European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, the difficulty with contributing late to a debate is that all the effective arguments have been deployed, so I shall be brief.

I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Patten, just said. I remember meeting him when I was serving as a Minister there, when he was doing his magnificent job on the future of policing. I support very much what my noble friends Lord Hain, Lord Browne and Lord Murphy said in deploying the arguments.

Just after the Brexit vote took place, I said to an intelligent and thoughtful businesswoman, “You know, there’s a real problem here. We’ve got an insoluble difficulty, which is Northern Ireland”, and I explained why. She said, “But nobody ever told us”. That may just be one person, but it is my feeling listening to the debate that none of those who were pro-Brexit have given this a thought—I have no sense that they have. I have argued with people about this. I was at a dinner and was sitting one seat away from an individual—I will not name him—who leads a very important Conservative-supporting think tank. I said to him, “You lead a think tank; you may have some ideas. What are you going to do about Northern Ireland?” He said, “Oh, it can be solved”. I said, “Give me a hint of how”. He replied, “It can be done”. “Well, how?” I asked. He said, “With will”. I said, “You haven’t got a clue, have you?”, and there was silence. I am afraid that is the position we are in. I would like to feel that the Government have some control over this but I have no sense that they have.

Somebody mentioned Senator George Mitchell. I was reflecting just the other day that I was at the opening of the Senator George Mitchell Peace Bridge, connecting the north and the south, and I thought, “There was a symbol of communication and unity, and of Ireland working as one economy”. Are we going to put all of that away and have some sort of border there?

I had for parliamentary reasons to go to Andorra last autumn. I had never been before, and there was a conference there. Andorra is not in the EU, and going in, all the heavy goods vehicles were lined up to be checked by customs, and there were border controls and so on. They let people go through—there were just spot checks on us—but there was the whole paraphernalia of a border. I thought to myself, “Are we going to have that in Northern Ireland at its 250 border crossings?” For heaven’s sake, I hope not.

Somebody said that technology is the answer. I know that has been mentioned before this evening, but if there was a technological solution that required no border controls, surely somewhere in the world, somebody would have already found it. There is not a single example of that anywhere, so to the people who say, “It can be done by technology; we can be clever”, and so on, I say, “Give me a hint of where it is being done”. Because if it is so useful and effective, surely somebody, somewhere, would already have put it in—whether at the border between Sweden and Norway, Canada and the United States, or wherever. There is no sign of that, so I challenge the people who say that technology is the answer to give us a hint.

I feel quite strongly and emotionally about this because I, along with colleagues, was at Castle Buildings when the Good Friday agreement was finalised. It was such an achievement. We all felt so happy and that it was a real success, and that there would be peace and we were moving forward. Now, we are in danger of turning the clock back for no good reason.

My heart sinks when I hear the Government say, “We are against the customs union and we will have nothing to do with the single market”, because surely the only answer, as has been said before this evening, is to be a member of the customs union and to have membership of the single market or a close association with it. There is no other answer; otherwise, we will have a hard border.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, naively, I thought we were discussing the relevance of the amendment to the Bill but I am afraid we have moved on to another Second Reading debate.

There a few specific items I want to mention about the amendment. I do not know how “hard border” is defined on the face of the Bill. There is disagreement as to what a hard or a soft border is, and they are not terms that I particularly identify with.

Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause says:

“Subsection (1)(c) applies unless Her Majesty’s Government, the Government of the Republic of Ireland and the EU agree alternative specific solutions”.


I believe that those three parties should sit down to agree specific solutions. But unfortunately last week the Irish Prime Minister rejected that suggestion. Ultimately, that is one avenue of discussion that should not be closed.

Having listened for an hour and three-quarters to this debate, I sincerely appeal to Members to moderate their language. If you link the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, and whatever border arrangements might exist on the island of Ireland as a result, with the return of violence, people will listen to that and pick it up as a justification. I appeal to Members to be very careful with what they say. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, talked about people getting in the boat and going home—but we have to stay there. We know how much damage language can do in this situation, and things are being linked that should not be.

[Lord Patten of Barnes]

I think the most explicit reference to the dangers of a hard border—of border crossings and customs officials being re-established—and the most serious warning about those has come from the chief constable of the Northern Ireland police service. He was very explicit on this subject, and I think he was much more explicit about the dangers than anybody has been in this House. I do not want to question the importance of what the noble Lord is saying, but it is worth recalling that the most outspoken remarks have come from the chief constable.

[Lord Empey]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that. I have to say that the chief constable was using as an example the erection of customs posts and things that used to exist in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as all sorts of other concrete establishments and so on which we are not going to have. In many respects, the United Kingdom Government have committed themselves not to produce that material at the border. Whether Brussels wants or would insist on the Irish Government doing so, no Irish Government I can conceive of would do anything of the sort. I just do not believe they would—it would be politically impossible for them to do it. Brussels may have its own objectives and determinations to protect the single market—we understand that—but when push comes to shove. I do not believe it is possible.

