European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill

Debate between Gavin Robinson and Iain Duncan Smith

2nd reading
Friday 6th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I will respond in, hopefully, the same tone and say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd). I suspect there is a big prize for him waiting in the Government Whips Office after this debate. He welcomed every intervention going. I do not besmirch his character at all, but since he suggested that there is interest in the concerns being raised by the Unionist community, I reflect that with almost two hours left of a five-hour debate, I am the third speaker. Scores of Members from Northern Ireland on both sides of the Chamber will probably not get the opportunity to make their point and represent their constituents, because of a quest to make sure that the Bill is talked out. I say, respectfully, that the hon. Member did exactly what he was asked to do, but when considering these issues, I am not sure just how constructive that will prove to be.

The hon. Gentleman said in his remarks that we will be able to deal with issues as time goes by. I have watched “As Time Goes By” on repeat on UKTV Gold, and I have watched people in this Chamber say that we will deal with these issues “as time go by”. Here is an opportunity to engage in the concerns that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) raised, having received support from across the Unionist spectrum in Northern Ireland to raise them. Yet, as time goes by, though it is said that we shall not be dismissed or demeaned in the position that we are putting forward, that is exactly what is happening.

I stand not only as leader of my party and my colleagues, but as a co-sponsor of the hon. Member’s Bill. I commend him on the position that he has outlined to the Chamber today and on his success in the private Member’s Bill ballot. He is not a gambler—anyone who listens to him will know that he will put forward his principled position without fear or favour—but he took a chance and he has this opportunity. I commend him on doing so in a collective and cohesive way that has allowed for greater co-operation not just from those in Northern Ireland, but from across the country. He should be commended for that.

The hon. Member and I embarked on this journey in the same position as we approached the 2016 vote. Although over the intervening years there have been a few crossed paths, a few cross words and the odd crossed sword, I suspect that it is good, fitting and encouraging for people at home that today we are speaking with one voice about these issues.

I say to the Minister and to the hon. Member for Bootle that one of the best ways to deal with the issues raised by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and me, and supported by colleagues in their own remarks, is to honour agreements that have been reached. When the hon. and learned Member said in his remarks that it seemed as if the people of Northern Ireland were being asked to “suck it up,” the Minister said from a sedentary position—I hope she will not fall out with me for sharing this—“No, we fight to maintain the Union.” [Interruption.] She is agreeing.

However, whenever agreement was reached earlier this year, the “Safeguarding the Union” paper outlined a number of stepping stones to a better place. The Minister and her colleagues present voted in favour of that agreement. They recognised the recurring issues in Northern Ireland, and the harm that those issues were causing the people of Northern Ireland and consumers, no matter the constitutional outlook. If constitutional principles are not shared, it harms ordinary people in Northern Ireland. They voted for solutions on an interim basis—a stepping-stone approach—to move these issues forward. Where are we on that today? What is the Government’s position on eradicating routine checks within the UK’s internal market system? They voted for it in this House back in February, and they did so because they recognised the constitutional implications that checks were having and the practical frustrations they were causing consumers in Northern Ireland.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The right hon. Gentleman is addressing an important part of the Bill’s purpose—from all the rhetorical issues right down to hard tacks. The previous Government went into the negotiations on the Windsor framework because it had dawned on, and been agreed by, the European Union that the protocol was not working. It recognised that nothing is fixed; these things are about experience, and then tempering that experience and changing. Labour Members keep saying, “You’ve reached an agreement and you will breach it,” but the real principle behind that is to recognise that there are still fundamental flaws, and that we could agree a better way to harmonise everybody in that respect.

[Gavin Robinson]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful to him for co-sponsoring the Bill and being present today. He is right: the people who say in this or other debates that we cannot change what is written in tablets of stone are of the very party that was, from 1998, part of securing the Good Friday agreement, which was worked on in a political way, with parties in Northern Ireland, including my own, and changed time and again through processes at Leeds castle, the St Andrews agreement and the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006. The very arguments that they are deploying against change ignore the fact that they have a history of doing exactly the same thing—particularly on the Belfast agreement, which they often suggest is written in tablets of stone.