Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

I will call the Member in charge of the debate to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may only make a speech with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of the Windsor Framework on parcel deliveries across the Irish Sea.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. Tomorrow, 1 May, the noose of the Irish sea border will tighten even further in respect of business in Northern Ireland. We already have the red lane Irish sea border, subject to the full complement of EU requirements, through which all raw materials for our businesses have to pass. We also have what was called the green lane, which has been renamed but otherwise little about it has changed, for the passage of other goods; we have a business-to-consumer border for parcels; and now—in some ways the most threatening because of the scale of the businesses that will be affected—we have the business-to-business parcel border. Of course, that is a border partitioning the supposed United Kingdom and its supposed internal market.

The essence of an internal market is that goods move unfettered and unchecked between and within all parts of it. We now have something else, courtesy of the absurd protocol—or, as we now call it, the Windsor framework. In view of the fact that that decreed that we in Northern Ireland are subject to the EU’s customs code, which in turn decrees that Great Britain is a third or foreign country, we now have the absurdity of various dimensions of border for the passage of goods from GB to Northern Ireland.

For 200 years, the Northern Ireland economy has been intensely integrated with the GB economy, particularly in manufacturing. It was always the northern part of Ireland that had the big manufacturing sectors. Therefore, the integration, in particular with regard to the supply of raw materials, has been pivotal and GB has been the primary source of all that.

Now, parcels will be subject to rigorous EU requirements, including the requirement for a commodity code—

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

In a moment. Information must be provided about the country of origin each item, the value of each item and the total value of all the items in the parcel, and any goods that are at risk of passing into the EU’s single market across the border. One of the weaknesses of the protocol is the presumption that everything is at risk of passing, and therefore any raw material—if it is going into manufacturing, who knows where it will end up?—has to go through all that rigour.

That is a preposterous imposition, not just in bureaucracy, but in cost and making Northern Ireland non-competitive. It means that a business manufacturing something in Northern Ireland that it wants to sell back on the GB market or wherever is subject to restraints, which will increase costs, making it less and less competitive. That is one of the greatest iniquities of the sea border and of the business-to-business parcels border.

We have had the protocol in place for four years. Is there any evidence that business parcels are imposing any harm on the EU single market? Have the Government, the EU or anyone else carried out an audit of the alleged harm that business parcels passing from GB to Northern Ireland could do? For four years, they have been flowing unfettered because of the grace periods, so where is the harm caused to the single market that must now be protected from?

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

One of the points that the Secretary of State will probably make in response is that firms can apply to be part of the UK internal market scheme and therefore escape some of this by showing that goods are not at risk. As the hon. and learned Member has pointed out, there is no evidence that goods are at risk, but His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs says that it could take months for firms to have their applications to the internal market scheme processed, and even when they are processed, the amount of work that must go in to show that the goods did not go into the Irish Republic adds considerable cost and is a considerable barrier to doing trade.

[Jim Allister]

Of course, the natural, inevitable consequence of that is that GB suppliers will simply say, “It’s not worth the candle. We’re not going to make the effort. Why should we put ourselves through all these hoops in order to supply to Northern Ireland? It’s not a huge market in the first place. We’ll simply stop supplying.” That has already happened. I constantly receive complaints from consumers, but increasingly I am getting them from businesses that say, “We know that our suppliers will simply stop supplying.” That is going to be another hammer blow to our economy.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for bringing forward the debate. He is right to underline the issues and the concerns of both his constituents and mine. The internal market movement information obligation, which begins tomorrow, means that importers must be members of the internal market scheme as authorised parties, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) referred to. My constituents tell me that they are most concerned and confused, and that they do not quite understand the system. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is totally unrealistic for the Government to expect small businesses and individuals—my constituents in Strangford—to understand the obligations and abide by them due to ridiculous EU interference? The Government have an easier way of sorting this out: they must take steps to legally remove the obligation from their citizens in Northern Ireland. Do that and the problems are solved.

[Jim Allister]

Indeed. This is a real issue. In my constituency of North Antrim, I have many satellite small engineering firms. Many of them are subcontractors to Wrightbus, for example. They get their raw materials from GB. To get a simple parcel of bolts, nuts, washers or whatever, because they are manufacturers, they will now have to go through the processes of the red lane business-to-business border. That is in circumstances in which there is no evidence—if there were, we would have heard of it—that the EU’s vast single market is being the least bit impacted by business-to-business parcels. The people who will now be affected are those businesses —the people who employ my constituents.

The other consequence of the machinations of this border is that when GB suppliers stop supplying, firms will have to get their raw materials from somewhere, and some of them will have to come from the Republic of Ireland. Of course, that is the overall, underlying intent of the Windsor framework: to reorientate the economy of Northern Ireland away from its GB roots and connections, and to force an increase in all-Ireland trade. Here we are, arriving at a situation where we have a perfectly unfettered, all-Ireland single market, but in the nation of which we are a part, the United Kingdom, our single market is fettered and partitioned. That was the intent of the protocol. The protocol was always about making Northern Ireland the price of Brexit, and so it is turning out to be.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. and learned Gentleman has outlined very clearly the bureaucratic issues involved that disturb trade, as well as the long-term political implications, but does he also accept that there are economic implications for firms? First, they are forced to purchase goods from elsewhere, if they were not doing so in the first place—probably because they were too expensive, so now they have more expensive ones. Secondly, many of them have to pay taxes on goods that they bring into Northern Ireland and then reclaim them, and HMRC is taking not weeks, but months to pay those taxes back—if they can be reclaimed—causing cash-flow problems.

[Jim Allister]

The right hon. Member makes a key point. When people bring business-to-business parcels into Northern Ireland from their own country, from GB, and those parcels are decreed—as the presumption is—to be at risk of going into the European single market in their ultimate manifestation, when manufactured, they have to not only complete the full EU-dictated data regime of declarations, but pay duty. People have to pay duty to bring goods from their own country to another part of their own country. That is how extensive and wrong placing Northern Ireland in the EU single market and customs code has proven to be: when goods are moved now, they are subject to taxation tariffs, because they are moving from a so-called foreign single market into what is decreed to be the entry point of the EU’s single market.

I have a question for the Secretary of State: where and when will those duties be collected? As the right hon. Member pointed out, we already know that when duties are collected in the red lane, for example, they may be recoverable, if someone can show—the onus is on them—that the goods did not go into the EU single market, but the duty is paid on the presumption that they will, and the process to reclaim it is taking months upon months.

My other question for the Secretary of State is: will parcels be held until the duties are paid? Will we really get into the ludicrous situation where someone buying a parcel of bolts to bring to Ballymena or Ballymoney will have to pay duty on those bolts because he is bringing them from a foreign market, even though that is the GB market? Where and when will he have to pay that duty? We all know that he will wait months upon months to get that duty back, if he can demonstrate—it is very difficult in a manufacturing situation—that the end product never went near the EU.

The absurdity is obvious, but the political connotations are overwhelming, because they send a clear constitutional message to the people of Northern Ireland: “You are not really any longer a part of the United Kingdom—your trade laws, your customs laws and the laws that govern how you make your goods are now all made by a foreign Parliament, not by this Parliament.” Here am I, a Member standing in the United Kingdom Parliament talking about something governed by rules set by a foreign jurisdiction. They are rules of that foreign jurisdiction and it is their foreign border.

That sends a clear constitutional message, which was of course the intent of the protocol: to create, through economics, a stepping stone for Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. We now have a Government who, through their junior Minister, tell us that a couple of dodgy opinion polls might be enough to trigger the exit sign for Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom.

Those are some of the issues that rightly concern us. They particularly concern businesses, which have been very patient with the Government. They have been looking for guidance for months and have not got adequate guidance, and now they are facing a dire situation, whereby even to keep their businesses going with the basic raw materials that have flowed for decades to them from the source, they will be put through not just the difficulty but the humiliation of not being a proper part of this United Kingdom.

The Secretary of State can tell us all he likes about how we have access to dual markets. No, we do not. We have unfettered access to the EU single market, but our access to and from GB is very much fettered by these rules. That is the fundamental objection for a part of the nation whose economy is so intertwined with that of Great Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

Let me start again. It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. I offer my thanks to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) for having secured it, giving us another opportunity to debate the Windsor framework.

As Members will be aware, the new arrangements for freight and parcels come into effect tomorrow, 1 May. They are an important step forward in the implementation of the Windsor framework, and an important part of the commitments that were made in the “Safeguarding the Union” Command Paper. They follow a lot of preparatory work across Government and industry to ensure that the necessary processes and systems are in place.

The Government recognise, and I recognise, that the new arrangements represent a change for some businesses when sending and receiving goods, but I must be frank: the system in place since the UK formally left the EU was never viable in the long term. My point goes right back to the reason why we have a Windsor framework, which the hon. and learned Gentleman and I have debated many times: when we left the European Union, there was an issue that needed to be addressed. The United Kingdom had one set of rules, and the European Union had another. In every other part of the world, trade between those two entities would be governed by a border, and stuff would be checked to ensure that what was coming in complied with the rules of one jurisdiction or the other.

The unique difference in respect of Northern Ireland is that there is no practical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Therefore, the question that the previous Government had to address when negotiating the Windsor framework was: as a good neighbour, how do we ensure that goods that move into the Republic—and therefore into the European Union—comply with the rules of that jurisdiction, in exactly the same way that the United Kingdom ensures that goods that come into our jurisdiction comply with our rules? That is the first point.

The Windsor framework is a huge improvement on the Northern Ireland protocol, which, as I have said many times, was never going to work.

[Jim Allister]

The answer for the Secretary of State, and indeed the last Government, shamefully, was to sacrifice the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and to allow part of the United Kingdom to be governed by laws that we do not make and cannot change. Is it not a principle of international law—to which the EU is supposed to adhere as well—that in agreements and treaties we should respect, not challenge, the territorial integrity of those with which we reach the agreement? That is the source of the problem. We sacrificed the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland in order to placate the EU, who had their objectives in that regard.

[Hilary Benn]

I simply do not accept that characterisation of what we are debating and what I am seeking to describe.

To return to the point that I was in the process of putting to Members, a very practical question had to be addressed. Some may argue, “Well, that’s not our problem. Leave the EU to work out what they’re going to do.” However, that would not be the response of a good neighbour. We would not do it ourselves, and therefore we should not do that to the EU. The Windsor framework recognises the nature of the practical problem and finds a mechanism for dealing with it.

The same is true in respect of parcels, because the United Kingdom would not allow parcels from any other part of the world to come in without knowing what was in them. We would not permit that, would we? Certainly not. That is not the arrangement that we operate. In the same way, because once the goods arrive in Northern Ireland, potentially they could move into the European Union, the EU wants to be satisfied in the same way in seeking these new arrangements. That is the fundamental point of principle.

What we have is much better than what would have applied had there been an attempt to implement the original Northern Ireland protocol. That is why, when I was in opposition, and before I became the shadow Secretary of State, I welcomed the negotiations of the Windsor framework. I congratulated the then Prime Minister, because it represented a really important way forward.

My second point is that by agreeing to the new parcels arrangement, we have unlocked agreement on new customs arrangements that will simplify processes for businesses moving goods via freight. Unnecessary customs paperwork will be removed, and goods will be able to move using a simplified set of what is described as internal market movement information. For example, from tomorrow, the arrangement will reduce the standard range of data fields that need to be completed from a possible 75 to 21 for standard goods. That is, on anyone’s measure, a simplification.

[Hilary Benn]

I am not seeking to play down anything. If the right hon. Gentleman would be kind enough to write to me with further details of the business that he described, I will look into it and come back to him.

I was about to say that this change will be further supported by the introduction of the trader goods profile, which holds data based on past movements. That goes directly to the point that the right hon. Gentleman just raised about obligations that the arrangement puts on businesses because, in many cases, that dataset can, in the jargon, auto-populate forms for freight movement. In other words, it can fill in forms automatically so that businesses only have to add ordinary commercial information, such as the volume, weight and invoice value. Over 10,000 UK businesses are now registered for the UK internal market scheme, which allows businesses to take advantage of the new arrangements. The existing “not at risk” arrangements will continue to allow tariff-free movement of eligible goods from GB to NI.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim referred to the flow of goods. I would simply say that the data shows that the value of goods moving from GB to Northern Ireland has gone up, not down. Qualifying Northern Ireland goods continue to have full, unfettered access to Great Britain when they are sent in parcels or freight, meaning that those parcels can be moved as normal with no new requirements.

For parcels sent to consumers—the hon. and learned Gentleman did not touch on that, but I wish to refer to it—no customs declarations, safety or security declarations or customs duties are required for movements from Great Britain to consumers in Northern Ireland under the new arrangement. The practical effect is that there should be no noticeable change for people sending parcels to friends and family in Northern Ireland, and minimal noticeable change for most consumers sending and receiving parcels that move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Where parcels are moved between businesses, they can access the same arrangements as freight movements.

[Jim Allister]

The Secretary of State ignores the impact on consumers of the general product safety regulation, which requires the business in GB that is sending to Northern Ireland to have an agent in Northern Ireland and to be in a trusted trader scheme—all the things that are totally alien to supposedly being in the same single market.

[Hilary Benn]

I am not ignoring the general product safety regulation. This is a debate about parcels. I am well aware of the issues that arise because of its implementation. There is no bar on traders and businesses sending products to Northern Ireland, or indeed to the European Union. The European Union has put in place that requirement to apply to goods that come into its jurisdiction, for the same reason that I gave at the start of my response to this debate: there has to be a mechanism for ensuring that goods that come in comply with the rules of the EU single market. Many businesses have found a way of having an authorised economic operator. I understand the burden that that puts on particularly small operators, but it is another aspect of the need to ensure that we are good neighbours.

I was about to say that the specific arrangements for moving parcels that contain sanitary and phytosanitary goods have not changed. Businesses can make use of the Windsor framework schemes for moving agrifood goods, and the Northern Ireland retail movement scheme and the Northern Ireland plant health label scheme allow GB businesses to send SPS parcels to businesses in Northern Ireland for sale to consumers. That represents a considerable improvement. Guidance and support are available to help businesses understand the schemes. I recognise that the transition to the new arrangements from tomorrow will be challenging for some businesses, but in time they will get used to them. We are in touch with industry to understand where businesses need extra support and assistance. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has been alerting businesses—

EU Tariffs: United States and Northern Ireland Economy

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

Notwithstanding what we have been discussing today, Northern Ireland imports about £800 million-worth of goods from the United States of America, which is about 2% of the total purchases made by Northern Ireland. The rest—98% of the purchases—is unaffected by any EU retaliatory tariffs relating to goods brought into Northern Ireland. As I travel round Northern Ireland, I see that there are great business opportunities and lots of investment coming in. As I said to the House last week, Northern Ireland has a higher rate of growth than the UK as a whole and the lowest unemployment.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is the right hon. Gentleman not embarrassed that he and his Government have no control over the tariffs in respect of goods imported into Northern Ireland? Is the obvious and inevitable answer not to repatriate to the United Kingdom control over trade laws? What happens if Northern Ireland is used as a conduit by the Republic of Ireland or the EU to export goods to the US? Who checks those goods and where?

[Hilary Benn]

As I think I have said to the hon. and learned Gentleman before, I would not have started from here myself in relation to the cause that led eventually to the negotiation of the Windsor framework, which was a huge improvement on the Northern Ireland protocol. We do not control the decisions that the United States Administration have taken. What we have to do is make sure that we stand with businesses, including in Northern Ireland, to provide them with support, and a mechanism that allows them to reclaim the tariff is the most practical step we can take. It is already in place because of the Windsor framework.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

We will discover more later today about the decision that we are told the US Administration are about to make. Tariffs are not good for any country, and they are not good for the global trading system, but we will have to see what the consequences are. Any tariffs that the United States of America puts on the United Kingdom will be felt equally in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. We will not hesitate to take the action that is necessary to respond, but we are not going to make snap decisions, because we are also trying to negotiate an economic agreement with the United States of America.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

An industrial strategy would be very welcome, but is not the reality that any assistance under an industrial strategy in Northern Ireland would be subject to EU state aid rules, that any raw materials for industry in Northern Ireland that come from GB would have to pass through the international EU customs border, and that many goods would have to be made to EU, not UK, standards? Unless or until we get rid of those hindrances, how do we liberate such a strategy?

[Hilary Benn]

As I pointed out in my previous answer, the Windsor framework, which was negotiated by the previous Government and was a huge improvement on the Northern Ireland protocol, is the only available means of managing the challenge of having two systems, with two different sets of rules, and an open border. Not all Members of the House may want to recognise that fact, but it is a fact, and we have to deal with it.

St Patrick’s Day and Northern Irish Affairs

Jim Allister Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Since this debate is not just about St Patrick’s day but about Northern Ireland affairs, I am surprised that I am the only Member of the House from Northern Ireland participating in it. That is a pretty poor situation.

