Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I welcome this Bill and its Second Reading in this House today. I also welcome the fact that the Government now recognise the significant problems caused by the protocol and the damage it is doing to political stability, to community relations, to vast swathes of our economy in Northern Ireland and indeed to businesses in GB. The Bill is a recognition of, and an appropriate response to, the unreasonableness that is intrinsic within the protocol and the fact that, despite protracted engagement with the EU, the only thing more unreasonable than the protocol itself is the EU’s attitude. Its obstinate approach to those intent on finding common-sense solutions that will undo the damage we are seeing in Northern Ireland is what brings us here today. Those solutions, with good will on all sides, can work for everyone. That is what my party desires: solutions that work for, and can be supported by, everyone.

I know that there are Members in this House who will rail against this legislation today, and we have heard some of them already. It is worth reminding the House that some of those are the same voices that have called for the rigorous implementation of the protocol but, having begrudgingly realised at least some of the issues with the protocol, they now say that the way to deal with the protocol is through negotiation, and no reasonable person is opposed to negotiation. Might I suggest, however, that they listen to Maroš Šefčovič, who holds some form of demigod status in the eyes of the SDLP and Alliance? He has stated adamantly that renegotiating the protocol is unrealistic.

While those who oppose this Bill deal with the unrealistic, my party and now the Government are dealing with the real problems caused by the protocol: the huge administrative burden and associated costs foisted on businesses because of the sea border; the increase in transport costs that is making bringing goods to Northern Ireland more expensive; the banning of items being imported into Northern Ireland from other parts of the United Kingdom; and the constitutional change for which there is no consent. It is time for other parties to wake up. I commend the many Members right across the House who have spoken in support of this Bill today. The transfer window is open: Members can switch from team EU to team Northern Ireland, and it is time they joined those of us whose intent is to resolve these issues for the betterment of our economy. Also of fundamental importance is the urgent need to restore the principle of consensus that has been so fundamental to our political process.

This House has heard in many debates on the withdrawal agreement and the protocol that the Belfast agreement must be protected, and Members on both sides of the House need to ask themselves whether they really mean that. If they do, they will recognise that consensus is the cornerstone of our political process. We need to get back to consensual progress, as the reality is that no Unionist elected to this place or the Northern Ireland Assembly—not one—accepts the protocol. That ought to be of concern to all who value the progress made in Northern Ireland, so I make a sincere appeal to the Members and parties who have met Unionist opposition to the protocol with ridicule, sneering and ignorant dismissal to ask themselves whether they share that desire to get us back on track to consensual progress, and to stop the slide into division and the destruction of what we have achieved.

I urge the Government to stay on course and to ensure this Bill passes with haste and without amendments designed only to undo the proposed solutions contained within. We need to get Northern Ireland back on track, and I urge colleagues to back the Bill and help to do just that.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

We clearly have a problem, the absence of the Assembly and the Executive, and the cause is the operation of the protocol. I have said many times to European colleagues I have spoken to that the Commission needs to move in the negotiations. But one of the consequences is that we now have an absolutely terrible relationship with our biggest, nearest and most important trading partners. That is one reason why this is an extremely unwise Bill.

The honest answer to some of the questions that have been put in the debate is that there is not an easy answer because of the contradictions inherent in Brexit, the point my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) made so eloquently a moment ago, although one of the consequences is that Northern Ireland, alone in the United Kingdom, has access to the single market of the European Union as well as to the market of the rest of the United Kingdom.

The reason for me why the Bill is so egregious is that the Government have chosen to pursue it when they have a means of taking the problem to the European Union in the form of article 16. One wonders what the negotiations were like when article 16 was drafted. “What if we have a disagreement about the way the protocol works? Let’s set up a mechanism for dealing with it.” Yet the Government have refused to use it. When I asked the Foreign Secretary why, she said she was a patriot and a democrat. Those are two very worthy things to be, but that is not a reason for abrogating a treaty you have negotiated and signed. It is a long time since I said this to the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox), but I agree completely with the argument he made as to why this is not something the Government should do. It is damaging our relationship and I do not think it will solve the problem.

The Bill is very clever. It is very well drafted and it is a unilateral switch that allows Ministers to turn stuff on and off. That is what it does. Clause 15, which has been part of this debate, contains, in the words of the seventh report of the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulated Reform Committee

“a power of the sort we rarely see—a power that in essence allows Ministers to rip up and rewrite an Act of Parliament.”

The Government claim that is necessary because things may come along that they want then to exclude, but there is a point of principle here. If Ministers decide that an Act of Parliament is not working in the way in which it was intended, they should come back to Parliament and Parliament should look at it, rather than Ministers saying, “In that eventuality, I want to take powers to do it by delegated legislation.”

