Alderdice and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Report: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, in Committee, I and others spoke about the importance of paying attention to the voices and rights of the children and young people of Northern Ireland in our considerations, not least because they had no say in the referendum but will live with the consequences long after the rest of us. Indeed, just on Monday, my noble friend Lady Massey reminded us how important it is to consider children in all aspects of our discussions on Brexit. From a meeting that I and others had with some children and young people from Northern Ireland in March, and reading reports of conferences that they themselves had organised, it is clear that they are really anxious about their future rights as citizens of the island of Ireland and about how their lives will be affected on a daily basis if the border issue is not resolved. As one briefing put it:

“Children in NI, and not just those living close to the border, live their lives ‘across’ what has become an increasingly seamless border”.


We owe it to these children of Northern Ireland to provide the certainty of writing the rights and protections into the legislation.

More generally, I and others have also emphasised on a number of occasions the centrality of human rights protection to the Good Friday agreement and, therefore, the importance of ensuring non-diminution of human rights in Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit and the maintenance of the equivalence of rights between Northern Ireland and the Republic. On a couple of occasions, I have also raised the fact that civil society organisations in Northern Ireland have asked for movement on a Bill of rights, promised in the Good Friday agreement and subsequent agreements, as they believe that Brexit makes it even more important now than before. The Minister, who has always been extremely charming and helpful in his responses, has not responded on this point. If he is not able to respond today, I would be grateful for the promise of a letter from him on that. The Minister has otherwise been consistently positive and reassuring on the questions of the Good Friday agreement and the border, which is of course very welcome.

As the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, said in his marvellous opening speech, I do not think there is anything in this amendment that the Government could not agree with. But warm words in this context are not enough. The children, young people and civil society organisations of Northern Ireland are looking for something stronger. That must mean writing such commitments into the Bill itself. That has both practical and symbolic significance. That is why I believe it is crucial that we pass this amendment on behalf of our fellow citizens—children and adults—in Northern Ireland, who are looking to us for firm, legally binding assurances about their future rights.

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I put my name to a similar amendment in Committee and, as those who were there will recall, spoke very strongly in favour of it. However, when I saw the draft of this amendment, before it was tabled, I was unhappy about two things. One was that the commitment to entrench the principles of the Good Friday or Belfast agreement had been excised from it; I really do not understand why that is. It is referred to only in oblique ways, by referring not to the agreement but to the Act, which is not the same thing. I think that is a missed opportunity and I do not really see any good reason for it.

However, my main reservation about the amendment concerns proposed new subsection 2(b)(iii). It effectively suggests that one could not accept a requirement for security checks. The noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, has spoken about security and how it can be counter- productive if done in particular ways. I remember very well all the watchtowers and so on that he called to mind; I spent quite a lot of time flying round in helicopters watching soldiers taking them down. But this does not talk about watchtowers; it talks about security checks.

As legislators, we are not expected to be able to predict the future beyond what can reasonably be understood. Donald Rumsfeld advised us about “unknown unknowns”. But there are potential things that are not so unknown at all. Around the time we were coming up to mark the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, Mr Gerry Adams was interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel. He was asked whether he felt that terrorism and politically motivated violence was ever justified now. He said that yes, he believed that it was, and Sinn Féin went on to defend him in that stance, some 20 years after the Belfast agreement. In the last month we have also seen a new organisation, the Irish Republican Movement, announcing that it wants to get operational again because it is not happy about how things are going.

I therefore do not ask myself what the situation is with security now, well before exit day, when thankfully we have peace and a considerable deal of tranquillity and agreement within Northern Ireland and between the north and south, which is marvellous. I ask myself how things might develop over the next year or two, when there are those who are unhappy about Brexit and those who want to promote it. That is not the Brexit we are talking about, of Britain exiting the European Union, but the Brexit that is Britain exiting the island of Ireland and leaving Northern Ireland. There are those who are still prepared to use physical force to bring that about. Do they have any significance?

We are likely to see an election in the Republic of Ireland in the next 12 months, between now and Brexit day, and it is wholly within the bounds of possibility that Sinn Féin will be a member of a new coalition. Possibly it would not be with Fine Gael—although who knows? Anybody who would predict politics in any part of the world at the moment must be a courageous individual. But with Fianna Fáil, that is entirely possible. So the backstop protective position is that if there are no security checks near the border, it will be okay because we will be able to negotiate that with the Irish Government; and if it were the current Irish Government, I rather suspect we would be able to do that quickly. But I would not feel the same sense of confidence if there were the possibility of a Sinn Féin coalition Government.

Of course, if there was a major outbreak of violence, it might be possible to sit down and have that negotiation. However, what would happen if our security services had good information that a real danger was coming from across the border, not just to Northern Ireland but to this part of the United Kingdom, and they needed to get into negotiations with the Irish Government to introduce certain kinds of security checks which had not existed for some years and do not exist now? Are we confident that that could be addressed promptly, and that Sinn Féin would say, “The British security services have said this—that is absolutely dependable; we know we should act with responsibility in that regard, and we will act promptly and immediately against other Republicans”? Maybe it would, but “maybe” is not sufficient.

In February 1996 a huge bomb broke the IRA ceasefire, here in this city, in Docklands. Two people were killed, 100 people were injured and £150 million of damage was done. Where did that bomb come from—the Home Counties, Wales, Scotland or west Belfast? No; it came from the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA, from the border area we are talking about. I simply want to have the confidence—and I do not see it in this component of this otherwise excellent amendment—that if our security services were clear that the Irish Republican Movement or some other organisation had decided to create a bomb to do damage in my part of the United Kingdom or in this part, they would be able to act freely and with the alacrity necessary to ensure that a disaster does not happen.

That is why—I say this with deep regret, because I support the spirit of the amendment—this wording is not entirely wise. I have talked to a number of colleagues, who say, “Don’t worry, John: it’ll be fine, because other legislation will let us get through that”. But that is not what it appears to say, and if there are other ways round it, it will simply justify in Irish minds that phrase “perfidious Albion”: we say one thing but we mean something different because we have a legal way round. That is why, with regret, I fear that I cannot support this otherwise excellent amendment.