[Adam Jogee]

I gently put it to the hon. and learned Member that he ought to correct himself slightly. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) is also from Northern Ireland. A number of colleagues who represent Northern Irish constituencies have sent apologies for having had to go home, no doubt to tend to their constituents. I put it on the record that they have made that point.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I know that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is in Westminster Hall this very minute. He has double-booked himself, as he would.

[Jim Allister]

I am aware that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is in residence at his second home. I am, however, the only Member present who represents a Northern Ireland constituency, if that satisfies the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee).

Of course, St Patrick is a very important figure historically. No doubt over the generations he has been even more greened than he ever was, but I do find it a little rich in irony that St Patrick, being a Brit, is celebrated with such enthusiasm by the Irish. I think it is important, in talking about St Patrick, to recognise and remember that his primary contribution was in bringing the Christian message: the message that fallen man needs reconciliation with God, and that can come only through the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was his essential message to Ireland and elsewhere.

It is also right, of course, that there are many intertwining relationships between the various parts of Ireland and the various parts of Great Britain. One can think of some of the standout indications of that, not least in the currency of the second world war, when the ports of Northern Ireland were so vital to the battle in the Atlantic and to defending our freedoms. Indeed, Northern Ireland welcomed the first American soldiers to be encamped, and they ran to many, many thousands in those years.

At the same time, sadly, the Republic of Ireland held to a strategy of non-involvement and neutrality. Therefore, it is always right to remember that in Great Britain’s greatest hour of need—the United Kingdom’s greatest hour of need—it was in fact the people and country of Northern Ireland who came swiftest to its aid. Whereas the Government of the Irish Republic formally, and quite shockingly, expressed regret at the death of Hitler, it was from within Northern Ireland that the contribution was made that the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, so generously recognised.

Of course, the relationships are multifaceted and it is easy to be cosy and sentimental about those relationships, and there is a place for that, but I do have to say to this House that there is also a dark side to the relationship, because the undoubted source for much of the initiation, conduct and carrying forward of the brutal IRA terrorist campaign of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s was the aid and assistance given from the Republic of Ireland. Indeed, the historical records show that the Provisional IRA was first armed by those associated with the Irish Republic—even in government. Those are factors that I, representing constituents who lost family members at the hands of the IRA, cannot easily forget, and nor should we.

We talk about co-operation, and co-operation is good, but it is also a salutary fact that at the peak of those terrorist campaigns we did not have the co-operation we needed. Between 1969 and 1981 there were 81 extradition applications for wanted terrorists in respect of terrorist deeds committed in Northern Ireland—81 applications to the Dublin authorities—and only one was granted. Of course, the truth was that many of the cross-border terrorist attacks were carried out from the Irish Republic, among them the most infamous, that of the greatest loss of military life: the attack at Warrenpoint, where the bomb that killed all those Parachute Regiment and other regiment soldiers, was triggered from the Irish Republic. That was but a reflection of what happened time and again. When co-operation was sought, there might have been nice words but there was very little action, as indicated in the matter of extradition. So I think we have to inject into our reflections upon that relationship some of the cold realities that cost the lives of British citizens in Northern Ireland. That cannot not be written out of our history.

If we are to debate Northern Ireland affairs properly, it is surely impossible to ignore the incredible constitutional situation that Northern Ireland is now in: namely, that although I stand in what is called the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom, there are 300 areas of law pertaining to Northern Ireland in relation to which neither this Parliament nor the devolved Parliament can make the law, because those powers, covering much of our economy, have been surrendered to a foreign Parliament, the European Parliament.

In pursuit of that, we now have the obscenity of an Irish sea border, shortly to be reinforced with the insult of a parcels border. A granny cannot send her new grandchild in Northern Ireland a teddy bear without registering it through the processes of the Irish sea border. Businesses in my constituency—small engineering businesses or craft industries—depend on supplies that come by parcel from their age-long suppliers in GB, but those parcels will now be subject to the demands of the foreign EU border. Those that send them must be a member, at cost, of the trusted trader scheme; they must make a customs declaration; and they must record what is moving, where it came from and where it is going. And yet this is said to be a United Kingdom. It is a United Kingdom sadly partitioned by a border in the Irish sea.

The point I am coming to is that much of that is at the behest of the authorities in the Irish Republic. It was the Taoiseach of the Irish Republic who pushed, cajoled and forced the EU into its irrational demands. At the beginning of the protocol negotiations, the EU was prepared for—indeed, it originated the idea—mutual enforcement to control the movement of goods. Sadly, it was Taoiseach Varadkar who saw the opportunity of partitioning the United Kingdom and who insisted on the border being pushed to the Irish sea, where the IRA could never push it in its 30 years of terror. It was the Dublin Government that made those irrational demands and repudiated the very thing that made that unnecessary: namely, mutual enforcement.

So yes, there is lots of nice fuzzy sentiment about how the Irish Republic and the UK have good relations in many areas, but the reality is that there has also been a malevolence to the detriment of Northern Ireland.

[Seamus Logan]

I may be getting on a bit now, but I do not recall some of the accusations that the hon. and learned Member is making about the role of the Irish Government in the negotiations that followed the Brexit vote. Will he clarify, for the purposes of the record, whether many Unionist elected representatives, some of whom sit in this Chamber, encouraged their supporters to vote for Brexit in June 2016? Did they not?

[Jim Allister]

They did, but they did not get Brexit—that is the fundamental issue. The question on the ballot paper was, “Do you want the United Kingdom to leave?” It was not, “Do you want GB to leave and to leave Northern Ireland behind?”, but that is what we got. We were left in the single market, under their customs code. Never forget that their customs code decrees that GB is foreign—a third country—so its goods must pass through the EU border because Northern Ireland is treated as EU territory. That was not on my ballot paper, and that was not what I voted for, but that is what the last Government left us, and that is what this Government seem unprepared to do anything about, even though it is not what they brought about.

So yes, let us celebrate the international relations that we would expect between neighbours, but let us not get so bleary-eyed that we do not recognise the realities and the legacy of the history. We are talking about the wonderful relationship with the Irish Republic, but who is taking the United Kingdom to the European Court of Human Rights? It is the Government of the Irish Republic, over a legacy Act that this Government are not even pursuing. In any relationship, people look for two-way co-operation. They certainly do not look to try to exploit a situation to achieve the disassembly of part of the neighbouring country. Sadly, that is what is happening in respect of the Brexit negotiations.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Liam Conlon to make the final Back-Bench contribution.

European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

As someone who had the honour of hosting an event on this day for all the years I was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, I commend the right hon. Member for securing this debate. However, does he agree with me that one of the most abiding and insidious hurts to victims of terrorism is the constant glorification of those who made them victims, particularly when it comes to those who sit in Government in Northern Ireland, by their attendance at events commemorating those who were the men of blood and who delivered death and destruction on our streets? Is that not one of the most hateful and insidious things that can be done to a victim, with the re-traumatisation that it brings?

[Gavin Robinson]

I am very grateful to the hon. and learned Member. I have two things to say to him on that. First, I am glad he organised—for 13 years, I think—an event at Stormont to mark European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism. Such an event also occurred yesterday, so his legacy lives on, and I was pleased to attend it, as I have on many occasions in the past.

Secondly, the hon. and learned Member is absolutely right. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet again—we met last week, but I met again yesterday—Margaret Veitch and Ruth Blair, who lost loved ones in the Enniskillen bomb. I reflected with them, and it resonates so much with this point, on the glorification of terror, particularly from those who have a responsibility to live by the Nolan principles and to fulfil the political offices they hold, yet who attend commemorations and glorify those who revelled in terror. The excuse they always use is, “We have a right to remember our dead.” That is what they say: they have a right to remember their dead. Margaret and Ruth lost family members by simply turning up to remember their war dead on Remembrance Sunday in Enniskillen, yet they hear their political leaders say, “We do this because we have an entitlement to remember our war dead.” Margaret and Ruth and their parents were offered no opportunity to remember, rightfully, those who made the sacrifice for freedom in our country.

Trade Diversion and Windsor Framework

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

The issue of diversion of trade is becoming an increasing problem of manifold proportions for Northern Ireland. Before the protocol, goods could be moved from Birmingham to Belfast as easily as they could be moved from Gloucester to Glasgow, but no more. The resulting Irish sea border, and all that comes with it, has caused a huge and increasing diversion of trade.

We can get an insight into how things naturally should be and how business wishes them to be by looking at the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency figures of recent years. If we look at the pre-protocol days, we see that in 2018, for example, the volume of goods purchased from the Irish Republic was £2.8 billion, but the amount purchased from GB was five times that—£13.4 billion. There we have a snapshot of the natural inclination of trade in Northern Ireland, particularly for our raw materials.

Before Brexit, there was a similar situation. Indeed, we could say—and some may say—that that is a better reflection of whether there has been trade diversion. Before Brexit, we could as readily buy our goods from the Republic as we could from GB, because we were all in the EU single market. Even then, the predominant trading of choice was from GB. That is no surprise because for decades Northern Ireland has been a particularly integrated part of the UK economy.

However, along came the protocol, which requires Northern Ireland to be subject to a foreign customs code—that of the EU—which of course treats GB as if it is a foreign country. Therefore, when goods come from outside the EU into the EU, and we in Northern Ireland are regarded as being in the EU for these purposes, those goods have to be checked, with customs declarations, documentary checks and physical checks on, for example, all our raw materials. So it is no surprise that that is inevitably bound to cause diversion of trade.

We were told, as part of the spin of selling the protocol, “Oh, there are protections against the diversion of trade, and it wouldn’t be allowed to happen”. Article 16 of the protocol, we were told, was our safety net:

“If the application of this Protocol leads to…diversion of trade…the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.”

It has led to the diversion of trade, but the United Kingdom Government have not taken unilateral action in that regard.

The fact of the diversion of trade is a challenge to the protocol’s proponents. It is a challenge to those who put this upon us, and it is one that they have to meet, but which I fear they will not meet. Where is the proof, some may ask, of the diversion of trade? Again, it is in the NISRA statistics. Dr Esmond Birnie, a renowned economist in Northern Ireland, has done a succession of studies of the NISRA statistics. He wrote back on 11 December 2024 that the data

“provides further evidence that the NI economy is becoming more trade integrated with the Republic”,

and of

“North-South trade growing at very rapid rates at the expense of what previously was an inflow of goods from GB.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Jim Allister]

Perhaps in a moment.

We also see that in the purchase of goods figures that NISRA reports. It has given us figures from 2020, contrasting them in a table with those for 2023. The year 2023 was only the beginning of things getting difficult, as the Irish sea border did not in effect come into place until October 2023 because of the grace periods. However, those NISRA figures show that Northern Ireland’s purchases of goods increased from 2020 to 2023—of course, it was a period of inflation—by 24% from GB, but by 50% from the Republic of Ireland, meaning twice the growth rate in the buying of goods into Northern Ireland that would previously have come from our integrated United Kingdom economy.

The Office for National Statistics business insights and conditions survey states that 13.1% of currently trading manufacturers based in GB had sent goods to Northern Ireland in the past 12 months. That was at the end of 2024. But in January 2021, 20% of manufacturers in GB were sending goods to Northern Ireland. So, in just those four years there has been a dramatic fall in the number of manufacturers supplying goods to Northern Ireland. It has nearly halved in four years. The ONS data for 2024 tells us more: 11.7% of companies tell us they have stopped trading with Northern Ireland. Why? Because of the bureaucracy, because they have to make customs declarations, because they have to have them checked, and because they have to employ extra staff to do all that. Many companies, particularly in smaller sectors, have simply said that they are not going to do it.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

In a moment, perhaps. I need to make sure I get through what I need to say.

It is beyond doubt, I would respectfully say, that there has been trade diversion. Back in September, the Road Haulage Association gave evidence to a parliamentary Committee of this House. It told the Committee that 30% of haulage lorries that take goods to GB are returning empty. Why? Because GB companies have stopped supplying. Now, that is an incredible thing to contemplate. Trade works on the basis that you take goods out, and then you fill your lorry and bring goods back. That is how you make it viable and how the economy works. That 30% of lorries now returning to Northern Ireland are returning empty is an incredible indictment of the operation of the protocol.

And things are getting worse. The EU regulation on general product safety now puts more burdens on companies selling into Northern Ireland, because they have to meet enhanced EU product safety regulations. I have mentioned the craft sector in this House before. Recently, 11 suppliers in that niche market stopped supplying Northern Ireland. It will get worse, because the partial border is coming and they will have to do more paperwork and make more declarations about sending simple parcels from GB to Northern Ireland. Tesco has slides that it shows to its own suppliers stating that they should now buy from the Republic of Ireland because it is easier to supply from there than from GB. The same is happening in veterinary medicines and in every sector.

Why does that matter? It matters for a very pertinent political reason. The whole idea of trade diversion and the whole purpose of the protocol was and is to build an all-Ireland economy: to dismantle the economic links between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and enhance links with the Irish Republic, thereby creating stepping stones out of the United Kingdom into an all-Ireland for Northern Ireland. That was the determination that lay behind the protocol.

We do not need a protocol to govern trade. It is demonstrable that if we can organise trade through Northern Ireland to GB without border checks in the Irish sea, and if, as the Government now say is possible, we can do it with checks away from the border, then equally we could do it in the other direction, through mutual enforcement. That would mean recognising that if we are going to export from one territory to another, our manufacturers must produce goods to the standards of the other, and we would enforce that by making it a criminal offence to do otherwise. That is the essence of mutual enforcement. It would work, but it is not allowed to work, because the political agenda of the protocol is to ensure this reorientation and realignment.

We are told that we now have Intertrade UK, but it has no staff and no budget, in comparison with InterTradeIreland, which has more than 50 staff and a budget of £6.5 million a year and is active across the whole area. Intertrade UK has been set up as a shadow, but it is not able to compete in any sense.

This Government have allowed the economy of Northern Ireland to drift out of the United Kingdom. I believe those who are protocol enthusiasts want that to happen. Now it is happening, the onus is back on the Government to do something about it.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Before the hon. and learned Gentleman takes the intervention, I know that he was anxious about getting through his speech, but, because the Adjournment debate started early, he does have until 7.30 pm. [Laughter.] I believe he was about to take an intervention—does he want to continue with that?

[Jim Allister]

I will give way.

[Sammy Wilson]

You shouldn’t encourage him, Madam Deputy Speaker—he will take to 7.30 pm and beyond, because this is such an important subject.

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the diversion of trade has not only political but economic implications for Northern Ireland? There are increased transport costs, because lorries do not come both ways with goods in them; there is the fact that many people chose suppliers in England because they are cheaper, better-quality and so on, and now manufacturers in Northern Ireland are having to go to the second-best suppliers; and there is also the additional paperwork that is involved. That all adds to costs and makes the Northern Ireland economy less competitive, which therefore makes it more difficult for it to be viable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Business is like water: it follows the easiest course. When we were an integrated part of the UK economy, the easiest and cheapest course was to do the greater bulk of our trade with GB. That, historically, has been our basic supply market for our raw materials and everything else. However, when a fettering of trade is imposed, naturally, business will follow the easiest route. The easiest route now, sadly, is to cease trading from GB and accentuate trading with the EU, and most particularly the Republic of Ireland.

The United Kingdom was built on two pillars, according to the Acts of Union. The first was a political union, with article 3 establishing this House as one sovereign Parliament for the whole United Kingdom; the second was an economic union, through article 6, which established unfettered trade between and within all parts of the United Kingdom. That was what article 6 said—that there should be unfettered trade. But along came the protocol, which fettered trade, leaving the Supreme Court with no choice but to accept that the protocol had therefore subjugated article 6. The very foundation of our economic union, article 6, which says that there shall be unfettered trade, is in suspension. It is no wonder that the consequence of that fettering of trade is a diversion of trade.

[Robin Swann]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for giving way. It is on that diversion of trade that I wish to speak. He and most Northern Ireland MPs will know of the fantastic Colemans Garden Centre in my constituency of South Antrim. It supplies quite a number of people across Northern Ireland who have had difficulty in getting plants and fruit brought across from their main supplier, McIntyre Fruit, in Scotland. Just before this debate, the manager of Colemans Garden Centre told me that he had been in contact with Stuart McIntyre who said that he had just picked up a contract to supply a firm in Japan. He said that, bureaucracy-wise and administration-wise, it is easier for a supplier in Scotland to supply into Japan than it is to supply across the 14-mile stretch of water into Northern Ireland.

[Jim Allister]

That is the absurdity of where we have got to, and it has been accentuated by our subjection to the EU’s general product safety regulations. Those regulations provide that if a company is supplying into Northern Ireland from outside the EU—in other words, from GB—it must have an agent resident within the EU. The company must complete the paperwork on the origin of its goods and on the customs declarations, and it cannot do so without employing an agent within the EU. Anyone who knows anything about business will know that that is added cost that will cause many businesses to say, “Northern Ireland is not a huge market to start with, so I shall just not bother with it.” That is what all our businesses in Northern Ireland are suffering from.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Member on securing this debate. Small businesses in my constituency have told me that they are now having to pay His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs a duty for buying goods from English suppliers and then selling the same goods in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland consumer, remaining within the internal market. Last Friday, one trader told me that he is now having to pay more in duties to HMRC than the invoice was for the goods. That is because HMRC does not trust that the goods will remain, but assumes that they will be sold into the EU. Does the hon. and learned Member not agree that the same HMRC displays greater trust and acceptance of VAT declarations, on the premise that they will be checked at random, than it does for internal trade within the United Kingdom? What a backward step that is.