Clause 15(1) lists a series of purposes for which the powers can be used. With no irony, one of the purposes—I could not believe it when I read it—is:

“securing compliance with, or giving effect to, any international obligation or agreement to which the United Kingdom is a party”.

The Government have tried to be virtuous in writing that in, but they then say that there is one exception to that, which is the EU withdrawal agreement and the protocol.

On article 18 of the withdrawal agreement itself, I note the commitment the Minister gave from the Dispatch Box. I urge him, for the avoidance of all doubt, to write that into the three specific exceptions. He has done it for the rights of citizens and the other two, and I advise the Government to put it in there for the avoidance of all doubt.

Along with many Members, I voted against the Bill on Second Reading. I think that it is beyond repair, as has been said, but that does not mean that we should not vote for things that will make it slightly less egregious. That is why I support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and new clause 10, which was advocated for so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who speaks for the Opposition on Northern Ireland matters.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Today in my constituency, more than 100,000 people will gather in the small, rural village of Scarva for what is the largest parade of the year and what many believe to be the biggest one-day festival in the whole of Europe. It is a fantastic day of colour, music, pageantry and tradition—a celebration of civil and religious liberty for all. I am very sorry to miss it, but I know that those gathered there will be very supportive of what I am in this place to say about the Bill and the protocol. They would want me to reiterate that the Irish sea border must go.

It has been encouraging in recent days to hear some of those who have declared that they are standing to be our next Prime Minister state that they are committed to the Bill. Furthermore, it is welcome to hear from the new Secretary of State—I wish him well in his post—that his priority is to see a Northern Ireland Executive restored. Indeed, we share that priority.

The pathway to the restoration of a fully functioning Assembly and Executive at Stormont is through the Bill, the removal of the sea border and a return to the consensus politics that has been the trademark of our political progress to date. I therefore feel compelled to draw attention to a number of amendments in the names of—but not exclusively—the hon. Members for North Down (Stephen Farry), for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) and for Foyle (Colum Eastwood). Amendments 3 to 5 and new clause 7, which move to restrict the operation of the Bill unless it is approved by the Northern Ireland Assembly, make no mention of cross-community consent, meaning that they are clearly majoritarian in outlook.

The Committee understands that, in Northern Ireland, when one community feel ignored or marginalised or that their views are downtrodden, it brings tension and instability. It is a matter of deep regret that the parties who, for years, have preached consensus and consent now appear to want to tell Unionists that their views do not matter. “We shall overcome” has become “We shall overrule”.

The consequences of such an approach will be vast and extremely damaging. I cannot be clearer on the consequences: Stormont will not come back; community relations will further deteriorate; and the progress made on the basis of consensus will be ruined. No one with a shred of political leadership or responsibility would want that. That is why the amendments that prerequisite approval of the Northern Ireland Assembly must be rejected.

In the time remaining, I turn to the amendments that suggest that EU approval ought to be secured prior to the Government acting or the article 16 provisions being followed. Are those who have tabled such amendments aware that we have reached this point because such agreement has not been possible? The EU position is crystal clear—no renegotiation—yet Members of this House, who are elected to serve the interests of this country and its people, are handing a veto to the EU.

This Government were elected on the back of wanting to “take back control”. Any Government that would accept such amendments would be doing the reverse. It is disappointing, but the amendment paper can be seen for what it is: a wreckers’ charter—to wreck not only the Bill, but our political process in Northern Ireland. I urge the Government to reject the amendments.

[Jim Shannon]

Thank you, Dame Eleanor, for the opportunity to speak for all of a minute or thereabouts.

The Bill is not perfect in any way, but it is the Bill before us. We have to support it, because it makes us as British as England, Scotland and Wales, which at the moment we are not. I am very mindful that Northern Ireland has been the football that everybody has kicked about, so it is important for us to see a Bill coming forward that gives us a chance to make a change. All my local businesses, or 99.9% of them, say that they are disadvantaged by what is in place. The fishing fraternity in Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel says the same thing about tariffs, bureaucracy and red tape, and so does the farming community.

Many hon. Members have said today, mischievously, that this is about Brexit. For us, it is about being British. I want to be as British as every Member on either side of the Committee who wants to be British, but it is more important for me to see a Bill coming forward that will make that happen. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to agree to go forward and support us in Northern Ireland, because this is the way to do it.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

I thank the hon. Member for that point, but I want to make it clear that I listened to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim, who works with and knows Mike Johnston as well as I do, and he did not make any detrimental comment about Mike himself in any of the comments he made. He referred to other members and other motives, but he did not make any reference, derogatory or otherwise, about Mike Johnston. I think that is very clear. It is unfair to cast those aspersions.

