Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I served as a member of the sub-committee on the protocol under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Jay. As has been repeatedly stated, the Bill constitutes a breach of the international obligations into which we entered freely. If we do not comply with those obligations, we will do great damage to our reputation and those who come to negotiate with us in the future will remember. We will not be trusted.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee stated in its 12th report that

“the legislative mechanism by which the Government propose to give to effect to the Bill’s purpose is wholly contrary to the principles of parliamentary democracy (namely, parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law and the accountability of the Executive to Parliament)”.

Indeed, the powers given to Ministers would permit a future weakening of protocol Article 2, which provides for the preservation of the Good Friday agreement “in all its dimensions” including its human rights and equality safeguards.

The sub-committee’s first report identified serious problems in how the protocol was being applied. It also pointed out that the search for solutions up to that point had been hampered by fundamental flaws in both the UK and the EU’s approach The report concluded that unless urgent steps were taken to correct this, Northern Ireland and its peoples would become permanent casualties in the post-Brexit landscape. The situation now is that the people of Northern Ireland are becoming casualties in that landscape. So are those GB businesses which, having developed trade links with Northern Ireland, have now decided because of the additional cost that future trade with Northern Ireland is not sustainable at present.

The committee’s second report said:

“The economic data necessary to conduct a comprehensive statistical analysis of the impact of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland is not yet available. Nevertheless … the economic impact is becoming clearer … Our witnesses have described a dichotomy of experience, characterised by one as ‘feast or famine’”.


Northern Ireland’s economy includes a significant percentage of SMEs, and it has been established that many firms in Great Britain are now refusing to, or are reluctant to, trade east to west because of increased bureaucracy, the need for enhanced staff resources, increases to cost and delivery times and reduced flexibility. The inevitable increasing regulatory divergence between the UK and the EU is also a cause of uncertainty and concern, as are the effects of Brexit.

Trade from north to south has undoubtedly benefited from the protocol. Sectors of the economy, such as the dairy and meat-processing industries, depend on complex cross-border supply chains on the island of Ireland. Damage would be caused to those sectors should access to the EU single market be lost. The committee’s report therefore says that the overall impact of the protocol on the Northern Ireland economy remains uncertain.

Witnesses to the committee have told us what is needed to resolve the difficulties underpinning the negative economic impact of the protocol. There is creativity and determination among them in resolving the difficulties, which appear to be fundamentally bureaucratic. What is necessary now is constructive dialogue underpinned by a determination to reach resolution on the many issues that have arisen. What is not needed is the effective emasculation of the protocol, which has already resulted in multiple infringement proceedings against the UK by the EU. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, there are provisions in Article 16 of the protocol which provide safeguards against

“serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”.

These should be utilised effectively by the UK and the EU.

It is important to state that the protocol has not caused civil disturbance of any significance in Northern Ireland. People want to see the problems resolved. There is significant concern that, although the Government state that there will be no diminution as a consequence of the Bill in the rights protected under the Good Friday agreement, this is not the case. Can the Minister tell us what consideration was given to compliance with Article 2 of the protocol in the context of this Bill?

Finally, on the position of Northern Ireland within the UK, I accept that significant concerns have been presented to your Lordships. I acknowledge the fears and concerns that underpin this position. However, because the UK voted for Brexit, some accommodation has to be made for the situation resulting from Northern Ireland’s land border with Ireland—a land border that is not readily amenable to customs and other checks. Northern Ireland is in a unique position: it has access to the EU single market yet remains a constituent part of the UK. Properly worked, this could be a significant advantage for all our people in the UK.

Northern Ireland needs stability, a working Assembly, vastly improved public services and many other things. All these could happen if the protocol can be made to work. It is in both the EU’s and the UK’s interests that this should happen. It is in nobody’s interests that the Bill should pass and the consequential years of disruption to UK-EU trade should occur, nor that we should be tied up fighting battles against the EU in the CJEU for years, at a time when we need to restore our national economy and care for all our people.