[Jim Allister]

I agree. Let us just think about the Irish sea border. Given the infinitesimal amount of goods and trade that cross that border—infinitesimal when compared with the proportion of EU trade—it is incredible that it has 20% of all the checks across the whole of the EU. That infinitesimal amount when set against the totality of EU trade warrants 20% of all the checks in the EU. It would be easier to bring in goods from Belarus into the EU than it is to bring goods from GB into Northern Ireland.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. and learned Member talks about that trade being infinitesimal—0.4% of EU trade crosses that border, yet it accounts for 20% of checks. Does he agree that that will not be the story of the future? In my constituency, we are already building a £140 million EU control post on a 10-acre site. Once that is open, there will be much more scope to check goods to an even greater degree. If that is not the point of having such a large EU border post in the middle of the United Kingdom, what is?

[Jim Allister]

That is the point, because it is an EU border. EU trade laws govern the Irish sea border. EU officials, under the protocol, have the right to supervise checking. When we have the full panoply of facilities that are being built at Larne and at other ports, I fear that we will see the muscle of EU inspections. The protocol gives the EU, which boasted that the price of Brexit would be Northern Ireland, the upper hand in that regard.

I return to the point that the protocol is imbued with a political motivation, and that motivation is not to get Northern Ireland the best of both worlds. My goodness, what a con that idea is. The protocol was supposed to make Northern Ireland a Mecca, a Singapore of the west, but we now know that there has been no uplift whatsoever in foreign direct investment. Why? Because a manufacturer coming to Northern Ireland is interested not just in selling goods out of Northern Ireland, but in where it is getting its raw materials. When a manufacturer is told that its basic supply line has to pass through an international customs border controlled by the EU, the shine soon goes off the prospect of investing in Northern Ireland.

We are in a pretty dire situation, which is getting worse, and which has massive constitutional and economic implications, but I fear that the Government are deaf and blind to the issues, because they do not want to face the consequences. They are hand in glove with the EU, dismantling Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom, and setting us on a course for the economics marrying with the politics, and Northern Ireland ceasing to be.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

We were told by the previous Administration that with the new green lane and the Windsor framework, all would be glorious—it could be the best of both worlds. Did the previous Administration mislead the House?

[Jim Allister]

Not just the previous Administration; I think there has been gross, calculated and deliberate misleading about the protocol from day one. We were told that the green lane was gone. It has not. We still have to do customs declarations. We still have document checks, but all our raw materials must, by dint of the protocol, come through the red lane, so they must be subject to all the rigour of the EU’s international border. That is what will cripple our economy. We have seen it in small craft sectors. Niche sectors that depend on small suppliers are giving up. When that bites, as it will, we will see that right across our economy.

The Government need to find some dignity and stand up for this United Kingdom, which is not just Great Britain but includes Northern Ireland. It is time to put some mettle into defending that position, and to row back from the disastrous destructive elements that the protocol has brought us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister]

The way not to deal with it is to say, “We, the United Kingdom, will hand over part of our territory to EU jurisdiction. We will put it under the EU’s customs code, which will decree the rest of the United Kingdom a foreign territory. We will subject that part of our territory to having 300 areas of its law not made in the United Kingdom; law in those areas cannot even be amended in the United Kingdom. It will be foreign law imposed.” This could have been dealt with by mutual enforcement. We could have said, “We want to trade with each other, and we want to be neighbourly, so we will guarantee, on pain of criminal conviction, that anything we send into your territory meets your standards and vice versa.” Why did things have to be made complicated, at the expense of jettisoning Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom economically and constitutionally?

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. and learned Gentleman argues in favour of what he calls mutual enforcement, but that is not a credible basis for resolving the dilemma created by our leaving the European Union.

[Jim Allister]

indicated dissent.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. and learned Gentleman may disagree. I am expressing the Government’s view, which is that it is not a credible basis. One thing is absolutely clear: the answer was never to try to wish the dilemma away and pretend that it did not exist. I am afraid that, at times, it has appeared as though that argument has been advanced.

The first go at trying to find an answer was the Chequers plan, which did not get support. The Northern Ireland protocol was the second go, but that was never going to work—I made that argument as an Opposition Back Bencher—so the Windsor framework was negotiated. There is no denying that the Windsor framework represents a huge improvement on the prospect created by the Northern Ireland protocol.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I have only just begun my remarks, but if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I shall shortly come to the point that he raises.

The Windsor framework protects the UK internal market, while, as I argued a moment ago, enabling the EU to be confident that its rules will be respected. The Government’s view and my view is that that was the responsible thing to do in the circumstances, because this Government support sustainable arrangements for Northern Ireland that respect its particular circumstances —indeed, they are unique—and its place in the Union, and that uphold the Good Friday agreement. The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim’s central argument this evening is that we should trigger article 16, the unilateral safeguard in the Windsor framework. To do that would be contrary to Northern Ireland having stable arrangements for trade, now and in future. It would disregard the benefits that the Windsor framework offers for businesses—indeed, the benefits that are actively relied upon by businesses, including those that are taking advantage of Northern Ireland’s unique access to the UK and EU markets—[Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim shakes his head, but I have met businesses that have told me how they are taking advantage of that dual market access. I meet businesses in my constituency that can see what Northern Ireland has got out of these unique arrangements.

Those benefits will be enhanced by the UK internal market “facilitations”—that is the phrase—that will come into force in the near future, and that will, on a durable and legally binding basis, support the smooth flow of goods across the whole of the UK when the next phase of the UK internal market system is implemented this year, without, for example, unnecessary international customs paperwork.

We have seen the benefits of negotiating a way forward. There is unilateralism, as the hon. and learned Gentleman argues, and there are the benefits of negotiation. In respect of agrifood and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, we have been able to lift the old ban on the movement of seed potatoes. Not all those problems have been solved—I am the first to acknowledge that—but it is an improvement compared with the situation before. We are now able to apply UK public health and safety standards to agrifoods on the basis of primacy for goods staying in the United Kingdom moving under the Windsor framework schemes. We have reached agreements with the EU on tariff rate quotas, enabling businesses from Northern Ireland to import steel and agrifood products under UK tariff rates.

We also have an active Assembly that is scrutinising the regulations and raising its views—[Laughter.] Well, I will come back to that point later on. Medicines for the whole of the UK are now authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and we have ensured that Northern Ireland benefits from the same VAT, alcohol duty and other taxes as the rest of the UK.

All of those are undoubted benefits for Northern Ireland. They are benefits of the framework that supports Northern Ireland’s access to the two markets, and from which this integral part of the United Kingdom, which Northern Ireland is, uniquely benefits. This is possible because we have a lawful and sustainable agreement, in stark contrast to what the hon. and learned Gentleman has proposed as a way forward.

I would be the first to acknowledge from this Dispatch Box that the Windsor framework is not perfect. We all know that. Where problems arise with the practical operation of the framework, this Government and the EU have tried to show that we can work through them in a constructive and pragmatic way, because that is what we have to do. For example, having listened to businesses, we took a pragmatic decision to extend on the timetable for implementing the new arrangements on parcels. One of the consequences of doing that was that the introduction of the new, less onerous customs arrangement was put off, because the EU’s view was that we needed to do the parcels at the same time in order for the new customs arrangements to come in.

Another example is the horticultural sector, where, in the last month the restrictions on the movement of two species of plant were removed. If we are talking about trees, I think that takes it up to 23, including our beloved silver birch and, I am advised, a number of varieties of cherry tree that were sorted out at the end of last year.

On the question of the Stormont brake, we acted on the concerns that the Northern Ireland Assembly raised about the potential implications of the new rules on chemical labels, font sizes and so on by committing to consult on taking forward measures across the UK that will protect the UK internal market. I would just point out—because the hon. Gentleman looks slightly sceptical —that there is a high bar to be met for the Stormont brake. When I received the application as Secretary of State, I was under a legal obligation to consider the application under the rules of the Stormont brake, and I made the decision that I did. In the end, what the Government announced was moving towards the same outcome that those who had raised the concerns in the first place wanted, just by different means than they had sought. In the end, the Stormont brake process actually worked to achieve the outcome that the Assembly wanted.

[Jim Allister]

I think the Secretary of State should listen to himself. What he is saying to the House is that we should be grateful for some sort of dud mechanism to deal with the situation whereby the right to make laws in 300 areas has been gifted to a foreign power, and that people elected in Northern Ireland can have no say in those laws and cannot amend, move or bring them into effect. He says that we should be grateful that, in those 300 areas of law, we might be able to go to the EU and say, “Please, Sir, would you ever mind just making that a little better?” Really? Where is the sense of dignity from this United Kingdom, that we should so prostrate ourselves to a foreign unelected jurisdiction—elected by no one in the United Kingdom—allow them to make our laws, and then claim as a victory the fact that we have a right to go and ask them to make some changes? But the Secretary of State has failed to answer the question. There is trade diversion—what is he going to do about it?

[Hilary Benn]

I am not asking anyone to be grateful for anything; I am simply pointing out to the House the problem that was created in the first place when we left the European Union.

[Jim Allister]

It is punishment.

[Hilary Benn]

If I heard the hon. and learned Gentleman correctly, from a sedentary position he said, “punishment”. I could not disagree more. I would encourage him to reflect on what he has said, because I do not think that he acknowledges that there was an issue there that had to be addressed, and wishing it away was never going to work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. and learned Gentleman has had quite a lot to say and I have given way to him three times, so I hope he will bear with me while I continue my remarks.

In the past, the idea that the UK would be a country that signed an international agreement and then reneged upon it would have been extraordinary to us all in this House, but that is what happened in very recent living memory, and it is why I put this point to the hon. and learned Gentleman.

The last Government negotiated the Windsor framework. I stood up in the House and supported it. The Opposition supported it at that time, and I voted for it because I genuinely believed that it represented a significant step forward. But if we do not honour the most recent agreement that we have signed with the European Union, why would it wish to reach agreement on what this Government are currently seeking, in particular on an SPS veterinary and agrifood agreement? This Government have come in saying that we want to do that, while the last Government appeared to say, “Well, the trade and co-operation agreement is all we want—we don’t want anything else.” This Government have a very different view: we want to negotiate an SPS veterinary and agrifood agreement, and that would help considerably with some of the issues that have been raised during the debate. The Government will continue to listen to the concerns of businesses and respond pragmatically.

Clonoe Inquest

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

As history shows, decisions about potential prosecutions are taken by independent prosecutors. Such decisions are not determined by the Government; independent prosecutors have to take decisions on the basis of the evidence and then courts have to decide whether they are going to convict or not. That is called the rule of law. A distinguished former Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, set out very clearly that the British Army believes in the rule of law and is held to the highest standards, and I agree with him. I also agree with what the newly appointed veterans commissioner in Northern Ireland had to say about that in the comments that were reported over the weekend.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

There is tangible anger in Northern Ireland over this preposterous verdict, and the Secretary of State’s limp response today will not assuage that anger. This is a Secretary of State who wants to see IRA godfather Gerry Adams paid compensation because the wrong Minister signed his detention order 50 years ago. This is a Secretary of State who has today defended the retention of a coronary system that, time without number, puts the security forces in the dock, but never the terrorists. Little wonder that confidence in the Secretary of State is haemorrhaging in Northern Ireland, and this response only underscores why.

[Hilary Benn]

As I made clear at Northern Ireland questions recently, the Supreme Court issued a judgment on the interim custody orders relating to internment in 2020. The previous Government knew there was a problem and, for quite a long period of time, was unable to find a solution. In the end, the solution—sections 46 and 47 of the legacy Act—has been found to be unlawful, but I have given an undertaking from the Dispatch Box that we are looking at all lawful means to prevent compensation from being paid in those circumstances. I believe that we are taking the right approach to the legacy Act.

On coroners, I say for, I think, the third time that if we have an inquest system that we support and that applies right across the piece, it is not possible to write legislation that says, “We will have the verdicts, judgments and findings that we like, but we will not have the findings that we do not like.” That is a decision—[Interruption.] Independent coroners make those decisions in respect of individual cases. I feel the anger of many Members of the House—[Interruption.] Will the hon. and learned Gentleman let me finish answering the question that he put? I feel the anger that is being expressed in the House, but we have an independent legal system in this country, which is one of the foundations of our freedom.

Northern Ireland’s Political Institutions

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effectiveness of Northern Ireland’s political institutions.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I will present three key points. I will show that Northern Ireland’s governance is structurally ineffective and keeps us trapped in cycles of instability and dysfunction. I will outline the modest, straightforward solutions to reform our institutions and unlock Northern Ireland’s potential. I will say why the UK Government must act, and why that action must be taken urgently.

Devolution in its most recent form began in Northern Ireland more than 25 years ago. Since then, Stormont has been without a functioning Government for almost 40% of its lifespan. I am not good at maths, but that is nearly half, so it is not a new phenomenon. Stormont has been held to ransom multiple times since its inception, with prolonged collapses in 2000, 2002 to 2007, 2017 to 2020, and most recently in 2022 to 2024.

Those collapses have left our institutions in a cycle of dysfunction, and our public services and finances in a state of decay. Some may question whether the subject of my debate undermines the Good Friday agreement, but that could not be further from the truth. I wholeheartedly support the Good Friday agreement and endorse its underlying principles, values and interlocking relationships.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Sorcha Eastwood]

I will not; I will make some progress.

It is in the spirit of the Good Friday agreement that I campaign for reform of our governance. The Good Friday agreement must be understood as it was intended, as a foundation for future progress, integration and normalisation, rather than a permanent solution to the divided society that we had in 1998.

As far back as 1999, my Alliance party wrote of the inherent risks in embedding rigid consociationalism within our political structures. We have always been pragmatic about the need for our political structures to evolve. More than 25 years later, the political structures born out of the Good Friday agreement, and the subsequent agreements, no longer reflect the diversity and progress of our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sorcha Eastwood]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I will simply state, as I have already said, that time and time again we hear from people across Northern Ireland—whether they are Unionist, nationalist or other—that they do not want this system of collapse to be permanently baked in. When we stood for election to represent our constituents, we took a job.

[Jim Allister]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Sorcha Eastwood]

I will make progress.

All of us in this House, regardless of our political opinion, took a job to do what is right for people. I do not want to think that there are people who have different political persuasions from mine who think that it is right to deny people government.

I do not regard myself as being better than anybody else because I do not designate as a Unionist or nationalist. Indeed, as time goes on, I sometimes have sympathy for a Unionist perspective and at other times I have sympathy for a nationalist perspective. Both those traditions are a huge part of my life. My family is drawn from across Northern Ireland and nobody can tell me that a Unionist is lesser than a nationalist, or that a nationalist is lesser than a Unionist.

However, the system that we have has an in-built bias towards people such as me, who are drawn from across the community, and it says, “You are lesser than them. Your vote does not count the same as that of a Unionist or nationalist.” Although that may have been the predominant viewpoint at the time the Good Friday agreement was signed, it does not reflect the Northern Ireland that we live in today.

This issue is not about people saying, “We are better than you, because we don’t involve ourselves in a debate.” That is absolutely not what we are about. We are about making sure that the Northern Ireland that we live in today, which is made up of minorities—there is no one majority view—is represented. I think others would do well to consider that viewpoint. If that is the situation, every single political viewpoint must be regarded as equal, not just because that would take my party up to the level it should be at, but because it is simply unconscionable for us to have a system that collapses time and again, and then to turn round and ask why our public services, our economy and everything else are not working.

What else would hon. Members expect me to say? I am standing here because these proposals are what the people of Lagan Valley want me to ask for. I simply say to the Minister that they are modest proposals, which are not against the spirit of the Good Friday agreement. In fact, I would say that they bolster the spirit of that agreement. Surely, that is the legacy that people of my generation—a new generation—were promised. Let us now get on and deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and for his shared commitment to finding a way forward. I think that is what everyone in Northern Ireland wants to see. It is the Windsor framework that enables the UK internal market to be protected post Brexit, and it has established powerful democratic safeguards for the Northern Ireland Assembly. They are what should be used to enable the institutions to function effectively for the people of Northern Ireland. That is what I am going to outline in my speech. However, what do we mean by effectiveness?

[Jim Allister]

The Minister talks about the Windsor framework protecting democratic standards. Surely, as the Windsor framework surrenders more than 300 areas of law, on which the decisions should be made either in this House or in the devolved Assembly at Stormont, it is the very antithesis of democracy. That is because it submits Northern Ireland’s citizens to laws that they do not make and cannot change—laws made by a foreign Parliament, rather than their own Parliament or Assembly. How does that even begin to be democratic?

