Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: EU Negotiations

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is obviously much more deeply expert in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement than I am, given his background. He is, of course, absolutely right in what he says about the article to which he referred. As regards the protocol, I point out that it was approved by this Parliament, but nevertheless it has created significant difficulties in its implementation. We seek to find a way forward from that and come to a better balance.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

Is George Peretz QC’s opinion correct when he says that,

“it is not at all clear that the government has a solid legal basis for invoking Article 16, at least in relation to the large majority of concerns set out in the July Command Paper. Therefore, if the UK government chooses to implement measures that are otherwise in breach of the Protocol but which are justified solely on the basis of Article 16, it is at real risk of having those measures struck down in the domestic courts, especially if the measures exceed a limited duration or scope.”?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, we will, of course, set out our justification for using Article 16 and the legal basis and so on, if we get to that point. As regards to the legal opinion quoted by the noble Lord, to be fair, there is quite a lot of debate among learned lawyers on this subject. I imagine that, if we were to use Article 16, that would be subject to a degree of legal testing. We will see where that gets to, if and when Article 16 is used.