Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Layla Moran and Stella Creasy

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), and I completely agree with him. I and the Liberal Democrats intend to vote against this Bill when it eventually comes to its Third Reading. I will speak today particularly to new clause 8 and its paving amendment 26.

First, however, I want to put on record my huge disappointment that the Bill is in Committee today because, since Second Reading, we have had a lame duck Prime Minister and a Foreign Secretary who cancelled her meeting with G20 leaders in Bali, where she should have been, and instead came back to start her leadership campaign. This Bill is an incredibly controversial move, and it would have been right and proper for it to have gone away for a while—under the definition of “urgent” that the Minister put forward, that would have seemed to make sense—and then come back when it is clear what direction the Government really want to take. Make no mistake, this Bill is going to affect our standing on the world stage.

My amendments relate to the release of the legal advice. It is absolutely right and proper that the Conservative leadership election has turned our eyes to honesty, integrity and, in particular, trust following what has happened with the current Prime Minister, and that is what my amendments do. They ask the Government, “What have you got to hide?” If there is nothing to hide, they should publish the full legal advice and trust this House to scrutinise it properly.

I urge Government Members to look carefully at what the Attorney General has said since giving her advice on this Bill, because she is also running to be leader of the Conservative party, and she has suggested pulling out of the European Court of Human Rights. As we know, the Court underpins the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The Attorney General does not seem to understand how that correlates with the Good Friday agreement, yet we are relying on her legal advice. I would suggest that that is nothing we can rely on. We understand from newspapers that the Government shopped around for legal advice, and reportedly they even spoke to a former adviser of President Trump. However, if they have nothing to hide, they should publish the advice.

In the Minister’s response to my question earlier, he said the Government may well go to litigation over this and may well be taken to court over the definitions in relation to the doctrine of necessity. As a reason for advice not to be published, he said:

“We know that, famously, from the Labour Government a couple of decades ago, when there was an enormous controversy about that.”

That suggests that we should not see the legal advice because of what happened following the release of the advice on the Iraq war, but we know from the inquiry that that is nonsensical because the Government in that case did have something to hide and were found out later. If this Government want to get the trust of Parliament and do not want to have egg on their face in the international courts, they should release the advice. I urge them to support amendment 26, which I hope—by your leave, Dame Eleanor—we can push to a vote later.

[Stella Creasy]

We are now nearly three hours into the debate and we have not named what the actual problem is. The honest truth is that the problems did not start with the protocol; the problem is Brexit and the necessity of the protocol. For the avoidance of doubt, to acknowledge that Brexit is the problem is not to say that we do not need to change the protocol, it is not to call for us to rejoin the European Union and it is not to call for a second referendum. It is to recognise that selective democratic deafness when trying to discuss what we need to do will continue to damage all our opportunities unless we recognise that there is not a protocol solution that is as perfect as the previous trading arrangements we had.

The risk is that this Bill will make a bad situation worse, like someone having a bad tattoo and taking a blowtorch to it to try to get rid of it. The Government are like the drunk at a party spilling red wine everywhere and then deciding that throwing white wine after it is the solution. That is what this Bill is, which is why Members need to stop saying, like Homer Simpson, that Brexit is a “crisotunity” and recognise that problems are coming from the opportunities they are looking for. There are problems for civil servants who have to go through 2,500 pieces of legislation, and problems for our constituents, especially if the Bill goes through and we have a trade war with Europe. That will hit everybody—not just those in Northern Ireland, but people in my constituency. There are problems caused by the fact that the EU has already launched legal action and could “restrict co-operation”, and problems for the 33% of businesses that have already given up trading with the European Union, including those mentioned by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson)—I am sorry he is not in his place to talk about these things. [Interruption.] I apologise; he has moved and I could not see him.

We knew these problems were going to happen, yet the Government have done nothing other than introduce this Bill to make things better; they look only to provoke and to make things worse. We talked about oven-ready deals, yet the Foreign Secretary says that the problems were baked in. Frankly, Mary Berry would see the Bill as having a soggy bottom because it is so rubbish.

