Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Lord Patten of Barnes and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading and made clear my opposition to Bill. I will not repeat any of that. I will try to avoid repeating the many views that have already been given, all of which I agree with. They have been put very eloquently and clearly. This is a quite despicable piece of legislation that shows total contempt for the rule of law. It is plainly in breach of our international obligations. It shows total contempt for parliamentary democracy by giving powers to the Government to legislate without having to bother with parliamentary scrutiny in the correct way in future. To say that I am opposed to the Bill is an understatement. I still sit here utterly astonished that, after all my decades in politics, a British Government —worst of all, a Conservative Government—could dare to bring forward a piece of legislation of this kind, in a country that is supposed to be the mother of Parliaments and has always, in the past, been respected for our form of parliamentary democracy and what we contribute to the rule of law, democracy, liberty and liberal values in the world. I am already beginning to warm to my views on the whole thing.

I want to comment on the value of delaying proceeding with all this. We are proposing to move to negotiations with the European Union. It is our closest friend and ally in the world. Certainly, since the Americans have a certain propensity to elect a President such as President Trump in the not-too-distant future, we are particularly dependent on the closest possible relationships with our neighbours and friends, whose international interests almost entirely coincide with ours. What is the Government’s answer, not on the merits of the Bill—no doubt the Minister will do his best to make an argument and keep a straight face, which I think he managed in our last debate—but about the delay? If they are genuinely opening negotiations with the European Union in good faith, and if the policy of the new Government is a genuine desire to reach a settlement of the practical problems—the stated policy of the old Government—it could, if addressed properly, improve the practical application of the Bill.

What they are doing is poisoning the whole relationship behind the negotiations before they have even started. To a lay audience, one would only have to ask: what would our reaction be if the Europeans came to the table and put a similar blunderbuss in front of us, saying, “We are already preparing, unless you agree to any terms we put forward, to now impose tariffs on all the products that you export to your most important markets in our territory—and we are going to do so, tearing up the agreements to the contrary and normal practice, in front of your eyes”?

You cannot negotiate on that basis. It is not just illegal; it is just bad negotiating tactics. We are positively inviting them to plunge us into a trade war, which is about the worst possible disaster I can imagine this country being plunged in given its economic circumstances at the moment, as we are already in a recession. We are going to have a severe recession and combine it with very high levels of inflation, unless the new Government produce some spectacular remedies for where we have already got to.

I have no doubt that something ingenious will have been prepared for the arguments on the merits, the law and parliamentary process and that undertakings will be given. What is the argument that makes it so absolutely urgent for the Government to insist that they must be seen to be proceeding to legislate in this way, before they have even sat down to start talks with our European neighbours? If anybody can think of an argument against that, I shall be absolutely astonished.

Finally, I have enjoyed this debate. I enjoy coming to the House of Lords and wish I was able to come more frequently. It is a splendid institution and I enjoy the debates. I always have a little difficulty as I still have not managed, after two years here, to take it terribly seriously and my friends criticise me for that. If I have a decent dinner in the evening, I am afraid it sometimes takes me away from debates which I am otherwise engaged in. The reason is because increasingly, over the years, the House has been totally disregarded by Governments of all kinds. It is rarely heeded by the public because it has such limitations on its powers. I entirely understand the overriding principle that the elected House must, in the end, prevail when it has a conflict with an appointed House. We do not have the legitimacy that we would need to block the express views of a majority of the House of Commons, but we concede to that convention in an extremely cautious way.

I came here convinced that, at the very least, I would go away feeling a little more satisfied because I had been able to cast a vote to give the chance of improving the climate of the negotiations by delaying progress on the Bill for a time, to see whether the negotiations could make some progress. Like my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Hailsham, I would have supported any vote put forward to that effect. So here we are; we are retreating. I must learn to understand and acquire more experience, realising that a Labour Government want to reserve the right to do similar things if they see the precedent being set for future and successive Governments. But I regret it, because the principles behind this debate are of huge and profound importance.

The quality of our democracy is deteriorating. The power of our Parliament is being eroded and we do not know where this process is going to be stopped. I still hope that we might find some pause in that development if the new Prime Minister thinks again and agrees to at least hold up any further parliamentary progress until he sees whether sensible negotiations with the Europeans are worth while. It is as much in the interests of the Europeans as ours to have successful negotiations and we might be able to return to a civilised way forward.

[Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)]

I will not begin by following my noble friend with an autobiographical diversion, but I want to start with what he said at the beginning of his remarks. It is not outwith our experience in this Chamber or elsewhere to begin a speech by saying that everything one wanted to say has already been said, then to say it all over again rather less well than some others said it.

I wish to be very brief. I will not follow the arguments about the lack of wisdom of turning Henry VIII into our legislative guru in this House. I will not follow what has been said about the way in which the doctrine of necessity was tortured in a way the American constitution would surely regard as “cruel and unusual” treatment into providing whatever Ministers wanted it to say.

I want to borrow from a corruption of what Lord Alfred Douglas said and raise another issue which has not for some time dared to speak its name, and that is Brexit. We sometimes get the legislation and arguments about it the wrong way round. It was Brexit which was a threat to the Good Friday agreement and the relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The Northern Ireland protocol was meant to deal with that in an acceptable way.

The last Prime Minister—let me get this right—but two had her own proposals for dealing with the problem, which was to have the whole of the United Kingdom more or less inside the customs union and single market. That was opposed by the last Prime Minister but one and the European Research Group. They saw off Theresa May and produced the Northern Ireland protocol as their own answer to the problem. At the time, the then Prime Minister gave lots of assurances to the DUP and others that the Northern Ireland protocol would not have any effect on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I assume it was his usual habit of saying things he hoped would be true but turned out not to be, or maybe he just had not read what he had signed up to.

We are left with this debate about the Northern Ireland protocol. I think we are debating it with a Prime Minister who wants to unite the Conservative Party and the country, rescue the economy from Singapore-on-Thames-ism and do what he can to bring us all together in that very difficult fight. In doing so, I am sure he will be aware of the impact on the economy of having another row with the European Union, which remains—even though we are outside it—our largest trade market. It cannot make sense, as my noble friend said earlier, to do that. I very much agree with what both my noble friends Lord Hailsham and Lord Howard said on this. It makes sense to give Mr Sunak and the new Government a chance of looking at these issues again.