It is not for us as politicians to say, “Oh, we’ll parade this body in front of Parliament; they’re for us.” That goes back to the zero-sum game of politics. Parading the Ulster Farmers Union and saying, “They’re on our side on this point,” is a cop-out of our political responsibilities. We have a duty as politicians to solve this political problem. The protocol is not a dairy milk problem; it has an impact on the dairy milk sector, but the protocol is a political problem that has caused these problems in the sector. We have a responsibility as politicians to solve the problem and to pull together to try to fix it, because it affects Protestant farmers, Catholic farmers and farmers of no religion the same way. It damages the potential for their business, and we should be pulling together to try to fix it. If this Bill does one thing to try to fix it, I will support that as a step in the right direction.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is certainly in full flow. It is important to strip this debate back to the businesses currently impacted by the protocol. We cannot look ahead of ourselves. Wilson’s Country and Glens of Antrim Potatoes cannot bring seed potatoes in to Northern Ireland from Scotland, and that will ultimately damage the potato industry in Northern Ireland in future years. AJ Power in my own constituency has said that the increase in costs is sixfold and is likely to be more when the UK Government input reduces. My hon. Friend makes an important point that those issues are impacting businesses now, and therefore we need this Bill to resolve some of them.

[Ian Paisley]

The point about seed potatoes is particularly interesting, because that represents the entire community in Northern Ireland—companies that employ right across the community and farms from across the community are all being detrimentally impacted in the same way as a result of the protocol. That is why it needs to be fixed.

We have heard some scaremongering about a mass cull of cows and suddenly milk in Northern Ireland becomes different milk because of paperwork, when the milk is being produced in the same way and the same green grass is being used to feed the cows to produce it. Not only is the milk being produced normally, but the same seeds and crops are brought in to feed the cattle, and it is very clear that none of that will change.

The commercial issues that I referred to and that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim touched on are very interesting: I think there are more dairy cows in County Cork than there are in the whole of Northern Ireland, yet County Cork and the Republic of Ireland still cannot produce enough milk. Therefore, they need a commercial relationship with Northern Ireland dairy farms to help them and to increase and encourage their businesses. The commercial reality is that we have to do business across the island. The idea that suddenly people will be able to say to farms in Northern Ireland, “Well, you can’t do business with us in the Republic of Ireland.”, when Republic of Ireland companies need Northern Ireland farm produce, highlights the commercial reality in all this.

Again, I go back to this point: the protocol is a political problem that is interfering in commercial and farming activity, and we have to pull it away from that and solve the politics around this.

The Bill does not change the cows, as the hon. Member for North Down seemed to imply. It does not change the grass that the cows are fed on. It does not change how the cows are milked, what lorries the produce goes into or what factories the milk is processed in. No, this is about Eurocrats stopping trade, not because the standard of the food has changed but because the paperwork might change. That is not a good basis on which to run any business, to run cross-border activity or to run cross-national frontier businesses. It is not. That is why the protocol should be changed and why the European Union should be ashamed of itself when it refuses to change some of the aspects of the protocol and to try to fix these matters.

The hon. Member for North Down has mentioned on many occasions the issue relating to veterinary products, pharmaceutical products and so on. A solution was agreed for human products, but the EU has blocked that solution for animals and animal welfare. It did so in such a manner that in a matter of months 50% of all veterinary products will be prevented from going to Northern Ireland. That will have a detrimental impact on farming, and the commercial aspect of that, on pets and on our income and our economy.

If ever there was a threat to cattle, it comes from the EU blocking veterinary products coming into Northern Ireland. That is the damage to our business. Do not take my word for it. Take the words of the National Office of Animal Health. It has been campaigning for this change and it has written to all the Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive and told us that this has to be changed. But there is no appetite in the EU to change it. NOAH says clearly that this is not about getting more time to negotiate. Time is over; time has run out. Indeed, the Government’s position is that they have been talking for a year and a half to try to fix this. Time is now over. Time is called on this matter. We have to have it resolved urgently and immediately.

Some references have also been made to manufacturing. I am proud to have one of Northern Ireland’s largest and most obvious manufacturing businesses—a world business in fact—in Ballymena, a part of my North Antrim constituency. Wrightbus has traded both before we were in the EU—before 1973— for 40 years after joining the EU, and since leaving the EU. It has been a successful world business. Why? Because of EU regulations? No. Because of British regulations? No. Because it makes the best product, and the best product sells. When it made poor products they did not sell. So because it makes the best product, it has at its feet a world market. It has been able to trade in the United States, all over Malaysia, in the middle east and in other parts of the world as well as the EU.

