Official Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023

Debate between Lord Hannan of Kingsclere and Lord Moylan

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I express great sympathy with the Motion standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn. I hope to do so briefly, and I will be assisted in that by the fact that, unlike other noble Lords, I am not going to talk about the Windsor Framework—which, after all, has appeared only in the last two days, while this statutory instrument has been on the table for several weeks. I am not, in fact, really going to talk about Ireland or Northern Ireland; I am going to talk briefly about the United Kingdom. I like my noble friend the Minister and I respect him for the work he does for the Government and the country at large, so he will understand that, as other speakers have said, these remarks are not intended to refer to him in any personal way at all.

It is objectively a humiliation for the Government to send up a Minister of the Crown to this House to ask permission to take powers to erect border infrastructure between one part of our country and another. It is a humiliation that is unprecedented, as far as I am aware, in any other country. I cannot think of another country that would accept it for the convenience of a foreign power. It is a humiliation that is unprecedented in our history as a United Kingdom, certainly since 1801. It is a humiliation that would astonish even the generation of politicians who, in the 1960s and 1970s, argued so strongly that we should enter the European Union, the Common Market, or whatever name it was known by at the time. It is an illustration of the constitutional havoc that our 50 years’ wrong-headed membership of the European Union has wreaked upon this country. I ask my noble friend, who has a strong and long-standing connection with Berkshire, if he would accept and advocate that the people of Berkshire might be surrounded by border infrastructure separating them from the rest of the country, and how he would expect them to feel and react if that were asked of them.

This instrument has been on the table since long before the Windsor Framework came to light on Monday. When that came to light, and the very positive words of our Prime Minister were uttered about how the border would become effectively invisible or painless—I am not quoting him, but his words were to that effect—I wrote to my noble friend and asked if I could assume that he would be withdrawing this instrument and deferring it because the situation had changed, according to the Prime Minister, in a very dramatic way. I do not accuse the Minister of rudeness in not replying to me because Ministers never reply to Conservative Back-Benchers on queries like that. I did not expect a reply, it might be said, but I put it to him now that he has the opportunity to defer this. He has an opportunity to stand at the Dispatch Box and say: “We can put this to one side for a moment; we need to look at the implications of the Windsor Framework before we press ahead with this”.

These powers do nothing to the credit of the United Kingdom. They do nothing to the credit of our national pride and self-belief. They do nothing to help the people of this country in working together as one united realm.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I find it rather odd that no one has responded to the opening point from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, about the propriety of transferring these powers from elected legislatures to Ministers. I say I find it odd because I have sat here, as have a number of your Lordships, night after night, during the passage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and the retained EU law Bill, listening to Peer after Peer from the Opposition Benches howling about Henry VIII powers and the absolute constitutional monstrosity of transferring powers from Parliament to unelected Ministers. Great, I thought, joy shall be in heaven more over one sinner that repenteth than over 99 just men that have no need for repentance—how wonderful that there is now this great interest in parliamentary sovereignty. You might almost say that Brexit is already working, and that people who had previously shown no great concern for the supremacy of our legislature now care about it very much. I think I may have been premature in saying that.

Here we have exactly such an example—you may say that it is dubious constitutional propriety but you cannot say that this one is okay and all the others were wrong—and yet I look on empty Opposition Benches and hear not a single voice raised to complain about executive overreach. Perhaps we have a little bit further to go before we can say that it has worked.