Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Lord Pannick and Lord Dodds of Duncairn

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

There are many difficulties with that argument, the first being that there are good-faith negotiations that the United Kingdom is involved in. One cannot assume that they will not succeed. We do have a protocol.

The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, made a point which has been made previously in Committee, concerning the democratic deficit in Northern Ireland. There is a provision in the protocol that expressly addresses democratic consent in Northern Ireland: Article 18. It sets out a detailed procedure to ensure that there is democratic consent, and it requires in detail provisions to ensure the consent, in due course, of both communities, the nationalist and the unionist. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, will say that it is far from perfect and that he does not like the detail set out there—but that is what we agreed. It simply cannot be said that the subject of democratic consent has been ignored. It was negotiated and it was agreed.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

Does the noble Lord accept that the provisions of Article 18 are contrary to the agreement that was made between the European Union and the UK Government in December 2017? Article 50 of the joint report said that before there could be any regulatory difference between Northern Ireland the rest of the United Kingdom, there had to be the assent of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive. The current arrangements are in breach of an EU-UK agreement and the process for giving consent is deliberately made a non-cross-community vote, contrary to the Belfast agreement.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

It is elementary as a matter of diplomacy and of international law that a country is perfectly entitled to reach a new agreement in the circumstances as they then exist. That is what happened when the protocol was agreed. Both sides agreed a mechanism in Article 18 for ensuring democratic consent.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Lord Pannick and Lord Dodds of Duncairn

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I bow to the noble Lord, who has immeasurably more knowledge and experience of Northern Ireland than I could possibly have, but of course I have read the Northern Ireland agreement and understand that there are two documents in international law. The simple point is that, in the protocol, we agreed the means by which we take the view that the Good Friday agreement should be implemented in the context of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. That is what we agreed; we cannot now say that we are going to resile from it unilaterally. It is as simple as that.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate because I had not realised that it would range so far and wide and across so many general issues. We had a lengthy debate at Second Reading in which a number of these topics were discussed; nevertheless, I think it is worth addressing some of the points that have been made and putting some of the issues on record as far as we are concerned.

I begin by joining noble Lords and noble Baronesses in their tributes to the late Baroness May Blood, who passed away recently. She lived and was brought up in the same part of Northern Ireland that I had the honour of representing in another place for almost 20 years, so I knew her very well indeed. I pay tribute to her great resilience, hard work, dedication and tenacity in her pursuit of the issues in which she believed strongly, as well as her dedication to young people in the Shankill and integrated education, as has been mentioned.

It is not incompatible to support this Bill and seek a negotiated outcome. On the negotiated outcome, although there is not a great history of flourishing talks with the EU and the United Kingdom on the protocol issues thus far, we hope that any negotiations lead to an outcome that is compatible with the aims and objectives contained in this Bill. This is not a matter of just tinkering around the edges and finding practical solutions, as has been said; some of the issues are fundamentally contained in the protocol. You cannot address the democratic deficit issue satisfactorily unless you address some of the content of the protocol.

No matter how much consultation, prior notice, discussion or involvement you agree to give Northern Ireland politicians in relation to EU laws covering 300 areas such as the economy—as well as further issues such as state aid, VAT and so on—the fundamental fact is that no elected representative of Northern Ireland either here at Westminster or in the Northern Ireland Assembly has any vote or decision-making capacity on vast swathes of laws that apply in Northern Ireland. How will that be addressed? This Bill goes some way to addressing that, but nothing I have heard being suggested by the proponents of delay, who are against the Bill, has offered any solution to that point. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, acknowledged the problem.

Our Sub-Committee on the Protocol, of which I have the honour of being a member, has looked at this issue in considerable detail; I recommend that noble Lords and noble Baronesses read the report that we commissioned on the scrutiny of legislation now applicable to Northern Ireland. They will see the extent to which Northern Ireland has been removed from the normal processes of democratic lawmaking, which people in this House have spoken about with great eloquence but which does not apply anymore to United Kingdom citizens in the 21st century. That is entirely unacceptable and is contrary to all the traditions of democracy that this mother of Parliaments has sought to uphold both here and abroad.

It has been asked what the problem is with delay. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, has dealt with one issue—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, and I understand what she is saying, but the issues that were being discussed at the time by Her Majesty’s Government, as it then was, and which the Labour Party was responding to, are the same issues that are before us today, which are affecting the political process in Northern Ireland and leading to problems with the supply of goods from Great Britain. They are exactly the same but when the solution, “Let’s trigger Article 16; let’s go into negotiations”, was suggested, the Labour Party derided that as being toxic. The Labour Party gave support and succour to those who have allowed this position of instability and economic and constitutional harm to continue. A lot of lies have been told around the place, but it is no good, if I may say so, the noble Baroness putting all the blame on to the Government when everybody in Parliament and all political parties have to accept that the goalposts have been shifted, often by consensus, in a way that has done damage to the Belfast agreement, as amended by St Andrews, in a way that has undermined the trust of the people in Northern Ireland in the institutions.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I entirely understand the noble Lord’s political grievance, but the fact is that Article 16 is part of the protocol and the political grievance cannot itself provide the basis for necessity in international law. This group of amendments is seeking to understand what the legal advice of the Government is.