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[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

I will not give way at this stage.

An argument which was deployed by some of your Lordships, beginning with the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and continued by my noble friend Lord Northbrook, was that by these steps the Government are damaging the trust in the United Kingdom among its international partners. There is no reason why this legislation should damage trust among our international partners. The Government want to move past issues with the protocol and focus on the key global challenges, such as those emanating from the current Government of Russia. As regards this country’s standing in the world at large, people furth of this country will look to the unhesitating support offered by this country to a democratic state imperilled by an aggressive neighbour and take that as the badge and measure of this country’s approach.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, again, with the utmost respect, I decline to give way to the noble Baroness. She has my assurance that I will engage with her.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I speak with a sense of something approaching elation from yesterday. We have a new Prime Minister, who appears to be a man of absolute honour—I take up the points made by the noble Lord who has just spoken. I have hope in him, and I hope he will justify that hope, which I believe is shared by many.

I do not want to make a long speech. I moved a regret amendment at Second Reading, and I was rather sorry in many ways that I was not able to put it to the vote, but clearly the House did not want that to happen at that time and it was right to listen to the House.

I would like to give one message above all others to the Prime Minister. What took Northern Ireland forward—the noble Lord, Lord Hain, with whom I worked in Northern Ireland when he was Secretary of State and I was chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, knows this better than I—was prime ministerial involvement; that was the key to success.

Both John Major and Tony Blair devoted enormous time and attention to what led to be the Good Friday agreement. I remember being present in the Royal Gallery when the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, came, together with Tony Blair, to speak to both Houses of Parliament. Tony Blair was particularly careful to say that this was not just his achievement, and that without the building blocks laid by John Major this could not have happened. There has to be a cross-party accord; there has to be prime ministerial involvement.

Our present Prime Minister has inherited a herculean task. If he is going to devote time to the economy, he clearly cannot be devoting an equal amount of time to Northern Ireland at the moment. What he can do, however, is to encourage those who are negotiating on this country’s behalf to negotiate. He can remove what I called in the Second Reading debate the sword of Damocles, which is this Bill. It is a bad Bill; it is a Bill that gives powers that no democratic Minister should ever seek in a plethora of Henry VIII clauses. Therefore, what I beg Mr Sunak to do is to just go carefully and then, as soon as it is possible, to go to Northern Ireland with the Secretary of State. I do not know who that will be, because the Prime Minister is reconstructing his Government even as we sit in this Chamber this afternoon. He has promised—and I was there when he promised it yesterday afternoon in Committee Room 14— a broadly based Administration, which we desperately need. We have had Administrations produced by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss which were by no means broadly based. They were merely gatherings of like-minded people and, in constructing their Governments, the two Prime Ministers did not really take sufficient account of variety and ability.

I hope that Mr Sunak is doing that as we speak. I hope that he will go to Northern Ireland soon; that he will talk to those who are negotiating on behalf of the Government with the European Union; that he will recognise that the very last thing that this country needs is a trade war, referred to earlier in this debate; and that he will pause. There is no great hurry and, even if the Government are in a hurry, your Lordships’ House is not in a hurry. This could take hours and hours and days and days, but at the end of the day this Bill is unimprovable, because it trashes our international reputation and the things that we are most proud of.

My noble friend Lord Howard’s reference to Putin, in his brilliant speech on Second Reading, was entirely apposite. We have to set an example; we have to show that we are indeed the guardians of one of the best democracies in the world. We have got to show that we are not prepared to sanction a Bill that rides roughshod over our national reputation. Like my noble friend Lord Hailsham, I would support either of these amendments if they were put to the vote tonight. But I understand why those who have proposed them in very persuasive terms perhaps do not want to do that. However, there must be a day of reckoning in your Lordships’ House because this Bill is bad for our country and bad for our future, and it must not go onto the statute books.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as one who lives in Northern Ireland and experiences on a regular basis the impact of the bureaucracy associated with the operation of the protocol. I spoke at Second Reading of my concerns about the Bill and I want to support both amendments placed before your Lordships today, because we do not have the information that would underpin proper consideration of the necessity for the Bill. No doubt a solution has to be found to the various problems arising in the operation of the protocol but, as witnesses to the Northern Ireland protocol sub-committee of the European Affairs Committee told us—we heard evidence last Friday in the Northern Ireland Assembly—this Bill is like placing a gun on the table at the negotiations.