The report by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law states clearly that the Bill is in breach of international law, and that is why I tabled new clause 7. I hope the Minister will recognise that simply repeating again and again, as the legal memorandum does, that the Government believe that the Bill meets the test of necessity under international obligations, without explaining how, is not tort, it is just a tautology. We cannot say something is necessary and not say why it is necessary, or whether the conditions might change—I agree absolutely with the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on those matters. We know there are things we could do to make that clear, and at least to take back control—after all, the Government said that Brexit was about democracy, but it is turning out to be about Downing Street instead.

New clause 10 would ensure that the Government act within international law. New clause 7 is about evidence that we are acting within international law, and about explaining to our constituents why it would be necessary to take such extreme measures. As the Hansard Society tells us, the Bill is breathtaking in the additional powers it takes and the exercise of those excessive powers, with 19 delegated powers under 26 clauses—I have never seen anything like it in this place in the past 12 years. Those powers are based on ideas that Ministers consider “appropriate”, just as they consider what is “necessary”. As we have seen today, however, they cannot really define what “urgent” means. Most people would recognise that “urgent” probably means “immediate”, rather than “sometime in the future.” Considering that any provision can be made by an Act of Parliament, as the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) recognised, if we allow that with the Bill, we could see it for other Bills—literally taking back control from these Benches and sending it to the road opposite.

Finally, there is no way that the Bill supports the Good Friday agreement, which, in and of itself, is an international agreement. We want to stand and challenge President Putin as he rips up the rule of law, yet we say that there are rules of law that we think no longer apply to us. How can we say that we will also guarantee the protections of the Good Friday agreement? How can we give the constituents of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley the certainty they want, and that we recognise they should have, to be able to go about their business and have peace and prosperity, if we act as if the rule of law does not matter or can be bent to shape the will of a particular political movement?

The Bill is about the Government needing Europe to be a bogeyman, and as we have seen from the leadership contest, there are bogeymen aplenty. In reality, this can do only harm. We must recognise that the problem does not start with the protocol. The problem starts with Brexit, and how we negotiate a trade agreement and deal with the problems that arise from leaving the single market and customs union. Our constituents in every part of the United Kingdom deserve that honesty. New clause 7 is about Governments being honest, and just as new clause 10 should not have needed to be tabled, nor should new clause 7, but it did need to be tabled under current circumstances. The people who rely on this place to make reasonable regulations, to admit their problems, as though they were 12-step problems, and to make amends, need and deserve nothing less.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Debate between Layla Moran and Stella Creasy

Committee stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

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

rose—

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

rose—

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Debate between Layla Moran and Stella Creasy

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I shall speak to new clause 7, which is about equal rights in Northern Ireland. I hope that Members across the House who have already supported the new clause will recognise that it is an incredibly reasonable request to put to the Secretary of State, about an incredibly important issue for the House, and indeed for many people in Northern Ireland.

I do not intend to speak for long, because many others wish to get in. I simply want to set out three important points about this reasonable new clause—first, how it respects devolution; secondly, why it addresses issues that cannot simply be left any longer; and thirdly, how we believe it has relevancy to this House and the obligations of Members of this House as part of the Good Friday agreement.

The new clause requests the Secretary of State’s acts to be held to account because of what the Bill does—it recognises that since March 2017, we have not had an Assembly in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] January 2017; I apologise to the Secretary of State. It has been too long for residents of Northern Ireland not to have a functioning Government, and it has an impact on their lives. The Bill recognises that resolving the dysfunctions behind that is far ahead of us at the moment, and so gives powers to the Secretary of State and to the civil servants to exercise the functions of Government. [Interruption.] It does give power to the Secretary of State because it gives her guidance powers; I believe those are quite powerful, and the new clause speaks to those powers.

For avoidance of doubt, the new clause would not create a new law in Northern Ireland, but it would recognise that there are thousands of people in Northern Ireland whose lives, right now, are affected by two key human rights issues; and they are indeed human rights issues, because they are issues on which our courts are currently discussing, ruling and indeed appealing. They refer in particular to a person’s right to marry who they love, and also to the right of women to have bodily autonomy—to make the choice, if they so wish, not to continue with an unwanted pregnancy. Both of these have been subject to court action, because we recognise that in Northern Ireland they have different rules.

