Brexit: Irish Border Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Exiting the European Union
Lord Hain
Main Page: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Hain's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan
I congratulate the noble Lord on having the foresight to get a Question on this on the Order Paper for today. He will be unsurprised to know that I do not agree with him. There was a referendum on the subject. We feel we have to respect the results of that referendum.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, why was anybody surprised by yesterday’s negotiating car crash in Brussels? Unionists were quite legitimately always going to insist that they could not be put in a status distinct from the rest of the UK. At the same time, to maintain the Irish border as open as it has been alignment would be needed on trade, customs and regulation. Surely the answer is to apply that alignment across the UK, then the problem is solved.
Lord Callanan
As the noble Lord is aware, we are leaving the customs union and the single market. Northern Ireland will be leaving them with us.