[Fleur Anderson]

We have debated at length the pros and cons of the Windsor framework, and I know we have different opinions on it. The Windsor framework enables the internal market to work and the smooth flow of goods, at the same time as allowing democratic institutions—the Assembly—to have their say and to have those democratic safeguards, as has been demonstrated recently.

We need to establish what we mean by the effectiveness of the political institutions. In Northern Ireland, the key measure of effectiveness in the institutions is peace. The Good Friday agreement remains an unparalleled achievement for Northern Ireland. Almost 27 years on from its signing, it has brought an end to armed conflict in Northern Ireland, and it has enabled a generation to grow up in relative peace, increasing prosperity and allowing the people of Northern Ireland to take steps towards reconciliation.

The journey to the signing of that agreement required incredible political courage and imagination from the Northern Ireland parties. They were required to set aside their deeply felt differences and commit to working together in a new suite of institutions in the hope of a better tomorrow. As we stand here in 2025, I recognise that the same commitment to collaboration, and to helping Northern Ireland achieve its full potential, is among the parties, is witnessed here today, and remains strongly in the Northern Ireland public.

I am delighted that the strand 1 institutions that the hon. Member for Lagan Valley focused on, the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, are fully operational again, having been restored nearly a year ago, in February 2024. I am extremely grateful that in full operation, they are doing what they were established to do: enabling power to be shared between communities in Northern Ireland. It is through devolved government that decisions can be taken locally on the issues that matter most to the people of Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson]

We need consensus for change. I welcome the proposals for change laid out by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley today. Everything I can see from the political parties and the debates in Stormont shows that we are still a long way from agreeing what those kinds of changes should be, whether those are the specific ones mentioned by her or others. If anything, what we need now is to focus on delivering for public services, as she also outlined.

A measure of effectiveness is stability. It is clear that the institutions have not always proven as stable as the people of Northern Ireland have a right to expect. There was a period of 10 years of stability from 2007 to 2017, which shows that it can be done. The question now is: can these institutions deliver what they need to deliver, or do they need to change? That is the question posed by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley. The institutions have been inoperable for 40% of their existence, and that has shaken the Northern Irish public’s faith in them and had detrimental consequences for the delivery of public services.

Despite the challenges, the people of Northern Ireland agree that power sharing remains the best basis for Government in Northern Ireland. I recognise that power sharing is challenging, but the UK Government are committed to upholding the Good Friday agreement in letter and in spirit, and to a positive and active partnership with the Executive.

[Jim Allister]

Will the Minister give way?

[Fleur Anderson]

No; I will make some progress.

Our partnership approach enables us to work together to overcome joint challenges and to strengthen the institutions through delivery.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I will look into the matter that the hon. Gentleman raises and I will come back to him.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

This week, the Prime Minister has spoken of the unbridled economic opportunities from developing artificial intelligence. It is not an unbridled opportunity for Northern Ireland, because instead of living under British regulations on AI, we live under much more restrictive EU regulations. When will the Secretary of State move to release Northern Ireland from the restrictions, under the EU, of foreign jurisdiction?

[Hilary Benn]

The substantive provisions of the EU AI Act do not currently apply in Northern Ireland, and they would apply only following agreement by the withdrawal agreement joint committee. Any decision would be subject to the democratic safeguard mechanisms in schedule 6B to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue, which shows the state of public services under the SNP. If you can believe it, Mr Speaker, a third of Scots struggle to access dentistry, and a quarter of Scottish children start primary school with tooth decay—that is really shocking. Clearly, there is much more that the SNP should be doing. [Interruption.] The SNP should be ashamed. When a quarter of children are starting school with tooth decay, that is nothing to crow about; it is something to be ashamed of. Here, we are delivering an additional 700,000 appointments and reforming the contract, and of course we will work with the Scottish Government to improve the health of children in Scotland.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Given President Trump’s antipathy to the EU, how does the Prime Minister hope to obtain a trade deal for the whole United Kingdom in circumstances where the trade laws affecting part of the United Kingdom—namely Northern Ireland—are the EU’s trade laws, and where the laws governing goods and standards for what can be imported are EU laws? In those circumstances, how can a deal be obtained for the whole United Kingdom, or is the Prime Minister only interested in a deal that would apply to GB, thereby further ostracising Northern Ireland from the Union?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. and learned Member knows that controls apply only to EU goods moving into Great Britain. The overwhelming majority of goods moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain will continue to enjoy unfettered access to Great Britain indefinitely. The hon. and learned Member has made much of mutual enforcement; the reality is that this is mutual agreement. I know that he has his proposal, but I think his proposal would lead in the end to a hard border—something that has been rejected across this House on many, many occasions, and for good reason.

European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill

Jim Allister Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I begin by thanking my co-sponsors for their help and support with the Bill: the right hon. Members for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), and the hon. Members for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), for Clacton (Nigel Farage), for South Antrim (Robin Swann), for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), for North Down (Alex Easton), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). I also wish to thank my own staff for their assistance during recent weeks, particularly Dr Dan Boucher, who has worked tirelessly on these matters. I record my appreciation of international lawyer Mr Barney Reynolds for his help and guidance on many of the technical issues.

Since I came to this House in July, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard affirmations from the Government Benches about “fixing the foundations.” Well, there is one foundation that most assuredly needs fixed, and that is the foundation that flows from the inequitable post-Brexit arrangements as they affect my part of the United Kingdom: Northern Ireland. The foundations of this United Kingdom have been disturbed and dislodged by those arrangements. The primary purpose of this Bill is, yes, to fix those foundations—to restore equilibrium to Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom and to our relationship as a nation with the EU.

In fixing the foundations, we need to reflect on the most basic tenet of democracy, namely that a people should be governed by laws made by those they elect to make those laws. That is so fundamental that we all presumably almost take it for granted, yet tragically and with great constitutional detriment, that is no longer the position in respect of Northern Ireland. There are 300 areas of law where the right to make laws is not exercised in this House or in the devolved Assembly, but has been surrendered to the European Parliament. That is such a momentous thing that it should cause anyone who values the fundamentals of democracy—who clings to the principle that a people are entitled to elect those who govern them and make their laws—to be ashamed that this situation has evolved. It is not just a democratic deficit, but undemocratic plundering of the Northern Ireland statute book by the EU.

These are not incidental matters or trifling issues. They are the laws that deal with customs, general trade, goods, motor vehicles, cosmetics, toys, electrical equipment, textiles, medical devices, pesticides, waste, and food hygiene, ingredients and marketing. They cover 13 different areas of law dealing with food alone. They are the laws that deal with disease and with animals—with the breeding, welfare and identification of animals. Thirty-four different diktats of the EU govern all of that.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman’s passion. He also needs to be honest with this Chamber that the laws he is talking about include human rights laws, and the basic, equal treatment of everybody in Northern Ireland. His legislation would rip up the very foundation of democracy, which is that everybody is equal. Does he not need to be honest with this Chamber that the 300 laws he is talking about include equal human rights?

[Jim Allister]

I will be absolutely honest with this Chamber, and to be absolutely honest with this Chamber, the hon. Lady is not addressing the issue as it emerges. I will deal with the impact of article 2 of the protocol. I want nothing more for my constituents than the same rights that the hon. Lady’s constituents have, be they human rights, the right to make the laws of our land, or any other rights. I ask for no privilege, but I certainly do not accept any detriment. That is the point here.

[Ms Creasy]

The hon. and learned Gentleman and I share a common concern, then. My constituents in Walthamstow do benefit from the protection of their human rights, because we are still members of the European Court of Human Rights. Indeed, equal access to those human rights is what the Good Friday agreement was based on. The effect that his legislation would have on article 2 of the Windsor framework would breach those principles, so if it went through, would there not be less of a connection between constituents here in England and constituents in Northern Ireland?

[Jim Allister]

I respectfully and utterly disagree. As part of the United Kingdom, we are all subject to the Human Rights Act 1998. The Human Rights Act is what fundamentally gives the hon. Lady’s constituents the rights that they have in that sphere, and she would lose nothing by losing the control of the foreign court of the European Court of Justice.

I am listing examples of the 300 areas of law that have been purloined by the EU in its sovereignty grab over Northern Ireland. I mentioned the 34 different diktats on animals. We have even reached the point in Northern Ireland where, under these arrangements, our cattle can no longer bear a UK ear tag. They now have to have a specified European Union ear tag. That is but an illustration of how absurd and utterly wrong and offensive it is that the right to make the laws in our own country has been surrendered to a foreign power.

All those 300 areas are set forth in annex 2 of the protocol or, as it is now more kindly called, the Windsor framework. Look at annex 2, look at the hundreds of laws—289 of them which now have been removed from the ambit of the lawmaking of this House or the lawmaking of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

It is amazing to look at the volume of law: there are 70 pages containing not the details of the law but simply the headings of the law. That shows the extent to which the EU has its foot in the door in Northern Ireland.

[Jim Allister]

Absolutely. I printed them off a couple of months ago and I was staggered by how voluminous just the titles are. It is not just 300 laws; it is 300 areas of law which have been surrendered.

I have a challenge for every Member of this House who comes from a different part of the United Kingdom from Northern Ireland—those who represent GB constituencies. My challenge to them today is: “How would you feel if in 300 areas of law affecting your constituents, you had no input—you couldn’t change, you couldn’t move an amendment—because those laws were made colonial-like in a foreign Parliament by those elected not by your constituents but by the constituents of 27 other countries?” How, I ask this House, could any democrat, any representative MP, say that is right and correct?

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for introducing this debate. He is talking about the democratic deficit; is it not right that the Northern Ireland Assembly will be debating consenting to the procedures on 10 December, and are we not pre-empting that debate by holding this debate here now?

[Jim Allister]

I will be dealing with that, but the hon. Member invites us to think that it is appropriate that those elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly should turn up on Tuesday of next week and vote to disenfranchise their own constituents—to say, “You, our constituents in Northern Ireland who sent us to the Northern Ireland Assembly, we are not worthy to make your laws. We must bow to the superiority of a foreign Parliament, and we must surrender to that foreign Parliament the right to make these laws in hundreds of areas of law.” The hon. Member might think that is admirable and is the very epitome of democracy, but I happen to think it is the very opposite.

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

The Bill would create a democratic deficit that the hon. and learned Member has already referred to, and the Windsor framework has addressed that with the Stormont brake, which allows the Northern Ireland Assembly to review all laws applied.

[Jim Allister]

I respectfully suggest that the hon. Member reads a little deeper. She will discover that the Stormont brake is farcical. The previous Member for North Antrim in this House aptly said it was like someone sitting in the back seat of a car and saying to the driver, “Would you ever be so kind as to pull the brake?” That is what the Stormont brake is: a request to the British Government to pause the imposition of an EU law. The British Government do not have to do it—there has been one request to date and nothing has happened about it—so it really is a fiction, and an insult to the democratic mandate of the people of Northern Ireland.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

To continue the analogy, the Stormont brake has been described to me as rusty and not attached to anything.

[Jim Allister]

And if we can pull it, nothing happens. That is the value of it. The most limp excuse that I hear for this plundering of the Northern Ireland statute book by the EU is, “Oh, international law requires this.” Sorry? What sort of international law says that a state must self-harm by disenfranchising its own voters? There is no such international law. I will deal later with the fundamental basics of international law and how they have been distorted in justification of these arrangements.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. and learned Gentleman for bringing forward the Bill. It is important for us in Northern Ireland and for this whole great United Kingdom to look at this. Our constituents must not lose their place in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland without consent, by stealth, but that is what is happening. Brexit was a vote for all of us to leave Europe, not for Northern Ireland to leave the UK, and this outstanding matter is detrimental to our economy, peace and stability. Does he agree that the Bill must be supported by all in the House if there is to be justice for all in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member touches on a fundamental. In June 2016, we all had the opportunity to vote on Brexit. Some liked it and some did not, but the question on the ballot paper was: “Do you want the United Kingdom to leave the EU?” The question was not: “Would you like GB to leave the EU, and leave Northern Ireland behind?” But that is what we got. That is a fundamental denial of Brexit to my constituents in Northern Ireland. That is the source of the disparity, and undemocratic consequences have flowed from that.

I mentioned the 300 areas of law. They are all recited in annex 2 of the protocol. It is no surprise that the first area of law covered in annex 2 is customs, and that the first law put on the people of Northern Ireland is the EU’s customs code: EU regulation 952/2013. What does the customs code do? It operates on the basis that GB—those who got Brexit—is no longer a part of the EU; it is, in the words of the customs code, a “third country”, or in common parlance a foreign country, whereas Northern Ireland is treated as EU territory. Therefore we have this absurd insult under the customs code that goods coming to Northern Ireland—a supposed part of the United Kingdom—from GB must be subject to all the rigour of declarations, checks and reporting of data recording. Why? Because GB is treated as a foreign country when it sends its goods, particularly its raw materials, to my part of the United Kingdom.

That is the iniquitous effect of the Union partitioning and dividing the customs code and protocol. Some Members seem to find that amusing. If hon. Members believe at all in the United Kingdom—maybe some do not—they should be as offended as I am by the fact that moving goods from one part of the United Kingdom to another involves an international customs border under the control of foreign law. How could any MP—amused or otherwise—think that is right and equitable?

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

Perhaps the hon. and learned Member would like to reflect on a proposal that I support—a veterinary agreement with the EU to reduce the checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That would have to honour our commitments under the Windsor framework, if it was to come into effect.

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member may wish to see the whole of the United Kingdom sucked back into the EU. I want to see my part of the United Kingdom enabled to follow the rest of the United Kingdom properly out of the EU.

All this is for an international border over which the trade flow is infinitesimally small. We have had diversion of trade since, but in 2020, 0.003% of all the goods going into, and trade with, the EU passed from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. Yet for that, we are building border posts at the cost of tens of millions of pounds, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), in Larne, Belfast and Warrenpoint. As I will set out, there is another way.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is talking with great passion about an issue that is really important to him, and that he has raised many times in this House. He will accept that 2020 is not a representative year, because of the pandemic. Also, although it might be a small part of trade within the EU, that trade with the wider EU is probably very important to traders in Northern Ireland, including those in his constituency. Many businesses in my constituency are still struggling to come to terms with Brexit, and they envy the trading relationship that Northern Ireland has with the EU. He must recognise that.

[Jim Allister]

I will deal with that more fully, but for now I will say that the trade that matters the most to Northern Ireland is with our biggest partner, Great Britain. That is the source of the overwhelming majority of our raw materials that keep our manufacturing industry going, but as a result of this pernicious Irish sea border, that trade is fettered. All raw materials have to pass through the full ambit of an international customs border. If the hon. Member’s constituents envy the position of my constituents, they really need to reassess the situation, as does he. It is nothing to envy.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for introducing the Bill. At Prime Minister’s questions, I asked the Prime Minister about the general product safety regulation that will come into effect next Friday, which will force suppliers in constituencies across England, Scotland and Wales to increase bureaucracy and costs if they still want to supply Northern Ireland consumers and producers. Does he agree that it is absurd that we are putting additional costs on our internal UK market to facilitate the requirements of the European Union?

[Jim Allister]

I agree absolutely. We already see the consequences. [Interruption.] Again, this seems to be a matter of humour to some on the Government Benches. Increasingly, we see that GB suppliers simply stop supplying, because they will not put themselves through the rigours of the customs code, documentary declarations and everything else. It is very difficult for anyone trying to do business in Northern Ireland. In the main, small and medium-sized businesses do not have the resources to employ the extra 10 staff that a big business might to meet the requirements of crossing the Irish sea border. Small suppliers do not have the necessary resources, so they simply stop supplying Northern Ireland. That feeds the continuing diversion of trade.

[Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)]

A report came out two days ago suggesting that Northern Ireland’s economy was going to be stronger than that of the rest of the UK. Does that not have something to do with the Windsor framework, which is allowing businesses to invest in Northern Ireland? Surely that is a good thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member might be interested to know that the growth area of the Northern Ireland economy is the services sector, which is the one sector not included by the protocol—it is outside all that. The one sector that is outside the protocol is increasing. There is a clear message in that.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I had not intended to intervene on the hon. and learned Gentleman, but on that point, Invest Northern Ireland, the body charged with encouraging foreign direct investment into Northern Ireland and with growing our economy, cannot point to one example of business investing in Northern Ireland as a direct result of the Windsor framework.

[Jim Allister]

Absolutely. I will return to that.

[Alex Ballinger]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

I will make some progress. I will be as generous as I can with interventions, because I know that Government Members want to talk this Bill out—and, because they are not shame-faced enough, some of them want to vote against the principles of the Bill, but there we go.

