European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Eames and Lord Jay of Ewelme

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

I support Amendment 261 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patten. I regret that I was unable to take part in the Second Reading debate, because I was with your Lordships’ EU Committee in Dublin, Belfast and Londonderry and on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Just a little while ago, I was standing on a bridge across the border with traffic thundering past in both directions—EU lorries, Irish lorries and British lorries. It seemed to me inconceivable then and it seems to me inconceivable now that any kind of barriers could be put in the way of traffic moving freely across that lengthy and complicated border. It is extremely hard to see how we can avoid such controls if we are outside the customs union; that seems an extraordinarily powerful and logical reason why the right course for us to take is to stay within the customs union. It is equally clear that the continuing process of peace in Ireland—north and south—depends on the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, and that the strength of that agreement will be greater if it is included in the Bill. For that reason, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Patten.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, the temperature of our debate this afternoon reflects again the emotions expressed so recently in this House by those of us who live, work and have our being in Northern Ireland. We are sensitive as a people to the fact that your Lordships’ House is hearing on repeated occasions references to “our” problems and “our” difficulties. But this is taking on a different dimension, because what was traditionally our problem is becoming a problem on a much wider scale, for it is becoming the crux of the debate on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom as a nation from the EU.

The problems to which the Good Friday/Belfast agreement has done so much to provide an ongoing solution are so often taken to be not just a matter for the people of Northern Ireland but now central to what people are considering. The difficulty of the border, community relations, human rights—all that long list of human problems was once contained within the borders of Northern Ireland but, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, so rightly reminded us a few minutes ago, it is becoming crucial to the debate on the future of our withdrawal. None of us wants to apologise to this House for the fact that our local problems now take on international significance. When we listen once more to the experience of former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, we are reminded that the problems to which I have referred have taken on a dimension that we never envisaged, even at the height of the Troubles.

For that reason, when I read Amendment 261 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, I began to wonder whether we were stating the obvious yet again. Are we stating the fact that the importance of the Belfast agreement is such that it is welcome to see it suggested as a part of the Bill? I began to wonder whether other issues deteriorate the importance of reference to the Belfast principles, et cetera. Then I listened a few minutes ago to a debate on another amendment, when we concentrated on giving what someone said were excessive powers to Ministers to look at secondary legislation and have wide-ranging powers to alter the details of policy without addressing the power and supremacy of Parliament. I began to wonder: whether it is possible to visualise the situation in years to come when something as sensitive as the Belfast agreement—something as sensitive as all that the agreement has achieved—could possibly be affected by what we listened to in that previous discussion.