Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I begin by noting the level of engagement with the Bill in your Lordships’ House, both in numbers and the weight of years of experience. I was tempted to ask the Library to make a calculation of the total but I decided that that was not a good use of public funds; the level of concern about the Bill is obvious.

That was reflected in the opening speeches from the Front Benches. I agree with almost every word from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington. She clearly identified that the Bill will not solve the problems it purports to address; that it breaks international law, as many noble and noble and learned Lords have said; and that it gives unprecedented powers to Ministers at a time when we have seen a great many Bills go through in your Lordships’ House—and that is just in my three years here—that, it was already being said, gave unprecedented powers to the Executive; now, they are largely law. We have an overweening Executive, unprecedented in history—and what an Executive.

The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, was notable in bringing out the second point in that list: the breaking of international law. It did not so much bulldoze the Government’s arguments for just cause for their actions as grind them into tiny fragments so that they lay on your Lordships’ House like a layer of sand.

As the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, outlined, this is happening at a critical point in this age of shocks. He highlighted the geopolitical shocks, but I would add the broader climatic and environmental shocks. The UK remains the chair of the COP climate talks. Many are hoping, perhaps against hope, that we might play a significant, positive role in the COP 15 biodiversity talks, which are finally soon to start. The destruction of legal principles that the UK has historically played a big part in creating can only damage not just our place in those talks but the entire progress of those crucial endeavours.

I said that I agreed with almost everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said; where I would differ is her stress on the reason for not voting today—that magical incantation that we are the unelected House. Your Lordships’ House has already had cause to ponder that lack of election does not mean lack of responsibility and that a significant number of the matters increasingly coming before us could best be labelled, in the purest sense, a conscience vote. Perhaps we should look back to what happened with the internal market Bill when, with the leadership of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, this House took a firm stand.

Many of the practical arguments against this Bill have already been powerfully made, but in part I chose to devote a considerable chunk of my week to this debate because I wanted to demonstrate the wide breadth of concern across this House. Many of the speakers with whom I am agreeing in opposing this Bill are not people with whom I have broad, general agreement across a wide range of issues, but the broad view of the House is obvious, and I agree with it.

I also consulted the Green Party Northern Ireland because I think it is important—crucial indeed—that all the communities in Northern Ireland are represented here in your Lordships’ House. Like so many others, it stressed that the Bill amounts to a near-complete unilateral rewrite of what is supposed to be an internationally binding treaty. Article 4 of the withdrawal treaty explicitly prohibits this type of legislation. More, it is clear that the scale of the provisions in the Bill is not necessary and risks making the problem worse. Very directly, what is proposed will create further difficulties for Northern Ireland businesses. The only businesses that will benefit will be GB firms which ship to Northern Ireland. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, made this point very clear.

The only sensible solution to the clear problems with the current arrangements—which, let us not forget, since the Minister referred in his introduction to the democratic deficit, are subject to a consent vote in the Assembly in 2024—is one that is managed through negotiation and mutual agreement. I note that that has been very strongly stated by the Northern Ireland Business Brexit Working Group, which represents, among others: the Dairy Council, the Federation of Small Businesses, Hospitality Ulster, the Institute of Directors, the CBI NI, Logistics UK, Manufacturing NI, the NI Grain Trade Association, the NI Meat Exporters Association, the NI Food and Drink Association, the NI Chamber of Commerce and the NI Retail Consortium. We need negotiation and a negotiated settlement, not this Bill.