Official Controls (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Lord Bew Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Lords Chamber

I note that, as a result of that vote going through on a majority, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has been tasked with undertaking the independent review. I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord. He has immense experience of Northern Ireland and has always acted in a way which has evoked trust and respect from all communities and all sides in Northern Ireland. I look forward to working with him as part of this review, but he will know—as all noble Lords need to know—that the fundamental problem with this protocol/Windsor Framework is the lack of cross-community consent. Every single unionist in this Westminster Parliament and every single unionist in the Stormont Assembly opposes it and votes against it. Their views seem to be cast aside, which is something that will have to be addressed.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support this legislation but I accept completely the argument made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, about it throwing a light on the flexibility. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, used “flexibility” four times in her introduction. The flexibility, the methodology, which is in place here was exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Frost, might remember the EU describing as the usual unicorn thinking—nonsense, fantastical thinking. Now we discover that, when it suits the EU, you can be amazingly flexible and light-touch with what you are going to do. That point has to be conceded and I will return to it.

Since we are talking about the basic state functions of the United Kingdom, which we are today, perhaps the Minister might say, when she concludes, whether the UFU, for example, has expressed opinions about this legislation to the Government. More generally, with respect to the Windsor Framework, is the business community sending messages about the broad working of that framework? That is really quite an interesting area.

Let me return to the issue of biosecurity. The original much-loved—or much-hated—protocol of 2019 said that the UK retains its basic state functions. One of the things that happened between that original protocol and the Windsor Framework of 2023 is that there was, shall we say, a serious discussion between the United Kingdom and the European Union as to what its basic state functions were. It was resolved, for example, that the original position in the 2019 protocol that certain medicines should not be available in the EU’s agreement with Northern Ireland was wrong, and that the basic state functions of the United Kingdom implied strongly that all the medicines that the United Kingdom Government believed should be available in the hospitals should be there. That is one of the clear-cut victories of the Windsor Framework, from a unionist point of view. That issue of medicines was the top item in the DUP election manifesto for the recent Assembly elections and it is rare that parties get the top item.

I am drawing attention to the importance of the concept of basic state functions and pointing out what happened—by the own account of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds—on the question of biosecurity. I want the Minister to confirm, as she may later on, whether the UK has abdicated its responsibility for basic state functions for Northern Ireland on biosecurity. Rather like in the case of medicines, it turned out that it had not. The developments as described by the noble Lord suggest, again, that it is an example of how the UK then responded to the fact that it had basic state functions in this area. I do not think there is evidence that the UK has abandoned its concept of having basic state functions in Northern Ireland which have to be maintained.

More broadly, let me again express sympathy for the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, on her regret amendment. There is no question that two things came together politically in 2016 or 2017. One was the near defeat in the general election of the May Government, which hugely weakened the hand of the British Government in negotiations with the European Union; the other was a shift in Irish elite opinion from a view that it might be possible to do certain checks on the Irish land border and so on. This was discussed in Dáil committees and in a number of books, and it is perfectly clear that there was a shift. Those two things came together to produce the outcome of the 2017 joint agreement, which was international law.

When Michel Barnier said that David Davis was ridiculous to stand up in Parliament a couple of days later and say that it was not international law, he was quite right. But it is also clear from the same book that Michel Barnier’s concept of the significance of European law for the functioning of the institutions of the Good Friday agreement was massively exaggerated, maybe by a factor of 60. It is clear that what he was suggesting at that level was as wrong as what David Davis was suggesting.

That is the context of the much-hated protocol on Northern Ireland. I absolutely accept that there is bad faith on the Irish Government side. It involves a betrayal of the Good Friday agreement and the framework document, both of which insist that there are two economies on the island of Ireland. Now, magically, out of nowhere, it is declared that there is one economy on the island of Ireland and the British Government have a responsibility to support the island economy. I am not saying there is not an island economy in, say, parts of the agricultural industry; I am saying that as a totality the island economy is not a very significant reality.