Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

I put it to my noble and learned friend the Advocate-General that if, as he argued earlier, particularly in response to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, it is the case that the protocol is not being applied and implemented as was intended, then the doctrine of necessity is not the appropriate legal base—it has to be Article 16. With those few remarks, I ask that Clauses 1, 2 and 3 do not stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I oppose the removal of Clauses 1, 2 and 3 from the Bill. We had a long debate earlier this evening in which the word “delay” was used a number of times: we needed to delay, be more careful, reflect and consider. However, removing these three clauses, as proposed in the name of a number of noble Lords, shows that this is a wrecking proposal. Those Members and many others in the House do not want to see this Bill go forward. The purpose is to rip out the very heart of the Bill. If they are removed, we may as well all go home.

There are two problems with the protocol that are important. One of these, the way that the United Kingdom is affected, has been mentioned a lot this evening. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, mentioned this earlier, but those who oppose these clauses, and Clause 3 in particular—the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Chapman of Darlington, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—all got a letter from McBurney Transport Group, a big transport group in Northern Ireland. I hope that they read the letter and will respond. More importantly, I hope that they will listen to what was said in the letter about visiting Northern Ireland, meeting McBurney and finding out about the practical implications for a business such as that, which really understands the moving of goods back and forth. The letter said very clearly that implications would flow from the amendments they have tabled, especially their joint proposal that Clauses 2 and 3 be removed from the Bill, which would render it inoperable. The removal of these two clauses would have a particularly devastating impact on Northern Ireland.

There are all sorts of examples of how the protocol is affecting business. I am not intending to go into any more on that now. We have a lot of very eminent lawyers in this House, making very strong legal speeches. I sometimes wonder just how many people back home in Northern Ireland, sitting in the streets of east Belfast or up the Shankill Road, really feel that people in this House understand the effects of the protocol on them as a community, as a country and as individuals.

For me, the important thing about the protocol, and the second reason why I hope these clauses are not removed, is that the Irish Sea border checks are only a symptom of the core constitutional incompatibility of the protocol—the way that Northern Ireland is left subject to EU law and under the jurisdiction of the European court. This has been said over and over again. For those Peers who think it is just a matter of technical changes, and that negotiations will lead to a green line or a red line or that all these different things will happen, that will not change a single person in Northern Ireland who opposes the protocol because it has fundamentally changed how they feel and how, obviously, His Majesty’s Government feel about the status of Northern Ireland.

All the Bill is doing is trying to restore the balance that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement gave, which has been broken. It is also there to protect peace in Northern Ireland. Somehow, out of this misplaced loyalty, which we have heard again tonight, of the EU always being right and the British Government always being wrong, we are finding that people want to remove these clauses really to make the Bill not worth going forward with. I urge everyone in the Committee to think carefully about what they are doing.

We have heard a lot of very true things tonight about how sad we are at the death of Lady Blood last week and about the contributions she made to Northern Ireland. I remind noble Lords of Lord Trimble, who also recently died, and his contribution to Northern Ireland and to this place. He was Nobel Peace Prize winner. He sounded warnings when he said that the protocol is a potent threat to peace and stability in Northern Ireland. It must be removed as a matter of urgency.

We would all love to see negotiations work, of course we would, but as the Minister said earlier, Mr Šefčovič’s mandate has not changed one single bit in all these months. I genuinely do not believe that we are going to get very far with negotiations. Yes, we have a new Prime Minister and new people, and I am glad that the Foreign Secretary stayed the same, and I hope those negotiations will speed up and will get some movement. But we have to have security, and people in Northern Ireland need to know that the Government are prepared to act for the citizens of the United Kingdom and that they come first.

I hope that noble Lords will reflect before we get to Report and listen to what people in Northern Ireland are saying, particularly to those who understand just how easily peace in Northern Ireland can be threatened. We do not want that to happen.