The right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) makes an important point. The reason why that point has traction is found in EU regulation 625 from 2017. It determines that Northern Ireland is, according to our courts, for these purposes, EU territory. We have had several legal cases in Northern Ireland, such as the Rooney case. The judgment in that case established that the EU official controls on food and feed law, animal health, plant health and so on have to be in place because our High Court has ruled that under that applicable EU law, for regulatory and customs purposes, the entry point to the EU is the Northern Ireland ports. Could it be any more Union-dismantling than that? Under EU law, to which we are subject, the entry point to the EU is the ports of Northern Ireland.

Mr Justice Colton said that EU regulations must be interpreted according to EU law as a result of article 4.1 of the withdrawal agreement and article 13.2 of the protocol, which, he goes on to say, have domestic effect in the United Kingdom under section 7A the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. He said that under the withdrawal agreement it is at Northern Ireland ports that EU territory is entered. He went on:

“The UK is not to be treated as a unitary state for the purposes of OCR checks coming from GB into NI.”

Could it be any more stark that Northern Ireland has been colonised by the EU?

What is a colony? It is a territory governed by someone else’s laws from a foreign jurisdiction. When 300 areas of law—including customs, and including the very definition of Northern Ireland’s territory in trading terms—are governed by foreign EU laws, we have created a situation in which, in that context, Northern Ireland is a veritable colony. There are many people in the House—the Government Benches opposite are populated by many of them—who boast of their anti-colonialism. They constantly pride themselves on their anti-colonial heritage. Yet here we have a part of this United Kingdom colonised by EU law, to the point that we are told that when someone enters the ports of Northern Ireland, they enter EU territory.

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

I believe the European Union is our ally—it is 27 democracies—and I am concerned about some of the language I am hearing. The hon. and learned Gentleman talks of colonisation and surrender; is that the message we want to send to our 27 friends and allies in the European Union?

[Jim Allister]

Maybe the hon. Member could help me. What would he call taking a territory and subjecting it to someone else’s laws? What would he call it other than colonisation? Is that not the very essence of what he and his colleagues wear as a badge of pride in their anti-colonialism? Is that not what it is in name and in truth?

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman remember that in the Brexit negotiations those so-called allies made it clear that the price of Brexit would be Northern Ireland’s removal from the United Kingdom? Far from being allies, they declared themselves to want to be colonisers.

[Jim Allister]

Yes, that was the boast of Mr Barnier and his staff: that the price of Brexit would be Northern Ireland—and so it has proved to be. That may be something of indifference, or indeed pride, for some people in this House, but it should be a badge of shame that we allowed a part of the United Kingdom to be colonised by the EU, and that we have surrendered our rights to make our own laws.

[Andrew Lewin]

For the record, is it the hon. and learned Gentleman’s view that the 27 member states of the European Union are not our allies? At least one Member has made that point, as has another next to him. It is important to have this on the record for the House: does the hon. and learned Gentleman believe the 27 member states of the European Union are allies of the United Kingdom, or not? I certainly do.

[Jim Allister]

The EU has behaved not as a friend to Northern Ireland. The EU has behaved as a sovereignty grabber in respect of Northern Ireland. That is where it caused, and continues to cause, the offence. If hon. Members think it is a good thing to back that up and endorse it, they obviously do not think very much of the territory of Northern Ireland.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

We are moving slightly into the ridiculous; may I bring us back to the main point? The purpose of the Bill that the hon. and learned Gentleman has drafted is simply to provide a solution for what is currently an unworkable position. I say to Government Members that it is not about 27 nations hating the UK; ultimately, it is about function. Sir Jonathan Faull, who was the director general of the EU internal market service directorate, ended up as director general of the taskforce for strategic issues related to the UK referendum, and he and his team came to a simple conclusion: the only way to make the situation workable was to have, in essence, what is in the Bill. He has put out a statement today to say exactly that. It is a practical issue, and those who knew and understood the difficulties at the time said there was a way to do this, but they were ignored.

[Jim Allister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Those of us who are looking for a solution are supporters of this Bill, because we cannot go on as we are. Those who think that it is okay to subjugate part of their own territory are opposed to this Bill. They are quite content with the colonisation of part of our territory. In constitutional terms, where we have ended up is that Northern Ireland is no longer a full part of the United Kingdom. Why? It is because we are not our own masters in 300 areas of law and that a foreign jurisdiction makes those laws. What does that create? It creates what is called, in constitutional terms, a condominium: Northern Ireland is ruled in part by UK laws and in part by foreign laws. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) finds that hilarious—sorry, it is not hilarious to be subjected to that.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

I find myself surprised to agree to an extent with the former leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith): we need to move away from some of the ridiculous, extreme language. There is no reason why the European Union would want to colonise Northern Ireland. Are we not talking about a sensible agreement that does not seek to impose sovereignty but instead seeks simply to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, to safeguard the Good Friday agreement in all its dimensions and, at the same time, protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK and in the UK internal market? Should we not recognise that and stop using extreme language that does nothing to take the debate sensibly forward?

[Jim Allister]

The whole purpose of this Bill is to restore equilibrium and to get us to a point at which we have a sensible relationship based upon mutual respect, not on the grabbing of the sovereignty, one from the other. That is where we have got to. The hon. Member may not like to face up to it, but a whole raft of jurisprudence and lawmaking has been removed from within the reach of this United Kingdom and placed within the control of a foreign body, and that is not the basis for a sustainable solution.

[Ms Creasy]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

I have given way quite often, so I am going to make some progress.

That is why what I regard as the two liberation clauses in my Bill, clauses five and two, exist. They are the clauses that will free the whole United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland in particular, from this malevolent situation in which a huge portion of our laws are made not by ourselves but by others. That is very important. I have spent a lot of time in this debate talking about the constitutional import of all this, and that is very important, because it is that which gives certainty and assurance to any part of this United Kingdom. However, before I leave that issue, I remind the House that, because of the protocol arrangements, our Supreme Court had to rule that article VI of our Acts of Union, which guaranteed unfettered trade access between and within all parts of the United Kingdom, stand in suspension. There cannot be a higher authority than the Supreme Court to demonstrate that a key component of the very Acts of Union that makes this Union is in suspension, and if the cause of suspension is the protocol or the Windsor framework, then no one who believes in that Union should be sanguine or at ease with that.

There are also economic consequences. Before Brexit, Northern Ireland had an economy that was very integrated with the rest of the United Kingdom. It had the free, unfettered flow of goods one way and the other, as we had and would still have from Birmingham to London or Edinburgh. We had exactly that.

[Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)]

The hon. and learned Member mentioned certainty, and he has just mentioned the impact on the economy of Northern Ireland. Does he agree that bringing in a Bill such as this, which would see regulations in Northern Ireland change in potentially just three months, would have a massive impact on businesses in Northern Ireland? It would have a huge impact on the economy of Northern Ireland, and it is not what businesses need right now.

[Jim Allister]

I can tell the hon. Member that it is exactly what businesses need. My constituency office is choked, from time to time, with businesses saying, “Why is it that I cannot get the goods I need without all this paperwork and bureaucracy?” There are many small businesses in my constituency and elsewhere, such as small engineering businesses, which rely for their raw materials not on huge containers coming in, but on parcels of bolts and everyday materials, six, seven, eight or 12 of which come a week. Come early next year, the Irish sea border is going to extend to a parcels border, and we are going to have a situation in which those businesses that rely on the daily arrival of a parcel of some raw materials from GB will be put through the red lane of this full-blown international customs border. The hon. Lady may think that that is good for business. It is a death knell for businesses. That is the problem that we have.

The economic consequences are severe. Even with the Windsor framework, all our raw materials that feed all our manufacturing industry and that come from GB now have to pass through the red lane in a full international customs border. Think of that—think of the effect on a business. That is what is stifling, not growing, business. In consequence, we have had trade diversion—of course we have. We have veterinary medicines. In the main, our veterinary medicines come from GB, and always have done, but now we face a cliff edge where, according to EU diktat, they can no longer come because we are subject to the veterinary requirements of the EU, not the United Kingdom. Medicines that we have used safely and with no problems for decades are suddenly to be stopped.

The Government say that they will get a deal—well, let us see it. Even the very thought that we have to go cap in hand to a foreign power to say, “Please could we have an arrangement where, from within our own country, we could bring our own medicines to another part of our own country? Please could we do that?”, is so humiliating at a national level and so prejudicial to our farming community.

[Dr Arthur]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for giving way again; he continues to speak with passion. The issue about medicines is really interesting. I know that he has spoken at some length already, but it would be useful if he could outline some of the medicines that will be prohibited and what the alternatives to them will be.

[Jim Allister]

There are human medicines, and there are veterinary medicines. The vast swathe of veterinary medicines currently stand to be prohibited. As for human medicines, there are some for diabetics that are still subject to difficulties.

[Robin Swann]

rose—

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member was the Health Minister in Northern Ireland and knows all about that, so I will gladly give way to him.

[Robin Swann]

On that point—I see that Members are smiling; I am quite concerned about the attitude to the issue of some of those on the other Benches—a serious piece of work has been done with the European Union on the subject of continuing the supply of human medicines to Northern Ireland. The challenge is not in the legislation but in the fact that producers and suppliers must meet EU requirements for specific Northern Ireland labelling, which makes it not worth their while to supply items to Northern Ireland, with the result that some manufacturers are still not doing so.

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member knows that from experience.

I want to make some progress, and to make one point very strongly: the economic consequences are dire for Northern Ireland. We have heard much talk about the fantasy of a dual-access bonanza. We have been told that Northern Ireland will become the Singapore of the west, that we now have unrivalled access to the UK market and to the EU market—consisting of 500 million people—and that everyone should be overwhelmed by the fantastic opportunity that this provides. How wrong that has turned out to be, and for one very simple reason, already alluded to by the right hon. Member for Belfast East.

We have heard the suggestion that inward investment will flow into Northern Ireland because of this dual market access, but it has not done so. Invest Northern Ireland has had to admit that there has been no upturn—and why is that? Because any benefit, if there is one, is countermanded by the fettering of the trade from Great Britain. A manufacturer wishing to set up a business in Northern Ireland in order to have access to the EU market is bound to say to himself—because investors are intelligent people—“Where will I get my raw materials? Oh, I will get them, as most do, from Great Britain.”

But then he will discover that those raw materials will have to pass through an international customs border, with all the regulation, all the delay and all the inspection, and the shine soon goes off that idea. Far from being a bonanza, this has turned out to be anything but.

I have already pointed out that the one sector that is flourishing is the service sector. That does not just happen to be the case; it is able to flourish because it is outside the protocol. And things will get worse: next Friday, when the general product safety regulation comes into force, many small suppliers will simply stop supplying because of the bureaucratic burden that will be placed on them. Already, in so many cases, when someone wants to buy an item online, this will pop up: “Not available in Northern Ireland.” Why is that? Because the small suppliers from Great Britain find it impossible to handle the burden of bureaucracy, so they are simply saying, “We are not supplying to Northern Ireland.” That is hugely frustrating for so many people in Northern Ireland—including, I might say, Mrs Allister, who, like many a woman, wants to order things and then finds that they are not available in Northern Ireland. How would hon. Members from Great Britain feel if “not available in Scotland,” “not available in Wales” and “not available in England” constantly popped up? Would they not be asking why? And when they heard the answer, “It is something called the protocol,” why would they continue to be enthusiasts for the very thing that is blocking their consumers from getting the supplies they need? This is a practical issue.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. and learned Gentleman’s passion, but his problems are not unique. Anywhere in the highlands and islands of Scotland, or even in peripheral parts of England, has the same delivery problems as he does.

[Jim Allister]

Ours is not a delivery problem; ours is a bar on sending. Ours is not just that it is too difficult; ours is that it is too difficult because of the international customs requirements. That is the difference between us and the highlands and islands. I am sure the highlands and islands do have that delivery problem, and I am sure that small businesses do shirk the desire to serve them, but in Northern Ireland it is for a more fundamental and compelling reason.

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

The frustrations that the hon. and learned Member is talking about are surely a good argument for what the Government are trying to do in resetting the relationship between the UK and the EU. Therefore, this Bill would only undermine the UK’s credibility in doing that with our international partners. Does he agree that we need to remain focused on the issues going forward, rather than going over these points again?

[Jim Allister]

This Bill is prospective in its tone and purpose. It is about going forward. It is about solving the problem that has been put upon us. The hon. Member says, “Oh, let’s reset.” For some, of course, that means, “Let’s rejoin.” That is a matter for those who are advocating for it, but it is certainly not where I would like to see this United Kingdom go.

Yes, we need to reset, but we need to reset on the basis that Brexit is for all, not just for some. When we reset on that basis, the Government will not have me constantly raising these issues, because I will have the equal citizenship that has been denied to me and my constituents by these arrangements. Fundamentally, this is an equal citizenship issue. The thought that they are being treated differently, by being denied the equal citizenship of the rest of the United Kingdom, is quite appalling and insulting to many people in Northern Ireland.

Article 2 of the protocol has been mentioned in an intervention. The Government said a couple of nights ago that they will appeal the findings in one of the cases in Northern Ireland, although, listening to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I think it is a pretty half-hearted appeal. Article 2 shows us that it is not just about trade. That was the initial selling point of the protocol, “Oh, it is only about trade,” but now we have discovered, through article 2, that it has a most pervasive effect on all sorts of things.

Legislation in the last Parliament has been overturned in its application in Northern Ireland. Why? Because of article 2. Now, whether we liked or disliked the Rwanda Bill is not the point. The point is that our High Court and Court of Appeal have ruled that the provisions of the Rwanda Bill cannot be operated in Northern Ireland. Why? Because of article 2.

Why is that? Because article 2 subjects Northern Ireland to the EU’s human rights provisions, not the UK’s human rights provisions. Protections that exist for asylum seekers under EU law therefore prevent the measures from operating. It is not about the debate of the merits or de-merits; it is about the constitutional fact that a Bill of this House, the sovereign will of that time of this supposedly sovereign Parliament, could not be implemented in a part of the United Kingdom because of the supremacy of EU law.

[Ms Creasy]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

No, I will finish my point. That is the fundamental issue here. We also had it on the legacy Bill. Again, it is not about the merits or the de-merits of the legacy Bill, much of which I abhorred; it is about the principle that our courts in this United Kingdom rule. The provisions of this Parliament—the sovereign will of this Parliament—are overridden by the laws of a foreign jurisdiction. That is the fundamental issue of sovereignty at stake here. That is why clause 2 will address the import of article 2 by making it something that cannot be given effect in domestic law.

[Ms Creasy]

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I hope he will recognise that it is not laughter on the Government Benches, but bemusement at the inconsistency. He opines about his anger that a third party can make law in Northern Ireland. Many of us tried to untangle the inconsistencies in the Rwanda legislation. The right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and I tried in vain to raise it with the previous Government. The critical issue was the right to remedy and the rights it gave people in Northern Ireland to petition a third party if they thought their Government was overbearing on their own basic rights. The hon. and learned Gentleman has himself used those rights: he has chosen to go to the Supreme Court and that is why we are here today. He has not chosen to go to the Court in Strasbourg—that would be his right and I would support him in doing so—but why would he deny the right to remedy to the rest of his fellow residents of Northern Ireland, as the Bill would, when he says he thinks it was wrong for that right to be protected by the European Court of Human Rights in the first place?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister]

I have been very generous in giving way. In a way I am not assisting my cause, because I know Government Members want to talk the Bill out. I would rather see them take a stand on whether they are for or against the subjugation of sovereignty within the United Kingdom. I am going to move on and deal with these issues.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow referred to my taking a case to the Supreme Court. Why would I not? It is the Supreme Court of my United Kingdom. Why would I not take a case to the Supreme Court and test the laws that relate? I remind the House again that what the Supreme Court had to hold is that, because of the protocol so enthusiastically supported by Labour Members, Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom has been subjugated. The Supreme Court held that the fundamental building block of article 6 of the Acts of Union is in suspension because of the import of the protocol.

Some tell us, “Well, we don’t want to face these issues.” There is no option, we are told, because of the Belfast agreement. I have even read and heard people say, “The Belfast agreement prohibits a border on the island of Ireland.” I hold the agreement in my hand. I have read it many times. Perhaps someone could direct me: where in this document does it say that there cannot be a customs border on the island of Ireland? Where is it? It is not there! We already have a currency border, a VAT border, a tax border. Nowhere in the Belfast agreement does it say that you cannot have a customs border at the international boundary of the United Kingdom—nor should it. And then I am told, “This would breach international law if you did not have the protocol.” That is not correct either. A fundamental premise of international law is respect for territorial integrity. What have I been talking about for the last hour, if it has not been about respecting territorial integrity? That is the fundamental premise of international law.

It all goes back to the General Assembly of the United Nations declaration on principles of international law. What does it say? It says that territorial integrity is key, and that the declaration constitutes the basic principles of international law. It says:

“Every state shall refrain from any action aimed at…disruption of the national unity or territorial integrity of any other state.”

If only that had been adhered to. The declaration says:

“Where obligations under international agreements are in conflict with the obligations of this charter, the obligations of this charter shall prevail.”

