European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Loomba Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Loomba (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Prime Minister’s valiant efforts to secure a trade deal with our friends in the European Union ahead of 1 January. It is no mean feat to have accomplished such an important and complex deal during the unprecedented pandemic crisis in the UK. Many speakers have already said that a deal is a better outcome than the alternative of no deal at all, and a great many things have been achieved in this deal, such as no extra charges on goods and no limits on the amount of goods that can be traded. We now also have control over our own laws and borders, as any sovereign state rightly should have.

Sadly, some MPs in the other place voted against the Bill today, especially those from the devolved nations. Some of their issues relate particularly to fishing rights around the coastal waters of Scotland and Wales, and in Northern Ireland there is continuing disquiet about the protocol. Can the Minister tell us how the Government are going to take things forward, so that we have a united front on all matters and harmony between our devolved nations, and so that the United Kingdom does not break up as a result of this deal?