Let us talk about the consequences of those rules. When it comes to abortion, we know that right now in Northern Ireland, if you are raped, and you become pregnant as a result of that attack, and you seek a termination, you could face a longer prison sentence than your attacker. We know too that gay couples in Northern Ireland, when they step off the plane, no longer have their relationship respected in the way that any of us would wish our relationship to be respected. They do not have equal marriage in 2018.

Both of these sets of circumstances come about as a direct result of legislation that was written in this place. First and foremost, sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and also, because of the Matrimonial Causes (Northern Ireland) Order 1978. So there is a relevancy for us in this House, because legislation written here is having a direct impact on the human rights of people in Northern Ireland today.

[Layla Moran]

Can the hon. Lady confirm something that Northern Ireland Amnesty told me, which is that, yes, powers are theoretically devolved to Northern Ireland, but there is no piece of human rights legislation that has been passed at Stormont; and actually, all changes to human rights law in Northern Ireland have been passed in this place?

[Stella Creasy]

I know that the hon. Lady also feels strongly about this issue. If I may, however, I shall now deal with—in particular—the human rights obligations that I believe we have in this place as a direct result of the Good Friday agreement.

There is a theoretical argument about what those pieces of legislation mean, and there is the human impact of what they mean for people in Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

With respect, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has read the legislation on which we are voting today, because it constitutes a recognition that there will not be an election in Northern Ireland any time soon to make that possible. So I repeat my question to him: what do the women do who need that help now, who deserve that respect and equality when it comes to control over their own bodies, and who might be in that dreadful position that involves a fatal foetal abnormality? What do they do now?

What those women do now is look to this place to be able to assist them. They look to the Secretary of State, and to the piece of legislation that she is creating, and they can look to the new clause to hear the call from this place that we will not ignore them. We will hold ourselves to account, and will hold Secretaries of State to account, for the incompatibility in human rights that the continued existence of those two pieces of legislation represents in their lives. That is what this incredibly reasonable new clause does. It does not create a new law, but it does not shy away from recognising the impact of those existing laws either. In that sense, it is entirely within the spirit of the Good Friday agreement.

Twenty years ago, our predecessors in this House, alongside their colleagues from the Irish Government, swore to uphold the human rights of the Northern Irish communities. They swore in the Good Friday agreement to make sure that there was an equivalency of rights. Every single month that passes, that promise comes into stark relief, because when we look at the Republic where same-sex marriage is legal and look at that historic referendum this year when abortion became legal in the Republic, we can see that that request not to have different rights is becoming tested.

The Good Friday agreement also required this House and UK politicians to act alongside their Irish counterparts, and that is what this new clause can do, while respecting our shared desire to see the Assembly up and running. So it is a very simple amendment, and I am sorry that it has come to this point and the Secretary of State does not feel able to accept it, and I am proud that it has cross-party support, because that respects and recognises that upholding human rights cannot be something we simply talk about doing abroad but do not recognise on our own doorstep.

I also think there has to be some honesty here. There are some Members of this House who do not believe that women anywhere should have bodily autonomy; there are some Members of this House who do not believe we should be able to marry the person we love. But I make a simple plea to those people: “Be honest with the people of Northern Ireland that your objection is that, and do not use devolution as a decoy for a denial of their human rights.”

[Layla Moran]

I say this to be helpful to others in the House. I went to Belfast recently—to Stormont—and I had not appreciated that same-sex marriage has majority support among MLAs and a huge amount of support in terms of public opinion. The reason why it did not pass is because there is a thing called the petition of concern which essentially acts as a veto, so to say that there is not support and the people of Northern Ireland should just change their politicians does not work in this case; it has to be us who take that leap for them.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Sadly, on both issues opinion polls show us that the politicians in Northern Ireland are behind the public consistently; indeed, they are behind their own supporters when it comes to both issues. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) is chuntering from a sedentary position; I understand that he has philosophical objections on some of the issues in this debate, but I hope he will have respect for the people of Northern Ireland and therefore agree that the case should be heard as to why the Secretary of State should be asked to protect their human rights and to be held to account for what is happening.