Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak not as an expert on Northern Ireland but simply as a member of the Delegated Powers Committee. I happen to be half Irish, which explains why I am very interested in this Bill, but it is not why I am speaking.

As other noble Lords have said, this is a Bill of exceptional constitutional significance, and yet it is a skeleton Bill that confers on Ministers powers to legislate in the widest possible terms. I cannot improve on the statement in the committee’s report on this Bill that

“The Bill is unprecedented in its cavalier treatment of Parliament, the EU and the Government's international obligations”.


Of course, the most appalling aspect of this is the Government's apparent willingness to breach international law. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, and my noble friend Lord Pannick superbly explained precisely why this Bill is a breach of international law. I would really like the Minister to respond to that point.

This Bill unilaterally disapplies specific areas of the protocol and makes matters far worse by delegating to Ministers powers to disapply further areas of the protocol in UK domestic law. Clause 22(2) is explicit that Ministers can disregard the UK’s international obligations under the Northern Ireland protocol or any other part of the EU withdrawal agreement. The extent of that delegation is quite breathtaking.

As other noble Lords have pointed out, Britain has a proud history as an example to the world of a country which at all times and in all circumstances respects the rule of law. This Bill threatens to undermine that precious reputation. For this reason alone, this House should not proceed to Committee stage on this Bill as it stands.

While recognising that the worst feature of this Bill is its disregard for international law, I will focus my remaining remarks on the extraordinary delegation of powers to Ministers. The fact is that every one of the 19 powers in the Bill allows Ministers to make any provision that they could make under an Act of Parliament, including modifying by regulations the Bill itself once it has become law.

As the Bill stands, Ministers could by regulation impose or increase taxes, create retrospective laws, create serious criminal offences, or amend the Human Rights Act 1998, for example. These are surely extraordinary and unacceptable powers. Whenever a Bill seeks to achieve any of those objectives by delegated powers, the Delegated Powers Committee pulls them up and draws attention to it. However, the wholesale nature of the matters in this Bill is completely unprecedented.

In their memorandum on the Bill, the Government frequently refer to powers being exercised to make “technical and detailed” provision that is best suited to regulations. However, to suggest that powers are just technical or detailed when they unilaterally depart from a major international agreement in a highly controversial area of law is outrageous. I hope the Minister feels able to comment on this aspect of the Government’s memorandum.

I could go on, but I have said sufficient to explain why I will support any Motion which seeks to defer consideration of this Bill to allow time for the Government to continue negotiating with the EU to resolve all remaining issues arising from the protocol. Very relevant here is the fact that Northern Ireland industry representatives are generally satisfied with the protocol if the relatively limited remaining issues can be resolved by negotiation. The southern Ireland Government have also indicated that they regard the outstanding issues as manageable through negotiation. The Minister made clear that the Government’s preferred way forward is through negotiation. For the sake of the reputation of this country and out of respect for the supremacy of Parliament, I plead with the Government to withdraw the Bill.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate that I am a relative newcomer to this House, but I had understood that in Committee discussion is supposed to focus on the amendments before us. What I have heard today is very much a rerun of the discussion we heard in this place last week, with repeated invocations of issues of principle around this Bill and the protocol, which are extremely important but might not be resolved in this debate simply by repeating the points over and over.

I have been trying to follow the detail of this on my electronic device, with my documents in front of me—I know the technique may not be familiar to everybody in this House, but I am trying my best. I was not intending to speak but, as some points of principle have been raised, I feel it is right to put certain circumstances on record.

I will make three brief points. First, I feel we are having a highly abstract discussion about a very concrete and real situation. Noble Lords all know what is happening in Northern Ireland at the moment and what has happened over the last year and in recent months: the constant, gradual deterioration of the real political situation in Northern Ireland, the undermining of the institutions of the Good Friday agreement, and the degradation of some of the habits of co-operation and working together that we have seen over the years. This is a real situation, which must be dealt with. This Bill is a way of dealing with it and the Government—rightly, in my view—believe it is the best way of doing so.

We have to engage with that. We have to take real-life action to deal with the problems that exist on the ground in Northern Ireland. Important though discussions of international law and a reinvocation of why we signed this agreement may be, they do not deal with the real situation on the ground now. The Government are the Government of this country, and they are right to put forward proposals that deal with this situation. The best way to deal with it would be to expedite this Bill, not to delay, defer or withdraw it. The best contributor to stability in Northern Ireland would be to get this on the statute book and enable people to know what they are dealing with.

Secondly—

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Frost (Con)]

No other noble Lords have taken interventions, so I will complete my points if I may.

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, who made the points I was about to make about Article 16. When I was on the Front Bench here, I repeatedly stated that the conditions for meeting Article 16 had been met but we would prefer to proceed by negotiation. I was looked at as some sort of barbarian by many people in this House, and elsewhere, for daring to contemplate such a possibility. Yet it now seems that it is what many people would wish to do to resolve this situation—the natural way of doing so. I am very glad that is the view, but I am afraid that my view is that the situation on the ground in Northern Ireland has gone beyond that and Article 16 will not be the best way to resolve that.