[Lord Liddle]

Surely it is we who have created this problem. It is not a Brussels problem—we in this country have decided to leave.

[Lord Empey]

I understand what the noble Lord is saying perfectly well. To put this into context, my party supported remain in the referendum, on a free vote. We cited two things: Scotland and the border. I have had this discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I am not a Europhile at all—I never have been, even though I spent eight years in Brussels on the Committee of the Regions, very minor body that it is. I have some sense of the EU. But a vote has taken place, and we accept the outworkings of that vote. We are trying to get on with it and to find a solution that works for all of us.

When we talk about “the” border we must remember that it is not confined to the island of Ireland. The primary bit of the border between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is actually between Dublin and Holyhead, Rosslare and Fishguard—it is in Wales. That is where the vast majority of the problem lies, and where the bulk of the goods go in order to use Great Britain as a land bridge. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, mentioned that a very large percentage of goods that travel via Northern Ireland go to Great Britain. These are goods in transit.

Noble Lords need to appreciate what we are talking about in terms of scale. In this amendment we use the phrase, “all-island economy”. I was privileged to serve as Trade Minister and Energy Minister, and I was the Northern Ireland Minister who established InterTradeIreland, which is designed to promote trade. On taking office, I discovered that neither the United Kingdom nor the Irish Republic could agree on the amount of trade that they do, and that is still the case. In 2015, the Central Statistics Office in Dublin produced a report on goods exports classified by commodity, listing where the goods were going. Exports from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland accounted for 1.6% of the Irish Republic’s total exports. The CSO also produced a report setting out the percentage of imports to the Irish Republic from Northern Ireland, including live animals and food products, and that was also 1.6%.

I had to deal with these matters for years. I set up a cross-border body and implemented the outworkings of the agreement. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and I are the only two Members still in the Chamber tonight who were involved in the agreement. He will know the heavy lifting that had to be done by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, who is not in his place, the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and others to get the agreement approved. It was approved by 71.2% in a referendum in Northern Ireland. We are talking about a referendum of 52%, but we had a majority vote of 71.2%. It was a hard slog and he knows that.

I agreed with the earlier remark of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that the Government have not produced sufficient hardcore copy to match the proposals put forward by Brussels. He makes a fair point. Brussels has put forward 118 or so pages. I am not asking for that but I think that we have to have a counterproposal on paper. If that happens to involve technology, so be it. I have no difficulty with that and nor does the European Union. A report was recently published in Brussels by the EU’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, which comes under the Directorate-General for Internal Policies. It sets out what are thought to be feasible proposals involving technology and other things. We already have a currency border—Northern Ireland and the Republic have different currencies—and we have different taxes, so we are not dealing simply with a one-dimensional problem.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I have noticed that the discussions have concentrated on trade, and I understand the good reasons for that. However, the matter that I raised concerns the movement of people. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is very knowledgeable about Northern Ireland and the south and so forth, so I would like to ask him how we deal with the fact that the Republic will remain part of the European Union and have free movement of people, whereas the north will not if we leave completely and are not part of the single market. How do we deal with that in the context of immigration policy? Technology cannot deal with this. Where will people’s documents be examined to see whether they have an entitlement to make the passage? Where will that happen?

[Lord Empey]

I was not responding to that part of the amendment but I am quite happy to give my opinion on it. I think that a number of measures can be achieved. First, the Republic is not in Schengen, and that is helpful. Clearly, there has to be co-operation between the relevant authorities, which there already is. Regarding immigration controls, cars are often stopped by the authorities on both sides. The guards recently arrested people who had entered the Republic from Northern Ireland whom they believed were illegal immigrants. Therefore, that works.

There is a series of measures that the United Kingdom and the Republic should take to create a disincentive. People have to have a reason for coming, and very often that reason is work. First, we should make it much more difficult to get national insurance numbers and have a much better system for that. Secondly, employers should face greater penalties if they employ people who are not there legally, and that should be done on both sides of the border. Thirdly, we should have much more detailed intelligence sharing to create a disincentive throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. That is something that I think we should do anyway, but it would certainly act as a disincentive.

However, if people are saying that we can put structures in place, the point is that we do not even have them today. Reference was made to smuggling. Smuggling is rife and has been for years. One has only to look at fuel smuggling—the paramilitaries have been making an absolute fortune out of it. As for the common travel area, citizens of both countries have the right to move freely between the two and that will continue. However, the noble Baroness mentioned people who would somehow be in the middle, saying that there would be a difference between EU citizens who have a right and EU citizens who do not. To get on to the island, they have to come through a port and the immigration system of the Republic of Ireland or they have to come through the United Kingdom. How many people are we talking about? I would have thought that creating disincentives for people to enter the jurisdiction illegally would be as good as anything rather than having to look at every individual who appears. I do not see that that will be a huge problem and, quite frankly, I do not think that it will affect many people.

