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

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Friday 20th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. It is quite interesting that this debate falls almost exactly to the day when the agreement in Northern Ireland about restoring elections fell—that was yesterday. The House will know that that has not happened, and that there will be a further set of negotiations, which will probably end at roughly the same time as the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Yesterday, also, the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference met as part of strand three of the Good Friday agreement —an agreement I chaired what feels like a million years ago. That really means that this debate is very relevant today. I wholly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jay, on his extremely skilful handling, not just of the issue but of the Select Committee. The differing views on the Select Committee on the protocol are intense, and I rather suspect that the members’ skills would be very useful in Belfast and London at the moment.

The report says that “particular circumstances” apply to Northern Ireland; of course they do. I agree with the point made by some noble Lords that there should be greater flexibility on the part of the European Union on Northern Ireland. There is no direct comparison between what happens in Northern Ireland regarding the protocol and the European Union, so it is clearly unique. It seems that the Government and the European Union, in their negotiations, should understand that particularity.

In the debate so far, the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lord Hain, were particularly useful, with very practical suggestions as to what could happen to improve the democratic deficit and ensure that people in Northern Ireland have some sort of say over the regulations, as far as the protocol continues, over their lives. That does not seem to be a huge ask: that people who will be elected in Northern Ireland, hopefully, will have some say on the laws that affect it.

I hope that the Minister takes into account those very significant recommendations, but it depends, of course, if there is a Northern Ireland Assembly or a Northern Ireland Executive—the jury is out on that at the moment. We have had negotiations of sorts, but it was not exactly ideal that, a week or so ago in Belfast, half the community in Northern Ireland was not represented because of a rather silly row over the protocol. Great effort should be made by the Foreign Office and the Northern Ireland Office regarding how they approach the negotiations. Frankly, if we had decided, 25 years ago, that it was the Government’s view as to who should or should not meet, we would not have had the Good Friday agreement.

The weeks ahead are really critical, and the recommendation from the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, that the Minister should tell us a little bit about what is happening at the moment would be very useful. I know that we cannot go into great detail on any of it, but he can tell us, roughly, if any progress is being made. If progress is not being made on these negotiations, there will be no Assembly and no Executive, and there will be no proper local scrutiny of the European Union regulations. Therefore, no progress will be made on the central issue dividing the parties at the moment: the operation of the protocol.