Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Lord Triesman Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the Bill. As a former Member of the European Parliament—

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Baroness will get a go.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, to clarify, there has been a bit of a swap. It is the turn for the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson. We will then hear from the noble Lord, Lord Triesman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Howard and Lord Pannick, for providing us with an unanswerable case that this is a breach of international law. Many of us will want no part in a breach of international law. It is an unmoveable bedrock of what we do.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, provided a serious agenda for what can and should take place in the negotiations, which I also hope will be successful. But I have tried to reflect—particularly as I thought I would be following the noble Lord, Lord Frost—on what negotiators from the Foreign Office do when they set about the business of negotiating. One of the first things you do is think about what tools are available to you. For the most part, you cannot send a gunboat or threaten people with God-alone-knows-what. You have to go and argue on the basis of pragmatism, honesty and the expectation that you will keep your word and try to find something that is a suitable balance.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that we should not be obsessed with history. One of the first things that happens in any negotiation is that you think about what has gone before, because if you have not understood that you have a pitiful chance of analysing what might bring the contending parties together. He was advocating negotiations between four year-olds who go into a room and shout at each other.

My noble friend Lord Murphy made the absolutely right point that all such negotiations tend to end in a compromise, which is why I hope the next negotiations will be successful. Revisiting all the issues will unquestionably take time; it was not an accident that they took time in the last iteration. They may involve the same parties, who may make it difficult, and they will unquestionably end in another compromise, because that is what happens in any negotiation. If you go in with the same tools—good faith, pragmatism and, critically, your honesty, your word being your greatest and maybe your only real asset, and recognising that the rule of law is fundamental—then you have some chance of producing a new agreement and a new compromise, and compromise is what it is.

The rule of law is important for all of us in another way. We are a country that depends on inward investment, which is attracted because people believe that we have a satisfactory rule of law. That is not on the big occasions but on every occasion when you want things to be litigated by honest and trustworthy people.

I agree with much of what has been said, not least by my noble friend Lady Chapman about the subsections, because those are also critical. However, I conclude with a point that I know will cause offence, but I am from north Tottenham and I do not mind trying to say things as I see them. It is astonishing that the Minister should have argued that it is the breakdown of the arrangements in the Parliament of Northern Ireland, in the power-sharing agreement, that has produced the peril that we apparently now face. Who is refusing to take part in power-sharing in Northern Ireland? It is arguably the most extreme right-wing party anywhere in the United Kingdom, the DUP—members of that party will not like it, but I am afraid that is my view of who and what they are. They have decided that they will not take part and that the efforts that could be made across health, education and other areas should not proceed. That is a dreadful and scandalous thing to do. I say that straightforwardly. I would never have contemplated doing anything like it.

The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, has been welcomed back, and I welcome him—up to a point. That point is this. He is a Foreign Office Minister, and he will go out and negotiate again in the wider world. People will ask the question, as they always should of all of us: is his word to be respected? Is he capable of going back on fundamental promises that have been made? I appeal to him, because I like him, not to lose his reputation recklessly, because he is in danger of doing so.