So the fundamental principle is respect for territorial integrity. That is the governing principle of international law, so when an agreement comes into play that defies the fundamental requirement to respect territorial integrity, that agreement falls, not international law.

[Ben Coleman]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

No, I am going to make some progress.

I strongly refute the fallacy that to depart from the Windsor framework is to breach international law. On the contrary, to perpetuate the infringement of our territorial integrity is to breach international law itself and, indeed, the Belfast agreement, which was built on consent, of which there has been none in respect of the current arrangements. The correct application of international law is to the effect that agreements that contradict the regulating principles, including respect for territorial integrity, are themselves the villains of the piece.

Having set out everything that is wrong, let me come to the solution. The Government have always told us that we cannot conduct sanitary and phytosanitary checks away from the border. It cannot be done, so we must have a border—in our case, in the Irish sea. But this week a statutory instrument was laid before this House that does exactly that. It does it for goods that come from the EU, via Northern Ireland, to GB. It says that the goods can be checked wherever they arrive, such as at factories or other premises; they do not have to be checked at the border. If we can do that for goods coming through Northern Ireland to GB, why can we not do it in reverse? Of course we could check goods without tampering with sovereignty; we could do so anywhere within the territory of the United Kingdom. It is not the impracticability of carrying out the necessary checks that is the problem; it is the fact that under the surrender of sovereignty it has been insisted that they are carried out in the Irish sea border.

That brings me to clauses 16 to 18 and the concept they would permit of mutual enforcement. I readily accept that the clauses draw heavily on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022—which found the approval of the previous Parliament—but they are none the worse for that. What they do is simple: they say that two respecting neighbours—that is what I hope the United Kingdom and the EU are—with the necessary trust between each other can operate a system where they mutually check the goods flowing through their territory to ensure they meet the standards of the recipient territory. That is a fundamental tenet of much of international trade. It is something that can be built upon in respect of this matter that the United Kingdom says, “Yes, we know the EU wants to protect, it tells us, its single market and, yes, we want to protect our single market, so we will undertake, by virtue of criminal sanction for those who do not, to check that goods flowing from our factories to your consumers, from our territory to your territory, meet the standards you set, and we expect you to do the same.” That can be done without any of the paraphernalia that we presently have.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

On this particular point, it is worth pointing out that the EU already does it. In its agreements with New Zealand, for example, it trusts that specific veterinary practices to check lamb and other products arriving in the EU are done at the point of departure. By the time they get to Rotterdam, they are cleared straight through on the basis that they respect the checks done by those veterinary companies. They already did it for 40 years with UK companies where any subsequent checks had to be done. All this is already being done. The question is: why is it not being done for the arrangement we have at the moment?

[Jim Allister]

I absolutely agree. The fascinating point is the very concept was articulated from and originated within the EU itself.

During the early stages of the negotiations, Sir Jonathan Faull and academics Daniel Sarmiento and Joseph Weiler came up with that proposition. It is not my proposition. It is not a United Kingdom proposition. It was an EU proposition. They said the answer is mutual enforcement. Today we have a statement from those three gentlemen, which has been made public. It says, “On Friday of this week, the House of Commons will be debating a Bill which attempts to address some of the difficulties resulting from the Brexit divorce agreements between the EU and the UK, which might be of interest to readers. In 2019, we proposed a solution which would have obviated any need for these complicated and divisive legal manoeuvres. The UK and the EU could have respected each other’s positions and saved everyone a great deal of time and effort. The Financial Times characterised the proposal as a ‘win-win solution’. Regrettably, it was not followed.” I echo that: regrettably, it was not followed. Why was it not followed? Because the politics took over. Instead of looking for a workable, practical border solution, the politics of making the United Kingdom pay for leaving the EU took over. That is how we got into this morass of a pernicious imposition through the border.

[Sammy Wilson]

During the early stages of the negotiations, the permanent secretary of the then Brexit Department told the Select Committee that the Irish Government, before Leo Varadkar took over, were actually exploring those kinds of solutions. The politics of the changeover in the Irish Republic and the willingness of Leo Varadkar to become the puppet of the EU in these negotiations stopped that method of looking at the border.

[Jim Allister]

I fear that there is a lot of truth in that. As I say, the politics took over. A further truth is that for some—not all, but some—enthusiasts of the protocol arrangement of a nationalist or Irish republican persuasion, there is a political gain that subsumes all doubts that they might have as democrats. For 30 years and more, the IRA terrorised through bomb and bullet to try to push the border to the Irish sea: “Brits out—push the border to the Irish sea!” That is precisely what the protocol has done: it has pushed the border to the Irish sea.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

Shame on you!

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member may object from a sedentary position, but the challenge for her is whether her nationalism is more important to her than her democratic credentials.

[Claire Hanna]

rose—

[Jim Allister]

I will give way to the hon. Member in a moment, because I have mentioned her.

How can the hon. Member, who calls herself a Social Democratic and Labour Member, look her constituents in the eye and say, “I believe you are not worthy to have your laws made by those you elect: I would rather they were made by those you don’t elect”? Is it because the nationalist reach of the protocol is more important than the democratic detriment of the protocol?

[Claire Hanna]

If the hon. and learned Member wants to talk about constitutional change, perhaps he might set out for the Chamber the numbers and the level of support for the Union before and after he began his Brexit adventures. He will know that I, as a democrat, constitutionally compromise every single day, because I am a democrat, I am an adult and I live in a constitutional reality that is not of my choosing. I am an Irish person living, working and upholding democracy in the United Kingdom.

The hon. and learned Member will also know that none of his arguments about democratic deficit stand in any way, when his campaign suppressed the Northern Ireland Assembly, the legitimate expression and place of primary lawmaking for Northern Ireland, and when he created an enormous health sea border in the Irish sea. His adventures—his hobby horses—have created a scenario in which one third of the population of Northern Ireland is on a health waiting list.

I and others who do not like exactly the way our constitutional arrangements are made stand up every day and work to solve those problems; all he wants to do is create them. It is his actions, in fact, that are inserting the dynamism in the question about constitutional change. Every time he pulls a stunt like this, he drives more people to seek to get out of the control of men like him. I, as a democrat, uphold democracy. I accept the constitutional reality; I accept that we are members of the United Kingdom. I am seeking to change that democratically, so he will never again question my commitment to democracy in Northern Ireland.

[Jim Allister]

I acknowledge the hon. Member’s speech, but let me say this: it is no stunt to ask, on behalf of my constituents, for what every other part of this United Kingdom has—the right to be ruled by laws we makes ourselves. It is no stunt to ask for equal citizenship; it is no stunt to say that this United Kingdom—the clue is in the title—should not be partitioned by an international customs border.

[Deirdre Costigan]

Will the hon. and learned Member give way?

[Jim Allister]

I will when I have dealt with some other points.

That is an assault upon the sincerity and efficacy of those who dare to say, “If we are part of the United Kingdom, we need to be treated as part of the United Kingdom.” The hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna) did not explain why she thinks it right to disenfranchise her constituents and to reject a workable and practical solution. Those who reject a workable and practical solution are those who do not want such a solution in respect of the Irish border. That was very clear from her intervention.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Fleur Anderson)]

Several years ago, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson told us that there was an oven-ready deal. That was clearly not the case, because we are still discussing this. The hon. and learned Member has mentioned mutual enforcement, but nowhere in the world does mutual enforcement happen wholesale under trading regulations between countries. The only workable deal that has been struck was reached not by politics, but through a pragmatic working out, and that is the Windsor framework. Is he selling something that cannot actually work? The mutual enforcement idea has been described by the EU Commission as magical thinking.

[Jim Allister]

I remind the Minister that the magical thinking came from the EU itself, through Jonathan Faull and his colleagues, who made that very suggestion. And why would what I suggest not work? If the EU is our friend—if we trust it and it trusts us—why would it not trust us to keep our word on imposing its standards on our goods entering its territory? If that does not work, then it is time to talk about alternatives, but that proposal should be the starting point. There was the whimsical dismissal that it would not work, even though it has never been tried. The really chilling thing about the Minister’s intervention is its subtext: “Suck it up, Northern Ireland. You’re no longer a full part of the United Kingdom. You will just live like a colony of the EU, under its laws in 300 areas. We have no empathy and no desire to fix it; we will just leave you in that position.” That is the chilling import of her intervention.

[Richard Tice]

It may be helpful to remind the Minister that the EU’s own expert, Mr Lars Karlsson, said in his “Smart Border 2.0” report that with technology and good will, all these issues could be overcome. However, the politics of Mr Varadkar and the EU overrode that.

[Jim Allister]

That is absolutely right, and in Northern Ireland we suffer the consequences of those aggressive political agendas every day.

If the Government are saying, “This is fine; there is nothing to see here. We don’t need to fix anything,” then they are not just insulting the intelligence of those of us who introduced the Bill, but saying to my constituents, “You can carry on being second-class citizens.” The Government cannot say to my constituents, “You are equal citizens, but you will not be governed by British laws.” That is what the Government are saying to my constituents in North Antrim and to people across Northern Ireland. “You have equal citizenship, but some are more equal than others. Some will be ruled by the laws that this Parliament makes, or by those that the devolved Assemblies make, but you will be ruled by laws that someone else makes for you, and be grateful for it.” That is where we have got to on this issue. It is not just insulting but frankly unacceptable for the people of Northern Ireland to be treated in this way.

Given the Government’s enthusiasm to maintain the unworkable status quo, they should reflect on the fact that there is about to be a new President of the United States who has made it very plain that he is in tariff mode. If he carries through his tariffs, this United Kingdom Government will need a trade deal. Why would a President of the United States do a trade deal with the United Kingdom if the UK has a back door that is open to the EU? That is the consequence of this protocol. We do not have a secure international trade border; the border with the EU is porous, and by all reports, Mr Trump is pretty adverse to the EU. Why would he ever do a deal with the United Kingdom with that back door open?

Should this Government not take the opportunity presented by this Bill to say, “We will fix this arrangement, and then we can convince the Americans that we are a safe and secure partner in a trade deal”? So long as the protocol exists, we cannot give the United States of America that certainty. It is in the national interest, the Government’s interest and our trading interest to fix this arrangement, so that we can pursue a trade deal with the Americans—who, at the end of the day, are our best friends in all this—on the best possible terms.

[Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman has already outlined that there are 300 tightly bound areas where the EU influences Northern Irish legislation, but it sounds very much as if he is now suggesting that the United Kingdom should operate under whatever remit the President-elect of the United States chooses to set for us. Policy is made here in Parliament, not in DC.

[Jim Allister]

I only wish that the laws for Northern Ireland were made in this Parliament, or in our devolved institutions. If the hon. Member has been listening at all, surely he has understood that there are 300 vast areas—they are not self-contained; they are expanding, and have already been expanded—on which laws are made in a foreign Parliament. That is the fundamental point. If we want a trade deal with the United States, we have to show that it will be a bona fide trade deal with the United Kingdom, not with a surrogate of the EU through a back door that is wide open.

[Deirdre Costigan]

I note that the hon. and learned Gentleman failed to answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna). He talks about doing a deal with the United States of America on trade. How could we possibly be taken seriously as a trade partner by any country in the world in future if we broke the deals that we already have on the table?

[Jim Allister]

If the deal was reached under false pretences—if it was reached in breach of international law, because it breached respect for territorial integrity—yes, the first thing this Government should do is reverse that arrangement. They should not continue with a deal that does not respect the territorial integrity of this United Kingdom. That is the fundamental principle of international law, and if international law has been disregarded to get this arrangement, the arrangement is disreputable and not worthy of continuation. That would be of more interest to our American friends than our saying, “We will make a deal that will sell out some of our own people—that will create circumstances where any trade deal we do will benefit the EU through the back door—but please, Mr President, make a deal with us.” That will not happen, and the Government need to realise that.

Let me try to draw my remarks to a conclusion by turning to clause 19. It seeks to reinstate the fundamental operating principle of the Belfast agreement, which is that every key decision in Northern Ireland, because of our divided and troubled past, should and must be made on a cross-community basis. It is there in black and white in the agreement, yet next Tuesday, the most key decision that the Northern Ireland Assembly has ever taken will come before it without a need for it to have cross-community consent. That decision will be on whether Northern Ireland should continue, in 300 areas of law, to surrender its lawmaking powers to a foreign Parliament. There is nothing more fundamental, either to Northern Ireland’s constitutional status or to the governance of the people of Northern Ireland, than that. However, to ensure the desired outcome of that vote, a move was made to remove, especially for that vote, the cross-community requirement, so that for the first time in over 50 years we will have a majoritarian decision of considerable import taken in Northern Ireland. That is a rigging of the arrangements of the Belfast agreement.

Strange as it might be, through this Bill, I am the one championing the requirements of the Belfast agreement by asking: if the modus operandi is to ensure cross-community support, why has the vote been rigged to remove cross-community support? One might have thought that the hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down would be the champion of the Belfast agreement, and would want to ensure that its fundamental operating principle of cross-community support was respected, but no: she and her party are cheerleading for the vote. They brought the matter to the Assembly when the Executive failed to.

It is an important point—a point that cuts to the heart of the operation and stability of the Belfast agreement—that for the first time, a key decision is to be taken not on the prescribed cross-community basis, but on a majoritarian basis. What does that say to me and my community? It says, “You don’t really matter. It is more important that we get this vote through. Cross-community? Ah, that was about protecting nationalism. It was never about protecting Unionism.” Well, sorry, but we are calling that in today. We say, if it is good enough for nationalism, it should be good enough for Unionism. Why are this Government and this House trying to say to Unionism in Northern Ireland, “You don’t matter on this issue. We will railroad you”? That is the fundamental point.

[Claire Hanna]

Is it not the hon. and learned Member’s position that Brexit does not require cross-community consent? In the eight elections since Brexit, the people of Northern Ireland have rejected Brexit. However, he says that the protections require cross-community consent. It is a case of consent for thee, but not for me. Will he confirm that the inclusion of this provision means that he now supports the Good Friday agreement, 26 years after repudiating the will of 71% of the people?

[Jim Allister]

Brexit was a national vote, decided for better or for worse on a national basis. The people of London did not vote for Brexit, but no one is saying they should now be ruled by laws from Brussels. The People of Northern Ireland by a small majority did not vote for Brexit, but Members are saying that we should be ruled by laws from Brussels. That does not stack up. I am simply calling in aid what the Belfast agreement says: the Belfast agreement says key decisions are cross-community. Is anyone denying this is a key decision? If so, why is it not a cross-community vote?

[Robin Swann]

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for introducing this Bill, and I acknowledge his recognition of the strengths of those protections in the Belfast agreement, which were built in by my party and especially by Lord Trimble, the former leader of the Ulster Unionist party and the crafter and political deliverer of unionism in support of the Belfast agreement at that time. He said:

“I feel betrayed personally by the Northern Ireland Protocol, and it is also why the unionist population is so incensed at its imposition.

The protocol rips the very heart out of the agreement, which I and they believed safeguarded Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and ensured that democracy not violence, threat of violence or outside interference, would or could ever change that.

Make no mistake about it, the protocol does not safeguard the Good Friday Agreement. It demolishes its central premise by removing the assurance that democratic consent is needed to make any change to the status of Northern Ireland. It embodies a number of constitutional changes that relate to Northern Ireland.”

[Jim Allister]

The late Lord Trimble was absolutely right about that. What is happening on Tuesday is an invitation to the Assembly, courtesy of the Government’s directive, to tear up the key central portion of the Belfast agreement on cross-community consent. There is another point.

[Alex Ballinger]

The hon. and learned Member talks about the Good Friday agreement. Why does his Bill not guarantee that the institutions of the agreement have powers, and why is he happy to put those with UK Government Ministers, unlike the existing arrangements under the Windsor framework?

[Jim Allister]

My Bill is about seeking to restore democracy to the arrangements. That is why I want to take back from Brussels control over our laws. My Bill is a charter for democratic progress. The present arrangements are the antithesis of democratic operation.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Member might not have supported the Good Friday agreement but does he not acknowledge that the agreement recognised the sovereignty of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland? It involved a changing of the constitution in the Republic to recognise the sovereignty of the UK in Northern Ireland for the first time. It also recognised the reality and the existence of a border on the island of Ireland. What he is doing is reinforcing the principles of the Good Friday agreement, which he himself might have opposed back in the day.

[Jim Allister]

The core operating principle of the devolved institutions of Northern Ireland was that key issues have cross-community consent. That is what has been ripped out for Tuesday. I have yet to hear a rational, convincing explanation for that. Maybe the Minister has one. Why have we ripped out of the heart of the Belfast agreement the very thing that was supposed to give comfort to both sides—that neither side would get one over on them? Why have we ripped that out of this agreement? If the Minister wishes to tell me, I will gladly give way on that point.

