Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (European Affairs Committee Sub-Committee Report)

Lord Hain Excerpts

Friday 20th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Jay, for his astute chairing, and our clerk, Stuart Stoner, and his expert team for the brilliant job that they do. But, even with such expert scrutiny, there is a loss of democratic accountability—the “democratic deficit”—affecting Northern Ireland following Brexit. Surely the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland should have a much more direct role in the scrutiny of the EU rules that apply to them.

Boris Johnson and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, endorsed by Rishi Sunak, negotiated a deal making Northern Ireland an EU rule-taker, rather than an EU rule-maker, as it was before Brexit. Like Northern Ireland, Norway is in the single market but not in the EU—yet Norwegian Ministers and parliamentarians are able to scrutinise and achieve amendments to all draft EU proposals affecting Norwegians. These consultative rights for EEA members are important to overcome what would otherwise be their own democratic deficit over single market legislation. Norwegian Ministers say that this works well, so why not give similar oversight of the implementation of the protocol directly to the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland? But this is not only a matter for the European Union. Obviously, Norway is a sovereign state, and addressing this Brexit democratic deficit will require the UK Government to allow something different for Northern Ireland, compared with the rest of the UK.

The UK-EU Joint Consultative Working Group—JCWG—which meets monthly, is where the European Commission informs the UK about

“planned Union acts within the scope of this Protocol”

under Article 15. This is a point at which potential difficulties arising for Northern Ireland can be identified and accommodated in the EU’s final decisions. The UK Government should therefore establish formal structures to ensure that the views that they proffer through the JCWG take full account of the views of Northern Ireland Ministers, MLAs, officials and stakeholders. Preferably, Northern Ireland representatives should have direct consultative rights within the JCWG.

Meetings of the joint committee have already seen the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, or their nominees, invited to participate in the UK delegation where the joint committee discussed the protocol. But there is currently no formal mechanism for representation from the devolved Governments in the UK to participate fully in the UK delegation to meetings of the UK-EU joint bodies. The UK Government should therefore commit to raising the status of the Northern Ireland First Minister and Deputy First Minister from invited observers to ex officio members of the UK delegation, where UK-EU bodies are discussing matters relevant not just to the protocol but to devolved competence. There should also be direct consultative avenues for Members of the Legislative Assembly—MLAs—of Northern Ireland with the European Parliament. These are practical and common-sense solutions to a real problem that, quite understandably, exercises unionists. I hope that UK Ministers, the Irish Government and the European Union will support them.