Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Effect of Renegotiation on Other Trade Negotiations

Debate between Lord Anderson of Swansea and Lord Frost

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, can anyone trust this Government on international legal matters? They have already admitted to breaching international law again on Northern Ireland. Now they have failed to honour a protocol that they freely entered into, and they threaten to breach our clear obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. Is this cavalier attitude to international legal obligations likely to be a positive or a negative feature in relation to our future partners?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid I do not entirely agree with the suggestion that we have been cavalier about our obligations under the protocol. Unfortunately, the problems that exist in Northern Ireland are the problems of implementation of the protocol, not of non-implementation of it. We have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on setting up services to help British businesses to trade with Northern Ireland, but unfortunately that has not solved the underlying difficulties. So implementation is not the solution; renegotiation and a better solution is.