There is even a further point about this vote on Tuesday. Article 18.2 of the protocol says that the consent vote was to be

“reached strictly in accordance with the unilateral declaration made by the United Kingdom”

Government of October 2019. I repeat: “strictly in accordance with”. That unilateral declaration of October ’19 promised a public consultation before this vote. It is there in black and white in the words of the declaration. There has been no consultation. So why are the Government inviting the Assembly to conduct a vote which breaches the guidelines laid down by the protocol itself—that the consent vote should be strictly in accordance with that declaration? That declaration included the promise of a public consultation, of which there has been none. That is another question—

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

Will the hon. and learned Member give way?

[Jim Allister]

I would rather give way to the Minister on that issue, but I hear no answer.

The House has been patient as I have laid out the arguments for the Bill. I see the Bill as an opportunity to restore the equilibrium, which I hope to have demonstrated has been destroyed in these arrangements. That is the democratic equilibrium, the equilibrium of equal citizenship, the equilibrium of Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the equilibrium of our relations with the EU. All those are positives, all those are in the national interest, and all those are that which I believe should recommend themselves to the House. I trust that the House will give favour to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is right. Many of us here today want to discuss this issue because it is crucial to our constituents not just in the short term, but in the longer term. The former Member for Clwyd West said:

“The Command Paper tells us that the framework, ‘narrows the range of EU rules applicable in Northern Ireland—to less than 3% overall by the EU’s own calculations’”.—[Official Report, 27 February 2023; Vol. 728, c. 605.]

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member has recited what some might have thought were erudite contributions in support of these arrangements, apparently with the insinuation towards the end that we have considered this whole matter. Have his friends not spent since July trying to undo the very things that the previous Government did on so many other matters, because they thought that they were wrong? They were wrong on this, so should they not be trying to undo it?

[Peter Dowd]

I do not quite understand the hon. and learned Member’s point. Today, we are trying to tease out many of the issues and concerns that he, quite understandably, has raised, to try to understand them and maybe to reflect on them and, in future, give consideration to them through the process. It is important that we are all here today listening to what he and other Members have to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s comments, and I am not going to challenge the integrity of the people who were part of that negotiation. It is not for me to challenge their integrity: they are hon. Members, and I believe that they did what they did with the best intention. During the statement on 27 February, I believe that, on the whole, most comments were supportive, but I acknowledge and accept that some were not, such as those from the right hon. Gentleman himself. He made his views known, as did others.

I acknowledge that some of the Members who spoke during that statement are in the Chamber today and express disquiet. I welcome the fact that they have taken their places on the Benches, but their disquiet and the disquiet of others must be set in the context of the following—namely, that the agreement, according to the Command Paper, which is important and which I referred to earlier,

“narrows the range of EU rules applicable in Northern Ireland – to less than 3% overall by the EU’s own calculations.”

In any negotiation in the circumstances, coming away with that figure is not necessarily unreasonable. Would a figure of 100% be the acid test? Maybe it would, but I do not think so, given the circumstances—in practical terms, that is unlikely. That is the nature of negotiation: otherwise, it would be called imposition. We must recognise that those on the other side, who have their views, passions and commitment to their communities as well as their histories, have also been fraught with other people.

I will finish with this. I do not accept the idea that some of our partners in the European Union—some of those eastern bloc European countries that were under the yoke of the Soviet Union as a coloniser—would take the different view that they, in turn, were part of a group or cabal trying to impose a colonialist approach to another country.

[Jim Allister]

How else would the hon. Member describe a scenario in which a huge quota of laws are made in a foreign jurisdiction? How else would he classify that than as colonialism?

[Peter Dowd]

I will touch on that a little later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

Precisely—my hon. Friend on the Front Bench says it would be dangerous, and it would be. What about the key provisions of the outer space treaty? What about the agreement establishing the European Bank for Reconstruction and Redevelopment? On and on it goes.

[Jim Allister]

Is the Belfast agreement not an international treaty subject to international law? Is it okay to breach that agreement when it comes to its provision of every key decision being taken on a cross-community basis? I suppose that is okay because it affects only Unionists.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

This House often debates the most challenging and sensitive matters. In this Chamber last Friday, we saw how a sensitive and intense debate based on conviction rather than dogma brings out the best in the House. That is why I have been looking forward to this debate and to listening to the views of colleagues of all political persuasions, and I hope I have done that.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim gave the House a heads-up on this Bill with his previous actions. For example, the putative incompatibility of article 6 of the Acts of Union with the Belfast agreement was ruled out on all counts by the Supreme Court, as far as I am aware. I am sure Members on both sides of the Chamber will recognise that engagement with this debate is done in good faith, even where there are differences of opinion.

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for his explanatory notes on the Bill. I read them with interest, particularly paragraph 11:

“The purpose of the Bill is to provide Ministers with the power to make changes to the operation of the Windsor Framework in domestic law, restore the cross-community imperative of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in respect of continuance of the Windsor Framework and to safeguard democracy, peace and stability in Northern Ireland.”

In my view, this is effectively a reincarnation of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022, which caused concern in so many quarters, domains and jurisdictions. The Government of the time acknowledged that there would be non-performance of their international obligations out of necessity. They said that they sought to reach a negotiated settlement with the European Union to forestall the need to invoke the concept of necessity.

The previous Government subsequently withdrew the Bill, because they believed they had secured the necessary conditions they sought, as set out in the UK-EU withdrawal agreement. Therefore, the assertion on the use of the concept of necessity was never put to the test. I, for one, am pleased that it was not. If it had been, in my view and in the view of many others, we would have been on the road to perdition—there is no doubt about that.

As I have said, this Bill is another iteration of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill that would take us back to June 2022 and, once again, put the country in danger of breaching its obligations under international law, notwithstanding what the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim said. The idea that the Bill can invoke the concept of necessity as a reason for a breach is beguiling, but illusory.

[Jim Allister]

Does the hon. Member not accept that a fundamental element of the jurisprudence of international law in this area is the requirement that any such agreement must not infringe the territorial integrity of either state? That, patently, has happened. Is this not the fundamental flaw in the international law argument? It falls at the first prerequisite: that the territorial integrity of the state with which the agreement is being made must not be infringed.

[Peter Dowd]

I do not want to go down that particular rabbit hole, but I will say this. We have the sovereign base in Akrotiri, in Cyprus. We negotiated that. Is it a breach of the sovereign territory of Cyprus? Is it somehow wrong? We negotiated it, we agreed it, it exists and it is used, so I do not believe that it is a breach. It is possible to negotiate a range of matters. It could be said that an element of sovereignty is given away for a better, or a more comprehensive, capacity in another area.

[Jim Allister]

What the hon. Member seems to be saying is that if the United Kingdom decides to acquiesce in—indeed, support—the infringement of its own territorial integrity, that is all right. If that is the basis, is it not all the more reason why the Government—a new Government—of the United Kingdom ought to address this humiliating concession?

[Peter Dowd]

I do not think it is a humiliating concession, but if it is a concession at all, I think it is an attempt, given the circumstances that we faced, to reach an agreement with trading partners in the light of the decision of the British people. We live in a world where we do not get everything we want. We live in a world where there is a little bit of give and a little bit of take, and sometimes we are able to give more than we take, and vice versa. As I have said, however, I do not want to go down that rabbit hole, because I do not think it is necessarily the subject of today’s debate. We touch on it, and it is pertinent, but I do not think it should dominate the whole debate.

There is no doubt that the subject is fraught with all the concerns and anxieties and consternation to which I referred earlier, and we have to operate in the wider political environment and milieu in which countries have to operate all the time. I think it only fair to point out that the law of unintended consequences may decide to poke its head around the door, and perhaps even to walk into the Chamber, and there will be nothing that we can do. That is the very nature of the issue that confronts us. There are no easy solutions. There are no easy answers to difficult questions. There are no off-the-cuff responses that will sort out the issue. That is a statement of the obvious.

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[Peter Dowd]

It is a fair point. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: if we agree to the Bill, are we in breach of faith and trust? I think so. I do not say that lightly, or to be offensive or provocative.

[Jim Allister]

Does the hon. Member think that there is such a thing as breach of trust when it comes to relations within the United Kingdom? Are the citizens of this United Kingdom entitled to expect equal citizenship, and to be governed by laws that their nation makes, or are those things secondary to tipping our cap to the EU? Is that his stance?

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[Peter Dowd]

I regret that the hon. Gentleman takes that view of what I am saying. I would not say it is not fair, but I am genuinely trying to be as conciliatory as I can be given the circumstances in relation to the question of trust. The question is this: is this Bill a breach of an agreement or a treaty? In my view it is, and I think most people are not denying that assertion. There may be some people who do so, but as a House of Commons paper of 4 December says on page 17:

“No rule of a state’s domestic law can be used to justify a breach of its existing international obligations. This principle is set out in Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.”

I genuinely believe that I am bound by that. We can caveat any breach of international law until the cows come home; it can be claimed that it is out of the concept of necessity as referred to before in terms of international law. However, although we can claim whatever we want, it does not wash with other countries with which we have negotiated, and that in a sense is all there is to that particular point.

[Jim Allister]

In pursuit of the hon. Member’s filibuster, he tells us how much he adheres to international law. Why does he not adhere to the declaration and the principles of international law from the United Nations of 24 October 1970, which says in very emphatic terms that there is a duty in treaties

“not to intervene in matters within domestic jurisdiction of any State”

and that the principles of international law require respect for territorial integrity? If those are the principles and the Windsor framework infringes on those principles, is it not the Windsor framework that is flawed, and not the declaration of fundamental principles?

[Peter Dowd]

No, I disagree. If I am being honest, I think that view is predicated on a fallacy. I do not want to use those words, as I am trying to be as temperate as I possibly can be, but I believe the hon. and learned Gentleman is using that reference somewhat inappropriately. As I said, we can caveat any breach of international law that we like, but it comes back to the question of what our partners or co-signatories think.

It is worthwhile exploring that concept in a little more detail, because it goes to the heart of our responsibilities as a custodian—I choose that word with care, for that is what we are—of international law, and not just in relation to any particular treaty, but in general terms.

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[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I do not intend to speak long; that will allow others to get in, but it is primarily because we have spoken about this issue morning, noon and night for much of the past eight years and because Northern Ireland in general wants to move on. The hearts of people at home are sinking at the prospect of going back in time, of our heading like a demented moth towards the hard Brexit flame, and of our reopening debates from a time that was so destructive to our public services and our economy. That was a time when our economy, our jobs and our crumbling health service were put on the back burner while we indulged in years of discussions about sausages and smoky bacon crisps. We remember the menacing rallies that accompanied those discussions, and the way the Northern Ireland Assembly was held down. The people I represent do not recognise the “Mad Max” scenario that Members continue to paint in which there is a lack of food and other products on our shelves. That is not the reality that people are living in.

I do not want to relitigate all that has happened since 2016, but it is fair to say that Brexit sharpened all the lines that the Good Friday agreement was designed to soften around identity, sovereignty and borders. It is a fact that has not really been mentioned—I am not a majoritarian person—but Northern Ireland very clearly rejected Brexit in 2016. In the eight subsequent elections, in increasing numbers, it has supported parties and candidates who have sought to put mitigations in place. My party and I will stand by every decision we took in those years. In this Chamber, the other Chamber and the media, we begged Unionist Members not to make this a winner-takes-all scenario, not to follow Boris Johnson down yet another blind alley, not to take the assurances that they were being given. In all those times, there was not a whisper about consent, consensus or cross-community affairs.

Many of the people I deal with see the implementation difficulties. Brexit was entirely a project about trade friction, and it has created friction for many people. Those people, including small businesses and the people I represent, absolutely want to address those issues. They want to streamline processes and to use the framework provided to solve problems. They do not want to tear down the edifice of the solutions, as the Bill would do. In fact, last week, the Northern Ireland Assembly, as Unionist Members will know, endorsed my party’s proposals for moving forward—proposals not to rejoin the European Union, not to cancel Brexit, not to reopen all those wounds, but to look to the future, so that our voices are heard in decision making, and to try to grab every single economic opportunity that comes our way, east and west, and north and south.

My party and the people who opposed Brexit have never tried to make people choose between trade and possibility in either direction. We believe that we have been handed some lemons by Brexit, but we are ready to make lemonade. The lengthy opening speech by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim will do nothing to allay the fears of many of my constituents that at its heart, this is about repudiating rights and hardening the rules on movement of people and goods, north and south. It feels to many people that that is what he is attempting to do, as well as to bring in the legacy of the past.

[Jim Allister]

It appears that the hon. Member has not been listening. The whole focus of my speech was on how we give back rights to the people of Northern Ireland and sort out our trade across the border, not the opposite. She has a rich heritage of advocating for cross-community issues. I have two questions, if she will address them. First, does she think that the decision on Tuesday in the Assembly is key, in that the Assembly will say for the next four years, “We are prepared to accept whatever laws from Brussels, even laws we do not even know about yet”? Secondly, if it is a key decision, why should it not be taken on a cross-community basis?

[Claire Hanna]

Of course I was listening. I do listen, and as the hon. and learned Member said, I try to find consensus, but people were forced to listen, because—for whatever reason—large parts of the media have indulged this argument for many years. He knows that he has had an outsized platform in the media. We have listened and tried to resolve this issue. As I have stated very clearly numerous times over the past eight years and in the past few minutes, unfortunately, no consent for Brexit was sought or given. That decision was not afforded the luxury of being cross-community, so we have to protect the mitigations through a majority vote as well. As I say, everybody wants to solve the problems, but I do not hear any solutions. We get more of the magical sovereignty dust, the Henry VIII powers, and suggestions that some future Minister will come up with some solution that has not appeared in the past eight years. This is about solving problems, Jim; that is what people elect us to do.

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The real point is getting rid of the Irish sea checks; it is anathema that one part of the United Kingdom is now treated separately from the rest of the UK. That is surely a reasonable idea and if it is in this Bill then the Government should want to take it through to the next stage and debate it. This is what the Bill does. Mutual enforcement does not of itself remove customs duties; neither does it harmonise or require mutual recognition of standards. It works by inverting the usual approach to customs enforcement; duties may, for example, be imposed for anti-dumping reasons or due to subsidies that one party claims are injurious to itself or to companies as a result of goods failing to qualify for zero duty under rules of origin. That is what the Bill does. All the rest that has been talked about is not in this Bill; it is very simple and very practical. The trade and co-operation agreement between the EU and the UK already has an agreed mechanism, which is very important for identifying and addressing these distortions. If we are able to allow that and make changes, that is how it will work.

There are other areas, too, which I will speed through as quickly as possible. Mutual enforcement can also under these terms accommodate the collection of customs duty. The detailed procedures are obviously beyond the scope of briefing papers and the Bill, but the reality is that we could have a system whereby an order of goods from the UK to the Republic of Ireland triggers a UK export declaration and an EU import declaration such that in terms of the EU’s customs data any sums owed are put into the goods invoice and paid by the importer to the exporter. There are many other ways ahead that can be facilitated, particularly now that almost all of this is done using modern technology, not large sheathes of paper and with a man standing at the border with a ladle to check whether the brandy being imported or exported tastes like brandy. That does not happen any longer, but from some of the debates it would seem somehow we have not moved on from 17th-century customs requirements.

To ensure compliance with this regime, a penalty in this arrangement would apply to those parties who failed to follow the procedure. The penalty would apply to both exporters and hauliers, therefore incentivising all parties involved in the carriage of goods to ensure that appropriate EU customs duties are paid. By the way, the same would be required in the Republic for its importers. It should be noted—this is the important bit that has gone missing—that an analogous system would in any event be required for the red and green lane approach prescribed in the Windsor framework.

Is this going back? No. It is using what we have and ultimately making it better. That seems to me the practical principle behind this idea of mutual enforcement. We should have started in this place, but we now have an opportunity to look at this issue and decide if there is a better way to do it that will take some of the good stuff already there and improve it by saying to the EU that we want a smooth process between the EU and the UK, because everything else then follows. Many EU members already agree; I have heard their discussions.

I cannot remember who it was, but somebody got up and said, “Did we not think they were allies? Did we not think they were friends?” It is because we think they are allies and friends that we want to get rid of the things that make us have rows and arguments about the most practical issues that could be dealt with. That is the point of this mutual enforcement process: to get rid of the ludicrous arguments about who we are and who they are. We can then be very good allies and friends, which we are and will need to be over the next few years, as we enter arguably the most dangerous time that I can remember.

I have a point for the Government. Given that almost identical rules apply in the EU and the UK, the EU could, and arguably should, negotiate an SPS equivalence agreement with the UK, as it has done for countries as far away as Canada and New Zealand, as I have said before.

[Jim Allister]

Given the right hon. Member’s experience of international affairs, what does he think are the prospects for the present arrangements? Are they an incentive or a disincentive to securing a trade deal with the United States of America?

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[Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this debate. I also thank the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) for introducing the Bill. I listened with interest to some of the points made by Opposition Members, particularly the words of the right hon. Members for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who suggested that there are attempts to talk the Bill out. The only people who appeared to be attempting to talk the Bill out were the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for Belfast East, and they did a very good job of it.

