United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and my noble friend Lord Sarfraz on their maiden speeches, and I warmly welcome them to this House.

On the Bill before the House, I wholeheartedly support the amendment to the Motion in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for all the reasons that he so admirably and eloquently laid out, and that in the name of my noble friend Lord Cormack. I share the deep regrets expressed by my noble friend Lord Bridges and agree with all the remarks of my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke.

The damning reports of three House of Lords Select Committees, and the exceptionally clear explanation presented to the House by my noble friend Lord Barwell, are clear indications of why it is our duty to ensure that the Bill, particularly Part 5, does not pass through this House. I cannot, in all good conscience, support the measures in the Bill, particularly Part 5 but much else, too. I am afraid that I will have to vote, on every occasion, against the Government’s intention to break international law. I congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on his brave intervention, and I join other noble Lords in warning about the potential of the Bill, as presented to this House, to pave the way to authoritarian rule.

Principle must come before party, and this is the moment of truth when we must face up to the consequences of seeking to have the same rules within the four countries of the UK while pretending that these rules can somehow differ from those of the EU, particularly Ireland, without erecting borders either in the Irish Sea or on the island of Ireland. Should those mythical alternative arrangements to do away with the need for such borders materialise—arrangements that were promised to us a year or two ago—that would have been fine, but in their absence we must ensure that the Bill does not pass through this House as presented to us today.