Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Bew

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Suttie in her amendments. Notwithstanding the appeal from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, these Benches do not need to be persuaded of his arguments. We are nevertheless tasked with scrutinising and testing this legislation, and I support my noble friend’s amendments.

I want to ask the Minister just two simple questions relating to the Sewel convention, which is now recognised as a constitutional principle. Michael Ellis, speaking on behalf of the Government in Committee in the Commons, was asked about legislative consent of this Bill. He said:

“As the hon. Member for North Down will be aware, the Sewel convention applies to this Bill, as it does to all Bills of this Parliament that intersect with devolved competence. I confirm that in the absence of functioning institutions, senior officials in the Foreign Office have already made contact with the head of the Northern Ireland civil service regarding legislative consent … The Government will consult stakeholders in Northern Ireland, including Members of the Assembly, on the operation of the Bill during its passage and thereafter”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/22; cols. 385-86.]


What did the officials ask of the civil servants with regard to legislative consent in the absence of there being an Assembly? This is not a practice that has ever been seen anywhere else for the operation of the Sewel Motion. Which Members of the Assembly have been consulted during the passage of this Bill, and on what? Have they been asked, with regard to the dual regulatory regime that the Bill proposes, and what have their responses been so far?

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to put a technical point. I am not sure of the answer—it is a genuine question—but it bears on the amendment. Trade is a reserved matter in Northern Ireland. When there was first sight of Theresa May’s protocol, there was great rage in Northern Ireland. People in Northern Ireland were told, “Sorry, this is a reserved matter.” Subsequently—it was the second iteration—it was very much the view of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, that that was not itself a satisfactory answer, and there is provision in the protocol negotiated by the Johnson Government. The one significant change is to make, in very specific circumstances, a role for the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is probably the major difference between the two protocols. However, if it is a reserved matter—if that was the answer that I remember being given throughout 2017 and 2018 in this House—I cannot quite see the purchase of these amendments.

If it is a reserved matter, it is a reserved matter. It is for this Parliament to deal with these trade matters. The burden of the Bill is in dealing with Articles 5 and 10 of the protocol—not those on human rights and so on—in a way which, I accept, many Members of this House do not like. None the less, it does not seem appropriate to be raising these issues now about that role for the Northern Ireland Assembly, because trade is a reserved matter held by this House.

The history of this is perfectly clear: the Government of Ireland Act 1920 has language on trade, as do the prior Acts of Union 1800. Then there were modifications to the Government of Ireland Act—benign modernisations, I would say—under the Good Friday agreement and the legislation that went through this House, which left us with trade as a reserved matter. It seems to me that this should be taken into account. There may be some possible answer to it, and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, has negotiated a possible way that one might work around it, but trade is a reserved matter at this point. We are not concerned with the human rights provisions of the protocol and so on; they are not the issue in the Bill. It is directed mainly against Articles 5 and 10, rightly or wrongly—wrongly, I am sure many colleagues on my own Benches think—but trade being a reserved matter is a problem for amendments of this sort.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Bew

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

The noble Lord has a point—but not as deep a point as he might imagine, because the Government have been consistent in saying that the primacy of the Good Friday agreement is the core of their position, in both the House of Commons and in this House. There are other details; there is phrasing. For example, as is well known, I am not as convinced of the need for language in this Bill about the Act of Union. I understand why it is there, but I am not convinced that it is relevant. There are other aspects that we will discuss, in the normal way, on amendments. There is detail that will come up later tonight, and there are things that need to be said, in the normal way. But this is not a normal discussion—

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord; he knows that I like and respect him. I am trying to follow the rationale of his argument with regards to us legislating here. Earlier, he made the case—he stressed it repeatedly—that the only purpose of the Bill as he can see it is for the DUP to return to the Northern Ireland Assembly. As far as legislators are concerned, does that mean that the DUP also has a veto on any regulations that come as a result of this Bill?

[Lord Bew (CB)]

We are in political negotiations. Here is our problem; I have already explained it. When I tried to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, I said, “Just believe the British Government when they say that the Good Friday agreement is the dominant thing”. We can see now what has happened here. You only have to read the Dublin newspapers, to be frank, to realise what has had happened.

