Law Enforcement and Security (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, I want to ask the Minister a few practical questions before dealing with some of the points that he made in his introduction.

Firearms are of course used for sport, which is quite a significant industry both in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland, and indeed in the Irish Republic. They are also used, for instance, in the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games. What impact would these measures have on the movement of weapons for sport and recreation, such as shooting parties? Would there be an implication for people in possession of personal protection weapons, given that the legal position vis-à-vis Great Britain changes under these regulations?

I want to draw attention to some of the remarks that the Minister made in his introduction. He referred to the requirement to ensure that there was no border on the island of Ireland and said that this was necessary to protect the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. Of course, nobody wants a trade border on the island of Ireland, but nor do we want a border in the Irish Sea. However, that is exactly what we have not only with these but with other regulations.

Earlier today, I drew the attention of the House to the common rules for exports regulations, which were considered in Grand Committee on 10 November. The noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, announced that that law would be implemented in Northern Ireland by the European Commission, thereby establishing that a foreign power would exercise Executive authority in Northern Ireland, despite the fact that we are supposed to have taken back control and are supposed to be maintaining the union. I remind the House that a border in the Irish Sea is anathema to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement just as much as a border on the island of Ireland. However, that seems to have been largely set aside and ignored, not only in this but in other legislation. In case noble Lords think that it is just me who sees that as the situation, perhaps I may refer the House to the Library note that accompanies these regulations. Under the heading “What would the 2020 regulations do?”, there is a section on firearms that says:

“The European Commission has stated that the ‘movements of firearms between Northern Ireland and the EU are not considered as imports or exports’. This is because Northern Ireland is generally treated as an EU member state under the Protocol.”


That comes from our own Library.

The issue is twofold. There are the practical questions that I put to the Minister, but there is a wider issue of what these regulations and the protocol are doing. The protocol is a disaster for the union; it divides the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Since 2 October last year, the Government have maintained complete denial of the implications of what they are proposing, and these are the downstream consequences of that. When our own Library is printing that in black and white, it gets the point across that what we are seeing here is not a mere technical point. Every one of these regulations—and this pattern is repeated in a number of them—illustrates a significant constitutional and economic change. The economic centre of gravity of Northern Ireland moves from the rest of the United Kingdom to the European Union.

This also means that the European Union can amend regulations and produce new ones. As citizens in Northern Ireland, we will have no say or influence over what those might be, because we have no representation. The Minister might address the question of what somebody is supposed to do. The principle being established in these regulations is that the European Union will make law for us and we have no alternative but to implement it. In pretending that they have not made changes to the constitution, the Government are therefore certainly doing grave damage to the Belfast agreement, which makes it clear that there can be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the consent of its people. When a Minister of the Crown stands up and tells a Grand Committee on 10 November that the European Commission will exercise those powers in Northern Ireland, that can mean only one thing to any sensible person: that our status has changed. Will the Minister address those points, as well as the practical ones that I made at the beginning of my remarks?