United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB) [V]]

My Lords, on this anniversary of Kristallnacht, when some of us mourn the cruelty of the death of grandparents we never knew, I join in expressing my sadness at the death of the late Lord Sacks, a truly inspiring member of your Lordships’ House. He bore his greatness well.

It is a pleasure to follow the attractive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, disagree with him though I do. I simply suggest to him that I suspect that hungry lawyers and busy grocers share more instincts than he imagines.

I am persuaded by the clarity of my noble and learned friend Lord Judge in his presentation of the proposition that we should expunge this part from the Bill. Indeed, it is my view that we should stand fast, and make it absolutely clear to the Government that we will do everything in our power, however long it may take, to achieve that end.

I listened with great interest to the eloquent and ingenious arguments, presented in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. In my view, the noble Lord fails in those arguments for at least three reasons. First, these proposals are a deliberate and unnecessary flouting of international legal obligations which the European Court of Justice would never support. If there was any implication in what he said that it would, the noble Lord is simply wrong. Secondly, he offers no justification for the breathtaking and extraordinary use of secondary legislation on the fiat of a Minister to break treaty obligations, especially as such secondary legislation is unamendable. Thirdly, and this is a point made by my noble friend Lord Pannick, there is the issue of the arbitration provisions. To avoid those provisions is simply an abuse of process, and nothing less.

Do we learn anything from what is happening elsewhere at the moment, in relation to these proposals? Why has President-elect Biden’s election engendered such support across the democratic world? What unfolded in recent days, as I saw it in many hours of the day and night while watching the extraordinary output of CNN, promises the world the speedy return by the United States to the honouring of treaties, multilateralism, and to trust between nations. Trust between nations, however, requires one to trust the Governments of each of those nations.

I remind the House of President-elect Biden’s long-standing commitment to the Good Friday agreement, and that his commitment, and his understanding of it, will engender intensive scrutiny by the United States of the United Kingdom’s adherence to all its obligations, including the Good Friday agreement. As my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames said in his powerful speech, the Belfast Protocol is a living instrument, and a very sensitive organism, which we should not damage in the course of negotiation tactics. The prospect of a United States-United Kingdom trade treaty, so important to this country, will not turn on the feeding and the properties of chickens.

Such issues are always negotiable. It will depend on the perceived adherence of the United Kingdom to important treaty obligations and on what the United States thinks of the integrity of the United Kingdom. Why would one make a treaty with an untrusted partner? There are plenty of other potential partners around.

My conclusion is that this part of the Bill has no place in our legal tradition. Indeed, it damages our economic interest and reputation in a key area of commerce—the extraordinarily successful legal services provided by British lawyers and the British legal system all around the world. Worst of all, as my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames made clear, it threatens stability in Northern Ireland, which was hard won, to the credit of all sides there.

There was no manifesto commitment to break international law in this way. Rather like President Trump’s allegations of electoral irregularities, this part of the Bill is completely unsupported by anything remotely ascribable as cogent evidence. I will vote against all these clauses standing part of the Bill. I hope others will join with me in any future debates in standing firm on these extremely important issues of principle.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, may I begin by joining with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and other noble Lords in mourning the loss of our noble friend Lord Sacks?

I shall speak to Clauses 44 and 45. I may be being thick but, for me—and I think for millions of people who voted for the UK to leave the EU—these clauses go to the heart of why we felt there was no alternative. I did not vote to leave the EU almost four and a half years ago because I hate Europe or because I am xenophobic. I did so with a heavy heart because I believed that, unless and until we had left and the transition period had passed, British democracy would be inexorably undermined by a lack of transparency, accountability and control. I did so because I believe in a stronger, not an ever weaker, Parliament, in government that is more accountable, not less, and in a people that thus have more power, not less.

The idea that we should surrender in the final round makes no sense at all. For that is what we would be doing without this insurance policy. Whether we like it or not, it is an inescapable fact that, without it, the integrity and viability of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland could be at risk. Of course, who in your Lordships’ House does not hope that we achieve a favourable outcome through the Joint Committee process? However, this is not guaranteed by any means.

It is worth reflecting on the practical consequences of an unfavourable outcome. My noble friend Lord Lilley posed the key question: what would it mean for people’s lives and livelihoods in Northern Ireland? As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, made clear, it would have a terrible impact.

Essentially, damaging defaults would come into effect, which would achieve the very opposite of what noble Lords, the Prime Minister, the Taoiseach, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and the President-elect of the United States all reject—the effective creation of a hard border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to say how excited I am personally by the election of the first woman and person of colour as Vice-President of the United States. It must mark one of the most exciting milestones in my lifetime and is a testimony to the overwhelming, inevitable logic of equality.

If Michel Barnier or President-elect Biden want to protect Northern Ireland’s integrity and equality through the Good Friday agreement, surely they must accept that a hard border would not achieve that objective. It is therefore essential that we safeguard the gains that have been made and ensure there is a safety net in place to protect the people of Northern Ireland—their jobs, their livelihoods and their financial security—should the EU fail to agree reasonable solutions in the joint committee. As my noble friend Lady Noakes said, these clauses do that pragmatically. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. If parliamentary sovereignty is to mean anything, these clauses must stand part of this Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, earlier today in the debate on the Agriculture Bill, there was a great deal of rightful praise for the impact of your Lordships’ House, particularly on the crucial issue of trade standards. That reflected 90 hours of debate. We are already well into double figures on this Bill, and that is a good job: first, for the coverage of crucial issues, particularly the effective destruction by the Bill in its current form of the devolution settlements canvassed in earlier sessions; and, secondly, because the time taken to get to these amendments has meant that there is a positive global atmosphere for today’s debate, to which the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, has just alluded.

I want to respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, who said that nothing had changed since Second Reading—although he was right to say that nothing had changed in the government position. But the global picture has changed. Had this debate been happening even a week ago, the atmosphere and environment in which it was occurring would have been very different—far more fearful. It would have felt more like the Committee was swimming against a fast-flowing current. But now the Government are the side in this debate that looks isolated and exposed. The global tide is running in the opposite direction, and they are high and dry.

The technical issues have been very clearly set out by major legal minds, and I do not intend to draw on the highly useful multiple briefings received from the major legal institutions of the nation—backing the action of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in particular—to repeat what they have already said. I simply offer the Green group’s support for all the amendments in this group tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and for all the non-government amendments, and I will reflect on the national, and indeed global, reasons for your Lordships’ House to follow the lead of the noble and learned Lord on Part 5.

Today dawned with the dangerous forces of disorder and decay—those who want to sweep aside the rule of law and who demonise the vulnerable and the different, building walls and seeking to install nets to keep them out—very much on the defensive. Donald Trump has lost the US presidential election. The EU has decided to impose sanctions and deny funding to members that defy the rule of law—a move very clearly directed at Hungary’s far-right regime. In Poland, an outpouring of anger led by women against a further tightening of tiny abortion rights has developed into a far broader challenge against regressive forces. In Thailand, young people are standing up against the long-term repression of the combined forces of the military and tradition.

By backing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, the Committee can today begin to point the UK in the direction that the rest of the world is travelling: towards restoring a democratic culture and the rule of law. That restoration protects the Good Friday agreement, that crucial bedrock of security and communal trust. That the unelected House—a phrase we hear a lot from the last-stand defenders of our isolated Government—should be doing this is, however, a pointer to the future.