We cannot undo a negotiation that we lost. It is not the officials’ fault; the Prime Minister had lost an election and was desperate to get in and to make any kind of progress to justify her existence. You cannot undo this; I am not suggesting that it is possible. You lose, you lose—end of story, at one level. However, at another level, what it means is that the EU is committed to the Good Friday agreement, and it does not understand what it is committed to. You only have to read Michel Barnier’s memoirs to see that he has no idea about the importance of the east-west dimension and that his description of the north-south dimension is literally fantasy, which has been derisorily commented on in all sections of the Irish media.

We are bound into this agreement, but we cannot be bound into a fantasy. We have to unhook. We must have a good-faith negotiation in which we have to acknowledge the things that have gone wrong on our side and the EU has to acknowledge that the version of the Good Friday agreement it thought it had is not the real agreement. There is a strand three, for example, which talks about the importance of the east-west arrangements and so on. You can see how the original misunderstanding runs through all the texts and leads to the difficulties we are now in. To go back again to why I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard, we do not need to ask the EU to change its mandate. We need to ask it to understand its mandate. Its mandate is the agreement. It does not take long to read it, by the way. There is a strand three about the importance of east-west relations, although you would not know it from Michel Barnier’s memoirs. You would not know it, and you would not really know what the north-south relationship is either. So, that is one reason why this negotiation has some potential, because both sides have to come to terms with their errors in the past.

I conclude with one thing, because I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and what he said about Baroness Blood—as did the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. However, we also have to remember what other former distinguished Labour Secretaries of State said in acknowledging this difficulty. The noble Lord, Lord Mandelson—who was deeply involved in saving this process—said last week that he accepts that the Good Friday agreement and the protocol do not sit easy together; the tension is there. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, talked about this in this Chamber as long ago as 6 December 2018. Distinguished Labour Secretaries of State know that there is a problem. The existence of the problem was not really acknowledged by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, earlier this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I would like first to take up my noble friend Lord Pannick’s point about the Government being responsible for this situation. I will give a simple example of why that is not an easy quick-fire point. Looking at the joint report of 2017, it is, as Michel Barnier insists, an international document where both sides signed up. I understand in this House the great sanctity of international documents; I have heard that a number of times today. Having said that— and I respect it—our Government signal in that document that they are determined to maintain the east-west relationship as described in strand 3 of the Good Friday agreement.

We have signalled that there is a problem, which is now at the heart of the matter. It is not that we are suddenly saying late in the day, “Oh my gosh, we never thought of strand 3”; it is in that document. The EU was perfectly aware when it signed the document that the UK was going to take the view that the east-west strand 3 relationship is very important and should be maintained in its current and best form.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Would the noble Lord give way on that point? I am just wishing to test that a little further with the sequencing. If he is correct about the agreement made in 2017, he also has to appreciate that it was the Government in 2019 who said that the protocol they negotiated satisfied that 2017 agreement. Therefore, they got parliamentary approval to ratify that. It became a treaty obligation which is now under question. If his argument is correct, then the sequence flows that the Government knowingly said in 2019 that the protocol satisfies that 2017 agreement.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

Both the EU and the UK Government said at a number of points—three at least—that this agreement is designed to protect the Good Friday agreement in all its dimensions. Bluntly, it has not done that. We talk about legal opinion and what the Government’s argument has been. The former Lord Chancellor, in the Commons debate on this, made exactly that point. I read the protocol agreement and what did I see? There is a reference to the Good Friday agreement and the protection of it in all its dimensions. That is not actually happening. Both sides signed up in good faith hoping that was what would happen.

Both sides signed up to the protocol, which says that the UK single market should be protected in its integrity. It might be reasonably expected for that to happen. Do noble Lords think that the current provisions for checks are protecting the UK single market in all its integrity? The idea that we both signed up for stuff is very simple. I could go on forever about how “We both signed up for stuff.” To be absolutely honest, neither side fully understood what it was doing.

In particular, the negotiating history of this is clear. The EU did not understand the Good Friday agreement. Michel Barnier’s memoir is perfectly clear. We cannot make pigs fly. Michel Barnier’s memoir is based on a view of the agreement and the undertakings in it which is based on pigs flying. We cannot do it with the best will in the world and for all our enthusiasm to be loyal to something we signed up for. We cannot make pigs fly. His version of what he was protecting is not what it is—not by a long way. The reason for this is our negotiating defeat in 2017 and Mrs May, having effectively lost an election, desperately getting into talks. We cannot undo that; I am not saying we can. In history, we signed up for stuff and we are trying to find a compromise, but we cannot make pigs fly. We cannot make nonsense be operative. It does not matter how morally committed we are.