It has become increasingly clear in this debate that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim has no interest in progressing the Bill. He knows that it is unworkable and has no intention of its ever becoming law. What he is doing today is purely and simply political posturing for nakedly electoral reasons.

I was interested and slightly amused to hear the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim refer to his interest in ensuring equality and equal access to citizenship for all the citizens of Northern Ireland. I wonder if he felt the same way about extending access to equality and citizenship when it came to reproductive rights for the women of Northern Ireland and the right to equal marriage for people in Northern Ireland. I do not recall him being as vociferous at that time.

I was interested to hear from the Member from South Acton—I mean South Antrim. Apologies—I represent an area very close to Acton, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) knows. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) asked whether Labour Members had read the Good Friday agreement. Back in 1998, as a very young woman, I recall vividly buying the newspaper that printed the full Good Friday agreement, laying it out on the floor of my bedroom at the time and reading through it clause by clause. For me, and for the people of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and all the United Kingdom, it was such an important and joyous occasion to see that agreement come to fruition.

That joy is properly experienced if one watches the final episode of “Derry Girls”, when Orla dances through the streets of Derry on her way to register to vote in favour of peace in Northern Ireland. What a contrast that moment of joy is to some of the words that we have heard from Opposition Members today, which have been less about forging a prosperous future for Northern Ireland and more about raking up the arguments of the past. Today we found ourselves revisiting old grievances rather than pushing for progress. The Bill drags us back into the quagmire of disputes that were settled through the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework—painstakingly negotiated and endorsed as a solution that works for Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.

[Jim Allister]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Deirdre Costigan]

I am afraid that the hon. and learned Member has had sufficient time to speak today.

The Bill is an attempt to undermine the very foundations and underpinnings of the Good Friday agreement. It risks creating far more issues than it claims to solve. Given the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim’s electoral pact with Reform UK, I would have thought he would be happy to get Brexit done, yet here we are renegotiating 2019, stuck in an endless “Groundhog Day” of Brexit debates. While the hon. and learned Member looks backwards, this Government are looking forwards to a stable, prosperous and peaceful Northern Ireland.

Let me look at the most fundamental concern about the Bill. At the heart of it lies a blatant disregard for the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law. Clause 3 shows that the legislation seeks to disapply key elements of the Windsor framework. This is not a matter of abstract legal principles; it strikes at the very core of the UK’s credibility as a nation that honours its commitments. The Windsor framework was the result of years of painstaking negotiation designed to balance Northern Ireland’s unique position post Brexit. For the UK unilaterally to disregard its provisions would be not only a breach of trust with our European partners but a dangerous precedent that could have profound consequences for our future trade agreements and alliances. It would be not just a technical breach but a move that would erode trust in the UK’s ability to uphold our agreements, and international partners are watching closely.

The message that the Bill would send if passed is clear. How can we expect to secure future trade agreements or maintain our standing on the global stage when Members of this House seek so readily to abandon the commitments we have made? Instead, the Government have grounded themselves in respect for international law. Only by sticking to our word can we rebuild this country’s reputation, which was trashed by the previous Government’s shocking decision to break international law in “specific and limited” ways. Let us be clear: we either abide by international law or we do not. It is not an à la carte menu where we can pick or choose. The Government understand that, and that is why we will be sticking to our agreements.

The economic implications of the Bill are just as troubling. Under the Windsor framework, the at-risk, not at-risk test provides a clear and workable solution allowing for the smooth movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland while protecting access to the EU single market. By removing that mechanism and replacing it with undefined alternative models, the Bill would introduce huge uncertainty. Such a lack of clarity would create significant operational challenges, leaving businesses without a road map for compliance. The small and medium-sized enterprises that drive Northern Ireland’s economy would be particularly damaged as the Bill would disproportionately burden them.

[Deirdre Costigan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am focusing on businesses in Northern Ireland, many of which lack the resources to implement the dual tracking system for goods destined for different jurisdictions. They would be placed at a significant competitive disadvantage.

The Windsor framework has provided Northern Ireland with dual market access. That is a unique and valuable advantage that no other part of the UK enjoys. It has enabled Northern Ireland’s economy to remain one of the strongest performing post-Brexit. Businesses have adapted to the framework’s provisions, and over 9,000 firms are now registered with the UK internal market scheme. The Bill, however, would throw all of that progress to the wind. It would deter investment and create further trade barriers, undermining Northern Ireland’s status as an attractive place to do business. For small and medium-sized enterprises already operating on tight margins, the additional costs and administrative burdens could be devastating. After years of decline under the Tories, these businesses need certainty, stability and support, not a chaotic and fragmented regulatory landscape that would leave them scrambling to comply with conflicting rules. The people and businesses of Northern Ireland deserve better than what the Bill proposes.

I turn to the critical issue at the heart of the Bill in clause 19, which would alter the consent mechanism for articles 5 to 10 of the Windsor framework, replacing the current system of simple majority voting with a requirement for cross-community support, as laid out by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim. While such a measure may appear on the surface to strengthen democratic buy-in, in reality it would risk paralysing decision making and undermining the delicate political equilibrium established by the Good Friday agreement.

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member talks about undermining the delicate political balance. We were told that that was solved by the Belfast agreement. It was the Belfast agreement that decreed that, for every key decision, there should be a cross-community vote, yet this is a key decision and the cross-community vote is to be abrogated. Where is the respect in what she is saying in terms of the efficacy of the Belfast agreement or of this vote?

[Deirdre Costigan]

Let us look at the intent behind the existing democratic consent mechanism. The Windsor framework carefully designed the process to ensure that the people of Northern Ireland, through their elected representatives in the Assembly, have a say in whether the key provisions of the framework continue to apply. By allowing a simple majority vote, the framework ensured that the democratic will of the Assembly could be expressed efficiently and effectively. That system reflects the realities of a power sharing arrangement, where decision making can already be complex and contentious.

Clause 19 proposes a significant and disruptive shift. By requiring cross-community consent in the Northern Ireland Assembly—a majority of Unionist and nationalist representation—the Bill introduces a mechanism that grants de facto veto power to either community, and Opposition Members know that. That risks creating scenarios where no decision can be reached at all, with no explanation in the Bill for whether the Windsor framework would continue under such circumstances. Such provisions invite obstruction and brinkmanship on a critical issue.

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[Fleur Anderson]

I listened carefully to the examples that the hon. Gentleman gave on behalf of his constituents. They are concerning, and we need to listen to them carefully. I absolutely understand the concerns raised by other Members in this debate as well. It is useful to have this debate, so that we can talk about those issues, but without the Windsor framework, there would be no framework from within which to negotiate changes. Many changes have been made since the establishment of the Windsor framework, and that shows that it can flex, allow negotiation, and allow for practices and schemes, such as the internal market scheme, that enable the smooth flow of trade. That is the benefit of having the Windsor framework, rather than ditching it.

[Jim Allister]

The Minister talked about the flexibility of the Windsor framework in allowing change. Of course, the Windsor framework was not able to change one word of the substantial content of the protocol, because the protocol involved giving the EU control over the vast swathes of our economy that are under those 300 areas of law. It involved putting Northern Ireland under the EU’s customs code. Only if that is reversed can Northern Ireland return to the UK internal market and be retrieved from the EU single market. The Windsor framework does none of that, and even with the greatest will in the world, it is not capable of doing any of that. It can tinker; it cannot change.

[Fleur Anderson]

I will come to his important point on the 300 areas of laws, because it is important to put that in context. However, I reiterate that having a framework within which to negotiate is better for all those areas than not having one, resetting things and trying to do in just three months what has been done and talked about for the past eight years. That is what this Bill would do.

I will cover the points made by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and by others. They were sincerely made, but the Government sincerely disagree. Before I come to the substance of the Bill, it is important that this House should deal in facts, and I am afraid that the opening speech of the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim contained a number of factual inaccuracies that it is important to correct. He claimed that a Stormont brake is nothing more than a request from the Assembly for the law to be disapplied. Back-seat driving was referred to. That is incorrect. In fact, schedule 6B of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 places a strict legal duty on the Government to act where the brake is validly used by Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The hon. and learned Gentleman has used hyperbolic and frankly incendiary language, impugning the motives of our partners and allies, all the while ignoring the fact that this House voted for the arrangements that now apply. I can only presume that he supports the sovereignty of this Parliament. Indeed, he has opposed the existence of the Northern Ireland Assembly under the Good Friday agreement, so he should reflect on the fact that the Windsor framework represents the democratic will of this House. He made repeated reference to the 300 areas where EU law is applicable to Northern Ireland. He ignores the fact that, under the Windsor framework, more than 1,700 pages of EU law, with accompanying European Court of Justice jurisdiction, have been disapplied. They cover areas such as VAT, medicines, which were referred to, and food safety; the UK Government can decide on them, and UK courts can interpret issues to do with them. I have my own views on the whole process, but that was faithfully applied after the democratic vote to withdraw from the EU.

[Jim Allister]

rose—

[Fleur Anderson]

I will give way, but I will not do so too much, as I will not have time to go through all my points otherwise.

[Jim Allister]

Are there, or are there not, 300 areas of law that are now beyond the legislative reach of this House and the Assembly because they lie within the purview of the European Parliament? Is that true or false?

[Fleur Anderson]

There was this trilemma, involving the integrity of the UK internal market; avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland; and respecting that our EU partners have a legitimate interest, and being able to co-ordinate trade with it. Those 300 regulations, which are a very small amount of the whole, allow for things like dairy farmers moving milk over the border and back, which I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman would agree is necessary. They allow for smooth movement of trade. Those remaining regulations enable businesses in Northern Ireland to go about their business.

The hon. and learned Gentleman has claimed that the vast majority of veterinary medicines are at risk of being discontinued at the end of next year. That is also incorrect. He is right that there are ongoing issues that the Government are working hard with industry and farmers to address, and I am glad that they have been raised by Members today. However, he is simply wrong to say that the vast majority of veterinary medicines are at risk, and engagement with industry suggests no such thing.

The hon. and learned Gentleman claimed that the Windsor framework has caused shortages in medicines for diabetes. Again, that is incorrect. Various factors can sometimes give rise to gaps in medicine supplies across the United Kingdom. The overwhelming majority of medicines are in good supply, and we have well-established processes to manage supply issues. His claim that such issues are in any way a result of the Windsor framework, or are specific to Northern Ireland, is wrong.

The hon. and learned Gentleman held up the Good Friday agreement and asked where it demands that there be no border infrastructure on the island of Ireland. I know he has his own reservations about that agreement; perhaps that is why the facts have not been understood. That agreement was one of the proudest achievements of the last Labour Government, and the peace and security it has produced are premised in no small part on the normalisation of security. The absence of a hard border is an overwhelmingly good thing. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked for quotes, and I shall oblige him. The agreement committed to a normalisation of security arrangements and practices, and committed the British Government to

“the objective of as early a return as possible to normal security arrangements”.

The common travel area has existed for more than a century, and is integral to the movement of people and goods on the island of Ireland.

[Jim Allister]

Will the Minister give way?

[Fleur Anderson]

I am going to make some progress. To the Government’s mind, this commitment to normal security arrangements could not be met, under the common travel area arrangements, with a hard border of the sort that the Bill would institute.

The hon. and learned Gentleman indicated that, come what may, he wants his part of the UK enabled to follow the rest out of the EU. I need not remind him that the whole of the UK left the European Union, and that the debate has been settled. We can see that he would prefer that damaging hard border for Northern Ireland.

[Fleur Anderson]

There are absolutely minimal stops along the border. It is not a hard border, but circumstances would be very different under the Bill, which implies an ideological hard Brexit—

[Jim Allister]

Will the Minister give way?

[Fleur Anderson]

No, I will make some progress now.

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[Fleur Anderson]

I will make some progress now, because time is running out in this debate and I want to get to the end.

On the consent vote, it is simply wrong to claim that all major decisions in Northern Ireland require cross-community agreement. As the hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna) pointed out, cross-community agreement was not required for Northern Ireland to leave the EU and is not a requirement for constitutional change, in line with the principle of consent in the Good Friday agreement. The reality is that the Good Friday agreement never envisaged a device such as the consent vote, so the arrangements for that vote were determined by this House and the amendments that it made to the Northern Ireland Act.

Let me briefly thank right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), the hon. Members for North Down (Alex Easton) and for Belfast South and Mid Down, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) and the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and others who have yet to contribute. I am grateful to Members for raising many issues, which I will take away. I am also grateful for the comments from the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar and others about continuing to speak, and about dialogue.

I turn now to the substance of the Bill. I shall set out three reasons why the Government cannot support it today. First, the Bill cannot be said to be compatible with international law. I know that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim has made assertions about international law, but the absolute truth is that the Bill is premised on replacing the agreed measures under the Windsor framework with unilateralism and uncertainty. In the circumstances, that would constitute a breach of the UK’s agreements, which would be unlawful under international law.

This Government are committed to the rule of the law and to meeting the UK’s international obligations, and the Bill contains a set of unilateral measures that do no such thing. This is not an abstract matter; it is a matter of consequence. We must be clear that it is never in any nation’s interests to flagrantly disregard international law and treaty obligations. Doing so would weaken our standing abroad and our prospects for beneficial international agreements in the future, which matters, particularly for Northern Ireland.

As the House knows, the Government were elected with a mandate to reset our relationship with the EU and tear down trade barriers, including by negotiating a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement. Hon. Members have raised concerns about the operation of the Windsor framework, but there is significant potential for practical issues to be improved or addressed through the negotiation of such an agreement. That is in the best interests of Northern Ireland, and it is in the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole, but a nation that turns its back on prior commitments cannot hope to persuade others to enter new and beneficial arrangements.

I know that, as a proud Unionist, the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim will appreciate the potential benefits of such an agreement to Northern Ireland and to strengthening the Union, so I confess that I am somewhat baffled that he is promoting legislation that would be so detrimental to the prospect of securing future agreements. It is playing fast and loose with the rule of law, which is very bad for business. The Bill would create conditions in which businesses and citizens can never be certain about which rules will be respected and which will not. It would create uncertainty over the regulatory framework on which businesses in Northern Ireland now rely to trade, including the ability to trade across the island of Ireland without friction. It would do so automatically by bringing down a hard guillotine on the trading arrangements in just three months, leaving businesses no time to adjust. It would be an economic shock.

In my time working on international development campaigns, I saw at first hand at the World Trade Organisation what regulatory certainty and uncertainty can do for the prospects of small businesses, the jobs they create and the economies they contribute to. I can personally attest that it is better for those businesses to work on the basis of agreed trade arrangements than to leave them stranded in the choppy waters of regulatory uncertainty.

Secondly, the Bill does nothing to account for Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances. Let us be honest: these issues have been discussed, debated, analysed and dissected in this House for nearly a decade now, as other Members have said. They have occupied the political life of the nation for some time, and it is right that they have done so. The concerns of the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim, and those of right hon. and hon. Members from the Democratic Unionist party and the Ulster Unionist party, are real and legitimate, and deserve to be taken seriously. But, although I understand and respect the strength of feeling behind the Bill, I say respectfully to the hon. and learned Gentleman that neither this Bill, nor the similar variations on its proposal that have been advanced over the past nine years, do anything to address the practical issues in a more stable and sustainable manner than the Windsor framework addresses them.

[Jim Allister]

Will the Minister give way?

[Fleur Anderson]

I am going to make progress.

As I said earlier, the core challenge remains the trilemma: how do we preserve the integrity of the UK’s internal market, avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, and respect the legitimate interests of our EU partners in protecting their single market, just as we seek to protect ours? The Windsor framework provides an answer to a very difficult question. I say simply that, across several elections, the vast majority of right hon. and hon. Members elected to this place have been elected on a platform of avoiding a hard border. For good reason, then, we need to support the Windsor framework.

Thirdly, the Bill would serve to prejudice the democratic decision that the Northern Ireland Assembly is making itself. Last month, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland initiated the progress for the Northern Ireland Assembly to decide on the continued application of articles 5 to 10 of the Windsor framework. That vote is provided for in the Windsor framework and under domestic law, which was strengthened under the terms of “Safeguarding the Union”. It is now a matter for Northern Ireland’s elected representatives to decide on. I am pleased that the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland are able, as part of the functioning devolved institutions, to exercise the important democratic scrutiny functions included in the Windsor framework. The Bill would fatally undermine the powers that those in the Assembly have over scrutinising regulations that apply in Northern Ireland.

The Government will only support sustainable arrangements for Northern Ireland that work for business, protect the UK’s internal market and uphold our international obligations. The Windsor framework does just that, and the Government are firmly committed to it, just as stridently as we are committed to the UK internal market and to Northern Ireland flourishing within a strengthened Union. Just as important is that we will be honest with the people of Northern Ireland about what is and is not possible, and what the trade-offs are with various options. There will be no more magical thinking; no reopening of the wardrobe into a political Narnia of mythical solutions to the practical issues that we must consider in respect of trade; and no more simplifications that work as soundbites but do not stand up in reality. At this crucial time, the people of Northern Ireland deserve honesty.