Leaving the European Union

Lord Empey Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have made clear, both sides have agreed to hold further talks to find a way through.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister visited Belfast last week and I must bring her back to the definition of backstop. The Minister has just been trying to sell and drawing attention to the good parts, as she sees them, of the backstop that has just been rejected. But is the Prime Minister talking about replacing the existing backstop with another one—an alternative—or is she talking about inserting something new into the existing backstop? Or is she talking about a completely different proposal altogether? The one thing that is missing in all of this is that there has been no attempt whatever to use the institutions of the Belfast Good Friday agreement as part of the solution —an Irish solution to an Irish problem. I believe that there is huge potential in there if somebody would pay the slightest attention to it.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

In terms of the three options, one is for alternative arrangements, so something different using technological solutions, for example. The other two are legally binding changes to the backstop, such as a unilateral exit clause or a legally binding time limit. So there are three different options, two of which relate to changing the backstop that exists and one that is looking at alternative arrangements.