Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, recently, the work of the European Affairs Committee has been heavily overshadowed by the Northern Ireland protocol. While work on the protocol itself is carried out by our sister Northern Ireland protocol committee, we concentrate on the many other matters that remain open in the large and complex relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Many things are in the deep freeze. To name a few examples, there is the unresolved position on the Horizon programme, the unresolved agreement for regulatory co-operation in financial services and the issues relating to the movement of both creative professionals and people in education. The 32 committees set up under the withdrawal agreement and the trade and co-operation agreement are not operating at full pace to adjust matters to the benefit of all concerned because of the protocol impasse.

The circumstances where a Bill along the lines of the one before us might be warranted would be, I feel, very dire. I do not believe that we are even close to such circumstances today. I note with optimism the recent warm words from many of the parties involved in discussing the protocol and the restarting of discussions between the principals. However, this Bill is before the House and I will briefly comment on three areas that I feel need amendment.

The first concerns the sanctity of treaty. We have recently discussed in this Chamber a number of times recently the importance of living up to treaty obligations and obligations under international agreements in general; it has been a strong theme this afternoon. In my regular interactions with my opposite numbers as chairs of the European affairs committees of other European countries—and that goes a lot wider than just members of the European Union—in particular as the UK has assumed such a leadership position in the current war in Ukraine, the most common comment made to me is of the importance of the UK especially showing leadership in living up to the spirit and letter of international agreements.

In the Ukraine/Russia context, there are many international agreements that all depend on: the NATO treaty, agreements over sanctions and agreements relating to energy, for instance. The rules-based order within the western liberal democracy world depends on the leading players showing example. This point has been made to me by pretty well every country’s representative I have met in recent times. We meet formally as chairs of European affairs committees face to face four times a year; thus I feel it is important in these circumstances to underline the UK’s commitment to the sanctity of treaty and to living up to the letter and spirit of international agreements, including in this Bill.

The second area concerns the involvement of Parliament in the making of, or the variation of, international agreements and treaties. In the period before Brexit, the UK citizen in the street had the benefit of parliamentary representatives being able to scrutinise international agreements at the European Parliament level and, through the operation of the scrutiny reserve resolutions, the Westminster Parliament level—both from the start of the negotiating process and throughout it. Indeed, many here today will have served on the European Union committee structure and will have engaged in the scrutiny of international agreements. In addition to those meaty scrutiny arrangements, the CRaG arrangements allow for limited scrutiny processes right at the end of the agreeing of a new treaty. Following Brexit, this scrutiny structure has fallen away, and we are left only with the highly unsatisfactory CRaG processes.

The European Union Committee scrutinised the many new trade deals concluded by the United Kingdom during the Brexit period—I think there were just under 100—and in June 2019 we wrote a report, Scrutiny of International Agreements: Lessons Learned, in which we laid out a firm recommendation as to how international agreements could and should be looked at by both Houses of Parliament. This Bill would see major changes to an international agreement being made simply by decision of a Minister without any reference to Parliament. For the reasons in our report of June 2019, I do not believe that is right. Something akin to what we then recommended should be instituted and the Bill amended accordingly.

Thirdly, and finally, I come to the importance of dealing with the various traditions and groupings in Northern Ireland in an even-handed way with good consultative approaches. As we have heard from many speakers today, this approach is the secret of the great success of the Belfast/Good Friday agreements, which use this approach consistently in their mechanisms. The very first report of the EU Committee after the Brexit vote in December 2016 was Brexit: UK-Irish Relations. We commented on the importance of that dynamic very heavily in that report. I reread the report over the weekend and I have to say that it is as fresh today as it was in December 2016.

I do not feel that the Bill today makes this simple and effective approach a commitment for a Minister. In his opening speech, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, made it clear that there was a considerable consultative process but this is another instance where the face of the Bill must have the comfort that even-handedness and consultation will remain at the heart of any changes. Perhaps the Minister could comment.