Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Follow-up Report (European Affairs Committee)

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Jay, for his exceptional chairing of a group of us that is, to say the least, politically diverse, if not a right handful. My thanks also to our brilliant clerk, Stuart Stoner, who has done a superhuman job since our inception, together with his colleagues.

The Windsor Framework is welcome as an effort by both the Government and the EU Commission to address very serious concerns around the protocol. However, as the report makes clear, a lot is still unresolved. Indeed, the sense of uncertainty risks being compounded by the fact that the Government remain open to doing the bidding of only one party when it comes to further adjustments and legislation with respect to Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit position.

How can the Secretary of State consider it appropriate to tell the leader of one party that he, the Minister,

“can bring forward legislation … that does exactly what he needs it to do for his party”,—[Official Report, Commons, 21/6/23; col. 780]

namely the DUP? Yet after all that, the DUP does not trust the Government, and I do not blame it, because the Conservatives have betrayed the unionist cause that they purport to extol in a deal that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, negotiated but now condemns. When will the Government understand that finding stability in Northern Ireland is not, and never will be, about appeasing one party over others, but is rather about holding firm to the legal obligations and commitments that they have made—and, above all, that it is about being an honest broker? I say that as a former Secretary of State who brought the DUP and Sinn Féin to share power together from May 2007. That could have been achieved only by mutual respect between myself and the DUP—not necessarily agreeing with each other but building mutual trust.

That leads me back to our sub-committee’s report. There are three things worth underlining as a means of shoring up the stability and democratic governance of post-Brexit Northern Ireland, which all are agreed must be a priority. First, the Windsor deal is not merely a diplomatic “win” but a very significant framework for Northern Ireland’s future economic and trading relationships. The Government recognise that Northern Ireland enjoys potential advantages as a result of these arrangements, but those can be secured only by adequate resourcing from London, which is palpably not the case currently. It will be necessary to work in a new way with Northern Ireland officials, stakeholders, experts and—before long, let us hope—the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive to make sure that the extensive capacity needed is there to make the Windsor Framework a success. It is a very complex animal.

Secondly, the report clearly sets out the need for information and clarity about the details of the Windsor Framework in practice. It is welcome that the Government are issuing more guidance on the details of the implementation of the schemes underpinning the green lanes, for example, but there is need for clarity and detail on a wider range of issues, from the so-called Stormont brake—which does not seem much of a brake at all—to the movement of parcels. The evidence gathered by the sub-committee is a helpful indication of not only what is needed now but what will be needed in the near future.

Finally, as our report concludes, it is vital that the UK and the EU ensure that they remain in close and productive dialogue, rebuilding the trust that is so vital but was squandered so recklessly by bellicose posturing under the Johnson and Truss regimes—trust both with each other and with Northern Ireland stakeholders and its citizens, and with the Irish Government, who are a guarantor for and signatory to the 1998 Good Friday agreement and the 2007 power-sharing self-government. Unless that trust is built with Dublin, nothing will work. It must also be built with Brussels. That is a huge challenge for this Government, which, sadly, they have so far failed to meet, except in respect of the Windsor Framework, which I welcome. I hope they rebuild that trust in future.