Brexit Readiness: Operation Yellowhammer

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I will take a little longer than I would ordinarily want to because I first want to congratulate my right hon. Friend on his knighthood and to thank him for his years of Government service. He was an outstanding Minister in a number of offices. For my part, I particularly recognise that as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster he did so much to prepare us for EU exit and to advance negotiations with the EU.

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point about Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland civil service and the Police Service of Northern Ireland have done an enormous amount to prepare for the contingencies of no-deal exit. We should all be grateful to them for the work they do. He is right, however, that in the absence of a functioning Executive, they lack ministerial direction. It is important that we do everything we can to restore a functioning Executive. If no Executive is in place, we will have to consider in the House and in discussions with our neighbours in the Republic of Ireland what steps might be required to ensure that we can give appropriate support to the Northern Ireland civil service.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Paragraph 18 of the Operation Yellowhammer document states that the Government’s current plans to manage the Northern Irish border after no deal—which are no new checks or tariffs on goods coming in from the Republic of Ireland—are

“likely to prove unsustainable due to significant economic, legal and biosecurity risks and no effective unilateral mitigations to address this will be available.”

That is not a description of a worst-case scenario; it is a description of what is likely to happen because, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster knows, Northern Ireland businesses will all face tariffs from the very first day.

Given that, earlier this year, the right hon. Gentleman wrote that the United Kingdom

“didn’t vote to leave without a deal”,

are the Government really prepared to allow their willingness to pursue a no-deal Brexit to jeopardise the peace and security that have been achieved in Northern Ireland as a result of the Good Friday agreement?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Exiting the European Union Committee for making that point. Let me stress again that Operation Yellowhammer is a reasonable worst-case scenario. The scenarios that it outlines are those that would happen if no mitigation steps were taken. However, he is right to say that Northern Ireland businesses would face specific challenges in the event of a no-deal exit as a result of having to face a common external tariff. Indeed, agri-food businesses across the UK would face those challenges. There are steps that we can take—economic interventions and others—to help those businesses, and it is important that we do so. It is also important that we continue our conversations with the European Commission and the Irish Government about making sure that the position of businesses and individuals in Northern Ireland is safeguarded.

The right hon. Gentleman made a broader point about no deal. A deal is preferable, which is why I hope that he will vote for one in the future, having not been able to do so in the past.