European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 308ZA, to which I added my name to those of my noble friends Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lord Judd. I am extremely pleased to follow the other noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Patten and Lord Murphy.

The amendment is concerned with the equivalence of rights between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The approach outlined would allow for continued institutional alignment in Northern Ireland with the EU-derived safeguards and frameworks that underpin the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The protection of the Good Friday agreement needs to be considered in its detailed implementation as well as in its broad principles.

As I said, the amendment focuses on the protection of existing EU-derived human rights—safeguards that link to the Good Friday agreement. The equivalence of rights on a north-south basis is a defining feature of the Good Friday agreement. A further signal of the expectation of long-term north-south equivalence is seen in the duty of the joint committee established under the agreement to consider,

“human rights issues in the island of Ireland”,

as well as,

“the possibility of establishing a charter, open to signature by all democratic political parties, reflecting and endorsing agreed measures for the protection of the fundamental rights of everyone living in the island of Ireland”.

The joint committee welcomed the commitment in the draft withdrawal agreement that the UK,

“shall ensure that no diminution of rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity … results from its withdrawal from the Union”.

However, it stated that the Government’s approach would only ensure equivalence of rights on exit day from the European Union and said:

“There is a risk that … a growing discrepancy between UK and EU law will emerge, thus eroding the North-South equivalence of rights in Ireland”.


That would be as a consequence of either the UK or the EU adopting higher standards. The joint committee called for the withdrawal agreement to provide for continuing north-south equivalence of rights post Brexit, as established under the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Furthermore, the joint committee is concerned that the failure to retain the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and EU equality legislation within the United Kingdom will result in a diminution of rights in Northern Ireland and potentially cause a divergence of rights on a north-south basis. The joint committee—it is worth restating this—calls for,

“the text of the Withdrawal Agreement to commit the UK to retaining in UK law the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and to enable the UK to keep pace with its evolving protections over time”.

For that reason and for so many more, I support the amendment and the other amendments in the group.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

I support Amendment 261 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patten. I regret that I was unable to take part in the Second Reading debate, because I was with your Lordships’ EU Committee in Dublin, Belfast and Londonderry and on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Just a little while ago, I was standing on a bridge across the border with traffic thundering past in both directions—EU lorries, Irish lorries and British lorries. It seemed to me inconceivable then and it seems to me inconceivable now that any kind of barriers could be put in the way of traffic moving freely across that lengthy and complicated border. It is extremely hard to see how we can avoid such controls if we are outside the customs union; that seems an extraordinarily powerful and logical reason why the right course for us to take is to stay within the customs union. It is equally clear that the continuing process of peace in Ireland—north and south—depends on the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, and that the strength of that agreement will be greater if it is included in the Bill. For that reason, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Patten.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, the temperature of our debate this afternoon reflects again the emotions expressed so recently in this House by those of us who live, work and have our being in Northern Ireland. We are sensitive as a people to the fact that your Lordships’ House is hearing on repeated occasions references to “our” problems and “our” difficulties. But this is taking on a different dimension, because what was traditionally our problem is becoming a problem on a much wider scale, for it is becoming the crux of the debate on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom as a nation from the EU.

The problems to which the Good Friday/Belfast agreement has done so much to provide an ongoing solution are so often taken to be not just a matter for the people of Northern Ireland but now central to what people are considering. The difficulty of the border, community relations, human rights—all that long list of human problems was once contained within the borders of Northern Ireland but, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, so rightly reminded us a few minutes ago, it is becoming crucial to the debate on the future of our withdrawal. None of us wants to apologise to this House for the fact that our local problems now take on international significance. When we listen once more to the experience of former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, we are reminded that the problems to which I have referred have taken on a dimension that we never envisaged, even at the height of the Troubles.

For that reason, when I read Amendment 261 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, I began to wonder whether we were stating the obvious yet again. Are we stating the fact that the importance of the Belfast agreement is such that it is welcome to see it suggested as a part of the Bill? I began to wonder whether other issues deteriorate the importance of reference to the Belfast principles, et cetera. Then I listened a few minutes ago to a debate on another amendment, when we concentrated on giving what someone said were excessive powers to Ministers to look at secondary legislation and have wide-ranging powers to alter the details of policy without addressing the power and supremacy of Parliament. I began to wonder: whether it is possible to visualise the situation in years to come when something as sensitive as the Belfast agreement—something as sensitive as all that the agreement has achieved—could possibly be affected by what we listened to in that previous discussion.