The idea that suddenly the protocol is making life easier or better for Wrightbus is wrong. The evidence from Wrightbus has been that, yes, it is getting good trade deals both inside the EU—in Germany and the Republic of Ireland—and outside the EU—in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. That is because of its product, but its product has been made costly to produce due to the impact of the protocol. It has made it more costly to get aluminium and other components into Northern Ireland from Great Britain. That adds to the manufacturing time, and time equals money. There is an impact on its product. While it is a market leader at present, as soon as it is challenged in that market lead, we will soon find out the pressure that that industry will be under.

It is very clear to me that in the Republic of Ireland there is a commercial interest in having some damage done to Northern Ireland’s trade. People do not like that being said, but it is a fact. The Republic of Ireland has breached regulations time and again. It is being investigated for a £200 million loan to Aer Lingus, which was brought to our attention in April. Since Brexit, I understand that the UK Government have set up an EU subsidy monitoring unit, which has asked for that £200 million loan to be investigated. It is causing commercial differences on the island of Ireland, to the point that the arm of Aer Lingus that operates out of Northern Ireland airports is being damaged by the grants and loans being given to its commercial arm in the Republic of Ireland.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

You will be glad to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will also keep my remarks very brief.

Tonight, we have reached a milestone and we can say that we are off to a good start in this place. I am pleased that the amendments designed to wreck this Bill have been defeated, safe in knowledge that they were more about grandstanding than actually helping the businesses and constituents who, day in, day out, are affected by the protocol.

The Bill, as it is, certainly does have the potential to restore devolution in Northern Ireland and preserve the constitutional balance. Although the SDLP Members have consistently called for the re-establishment of the Executive, they fail to recognise why that Executive are not sitting—it is the fact that not one Unionist party in Northern Ireland supports the protocol. We are actually elected on that mandate. The SDLP forget and ignore our mandate, which is to ensure that our constitutional place within the United Kingdom is restored and the economic impediments to trade are scrapped.

Throughout the course of the debate, it was and is very clear that there is no alternative to the Bill. This Bill is the only solution, after everything else has been tried, to help restore devolution.

Let us now address the EU and the pipe dream of further negotiations. It is fact that negotiations have been tried and have failed. It is abundantly clear, as per the reports today in The Daily Telegraph, that the EU is not in a position to renegotiate a satisfactory outcome. We only have to look at the fact that it is continuing to pursue legal action against the UK for grace periods that virtually everyone in Northern Ireland supports as essential.

As the EU continues to demonstrate a complete indifference to the real challenges in Northern Ireland, it is naive to believe that there is a negotiated solution that comes close to delivering the objectives of this Bill. A new Prime Minister is not going to change the EU’s fundamentally belligerent approach, which in truth is less about protecting the single market and more about punishing the UK and warning other countries not to consider leaving.

Today is an important staging post, but we know there is a long road ahead. I have no doubt that the other place will try to thwart the will of this House—those actually elected to legislate on these matters—but I warn those in the other place that, if they wish to see devolution restored, they will leave well alone.

The Social Democratic and Labour party and the Alliance party parrot the narrative of others who will not even come and sit in this House. They were slow to realise the damage the protocol was doing in Northern Ireland. They eventually caught up and sought mitigations, but they still bury their heads in the sand regarding the consent of the Unionist community in Northern Ireland to the protocol. It is all smoke and mirrors to deflect from the folly of their own position.

The UK as a whole voted on the same ballot that the whole UK should leave, and leave on the same terms. It does not matter who the leader of the Conservative party is; it only matters that they repair the damage that has been done in the form of the protocol and are not bullied by the EU.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about the leadership of the Conservative party. As one of many on the Conservative side of the House who pushed for this Bill, I think it is important that the House understand that the two candidates who go forward for the leadership have also given strong undertakings on the importance of Northern Ireland within the UK and the importance of the protocol. I hope she can take that as reassurance.

[Carla Lockhart]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Member. We welcome those comments, but we hope and trust that the incoming Prime Minister will not be bullied by the EU, but will bring Northern Ireland with them, restore its place in the UK’s internal market and allow it to trade on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Sir William Cash]

A number of assertions have been made during the course of this debate about the breaking of the international rule of law and the rest of it. Has the hon. Lady heard of the House of Commons Library paper that clearly indicates that de Valera himself broke the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1938? Not only that, but A. J. P. Taylor, in his extremely erudite book, also says that the treaty was ripped up by de Valera in 1938.

[Carla Lockhart]

I thank the hon. Member for that wonderful point. I genuinely thank every hon. Member who has put their trust in this Bill and supported it; the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) has been a real friend to Northern Ireland. We will be supporting the Bill tonight.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.