I hope that, even at this late stage, the Prime Minister and the usual channels will consider the matter further and withdraw the Bill—in light of your Lordships’ interventions today, of the reports of the sub-committee on the protocol, those of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and, most of all, in light of the report of the Constitution Committee, which says:

“Legislation which puts the UK in breach of international law undermines the rule of law and trust in the UK in fulfilling future treaty commitments. The Government’s reliance on the doctrine of necessity does not justify introducing this Bill. This raises the question of whether ministers might be thought to have contravened their obligation under the Ministerial Code to comply with the law, including international law.”


This is the most serious of observations by the Constitution Committee. I will vote against the Bill when we get an opportunity to do so but, at present, I support the amendments.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support both these amendments and to pay tribute to our colleague Baroness May Blood, who sadly passed away last week. May was a fearless campaigner in Belfast for the rights of the underdog, for integrated education—believing that children should be educated together rather than apart—and, above all, for the rights of women in work and in factories.

I support the contents of these amendments. So far, we have not received from the Government any reports or any assessment from their perspective about the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Also, we now have the report from the Constitution Committee, as was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan.

No assessments have been carried out in respect of the economy, business and commercial developments in Northern Ireland. Only last week, as a member of your Lordships’ committee on the protocol, I returned to Northern Ireland along with the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Goudie, and our chair the noble Lord, Lord Jay. We paid a visit and took evidence—in Newry, which is along the Belfast-Dublin corridor, as well as in the Northern Ireland Assembly—from the leaders of all the political parties, and from the business, commercial and manufacturing sector. The general view of those people—apart from those in the haulage sector—was “Please remove this Bill”. This comes back to the basic point that there have to be successful negotiations, a successful negotiated outcome between the EU and the UK. That is vital. Those negotiations cannot come to a positive conclusion as long as the Bill, which is like a gun on the table, exists. I urge the Government: please remove this Bill, as it is not helpful.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I urge the Government and the new Prime Minister to come to Northern Ireland—above all, to come with Taoiseach Micheál Martin and show the joint approach that was portrayed in the Good Friday agreement. That bipartisan approach is urgently required because, unless there are negotiations to restore the political institutions, we are in a political backwater. I urge the Government please to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

Now at that very time—and I look at the noble Lord, Lord Dodds—I was trying to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, to do a compromise deal with the May Government to get it through. What the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, said in effect was, “That is very interesting”—about the primacy of the Good Friday agreement—“and that could be the way forward, because it could be a way of protecting and balancing our rights, but I do not believe Parliament on this matter.” The way you have all behaved in the last hour and a half shows that he was entirely right not to believe Parliament. He said, “We need more than that, though it is an interesting opening gambit.” That is why it was said by the Attorney-General on that day on 12 March—the Attorney-General gave the Brexit Secretary the authority to say it—in an attempt to do a deal. But he said no. Why did he say no? Because he thought lots of people would not follow through, and you have just proven in spades that, unfortunately, I was wrong when I told him to compromise, and he was right, because that is exactly how you have functioned.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

Can I ask the noble Lord whether he thinks that the Government’s intention to call a Northern Ireland Assembly election on Friday will assist matters?

[Lord Bew (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, very much for that question. The short answer is that I agree with her. We have a new Prime Minister, which begs the occasion for looking again at that question because, frankly, we need some more weeks to see how the negotiations go and so on and, frankly—