Perhaps I may return to the amendment. We are obviously very grateful for the great support there has been for the Good Friday agreement, and it was painful to hear Members in the other place saying that the time had come to get rid of it. I have said to several people that I cannot think of a worse proposal. I cannot begin to think where we would start in trying to put things together again—I cannot even contemplate that. We have achieved something that generations failed to achieve. I make a point of repeating that and I regret the comments that have been made. However, the agreement that we are talking about and defending—the noble Lord, Lord Hain, knows my views on this—is not the agreement that we negotiated and it is not the agreement that was voted on in the referendum in 1998. It has been changed. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, did his best in 2006 to try to get things going again, and I understand why he did so, but there was a substantial change at the core of the agreement which in my opinion has led to the present impasse. However, that is for another day. Let us concentrate on the common ground, of which there is quite a lot here.

We want to solve this problem and I think that the Government have an obligation to be more precise. Quite frankly, the document of 8 December is contradictory—in my opinion, it does not really add up. People are saying that there will be the same regulations and that that will be the default position after Brexit but that, at the same time, there will be no difference in the regulations between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The only logical outworking of that is that you remain in the single market, but we are not going to do that and I do not think that it is what Brexit means.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, that being the logical argument, why is the noble Lord against it?

[Lord Empey]

First, I believe that you cannot leave the European Union and remain in the single market and the customs union. I am making the point that the December statement has a contradiction in it.

[Lord Adonis]

But does the noble Lord not also see that he does not have to take account of the Government’s position? He can express his own view freely in this House. Does he not think that remaining in the single market and the customs union would be best for Northern Ireland?

[Lord Empey]

No, I do not. Our big market is here; it is not in the Republic. The same applies to Scotland and everywhere else. The common market of the United Kingdom is more important to us economically than the European Union.

[Lord Adonis]

I am sorry to intervene again, but who knows? Britain might remain in the single market and the customs union too.

[Lord Empey]

It is an incompatibility. There is no point in replacing one incompatibility with another. I am simply saying that if you are in the customs union and the single market, you are in the European Union. If you are out of the European Union, you are not in the single market or the customs union. It is an inevitable consequence. We are arguing for two different things.

Let me point out the scale of the problem we face. The border is not confined to the land border; it is also between the Republic and Great Britain. That side of it is ignored because if you have separate arrangements between Dublin, Holyhead, Fishguard, Rosslare and so on, and you have separate arrangements for us, that is incompatible with the core element of the Good Friday agreement—the principle of consent.

Let us follow the concept in the amendment. In addition to the negotiations with the 27, I see no good reason why we should not have negotiations involving the European Union, ourselves and the Irish Republic, in parallel with or as part of the process. With the European Union as an integral part, in that way we could perhaps narrow down and explore some of the solutions, which I hope and pray exist. I will leave it at that and thank Members for listening to me.

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, I support Amendment 198, so excellently spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, to which I have added my name. I also support Amendments 215, 218 and 219. I commend the many excellent speeches made in this debate.

The Good Friday agreement was premised on a balanced approach to healing and rebuilding three sets of broken relationships. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and my noble friend Lord Patten have outlined these three groups: first, the communities within Northern Ireland; secondly, the north-south relationship; and thirdly, east-west. These three groups of relationships are intertwined and the reality is that it is a whole. If you impact one part you affect the balance of the whole thing.

There is of course an economic dimension to this but it also has an important social dimension. We have signed an international agreement committed to repairing, rebuilding and protecting the people on the island of Ireland, and to co-operation among the communities, north and south. The open, frictionless border is a crucial part of this and it simply cannot be squared with leaving the single market and the customs union unless there is full regulatory alignment.

Protecting the Good Friday agreement should be the reddest of the Government’s red lines. The Good Friday agreement is essentially about co-operation and partnership. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, it has developed over time—it is not exactly the same—but that was always the aim of that agreement, and those developments need to be protected if our Government are to continue to honour our commitments and obligations to the people of Northern Ireland.

The common regulatory standards mean that business in goods and services can operate freely on the whole island. Six areas of co-operation are identified: education, agriculture, environment, health, transport and tourism. This covers pretty much everything. EU regulations govern north-south co-operation, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, mentioned the 142 areas of co-operation which would be impacted if there were not regulatory alignment or belonging still to the single market and the customs union. When summing up, can the Minister confirm to the Committee whether this is the final number of areas identified, and how many of those have the Government identified solutions for if we leave the single market and customs union and do not have full regulatory alignment?

This is an Achilles heel of Brexit. The Prime Minister has already committed to full regulatory alignment. We have heard that the opportunity to remain, for example, in the European Economic Area would solve the east-west issue as well as helping the north-south. As we have already committed, and the Prime Minister’s words reflected, that there should be no hard border, and to reassure the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland that we are a country which upholds its commitments to international agreements, I hope my noble friend will support the amendment or bring back an equivalent on Report.