United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that if the European Union kept its promise in the political declaration of a free trade agreement, many of the troublesome issues would drop away and all would work smoothly?

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend is of course right about that, and we still hope to strike a free trade agreement with the EU. I also point out that these issues can and should be resolved through the Joint Committee—I will come back to that.

Both the UK and the EU signed up to the protocol on the basis I just outlined. We are committed to implementing the protocol and we have been working hard to ensure that it is done in a way that delivers the promises that have been made. That includes working with the EU to reach agreement through the Joint Committee process in a number of areas that the protocol left unresolved, and we very much hope that agreement can be reached shortly. But if it is not, the harmful legal defaults contained in some interpretations of the protocol, which were never intended to be used, would be activated. The consequences for Northern Ireland in that scenario would be very damaging. We cannot and will not run that risk.

The provisions we are considering today will therefore ensure that in any scenario, we will protect Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom; ensure that businesses based in Northern Ireland have unfettered access to the rest of the United Kingdom; and ensure that there is no legal confusion or ambiguity in UK law about the interpretation of the state aid elements of the Northern Ireland protocol.

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[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He sums up well the seriousness of the decision before us today.

[John Redwood]

Why does the hon. Gentleman not see that this Bill has been brought about by the EU’s wish to break the agreement and what he would call international law by not respecting the sovereignty of the UK, which is fundamental in the agreement, and not going ahead with the free trade agreement, which was meant to be at the core of the future relationship?

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. I would be interested to know his views on article 184 of the withdrawal agreement, which embraces the political declaration as the basis for securing our future relationship. On the intentions of both parties, I simply cite the Government’s response to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee’s report on unfettered access, in which they said:

“These talks began in March and continued throughout the summer in a spirit of good faith and mutual respect”.

On page 7, they state:

“The Government is extremely confident that the EU is working in good faith.”

That is the Government’s view.