United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Sarfraz, on their excellent maiden speeches in this Second Reading debate.

This is the first debate I have taken part in where I have had the opportunity for a dinner break and the chance to discuss with colleagues how the Bill is progressing. One remarked, interestingly, that you know the Government are in trouble when they are condemned by a former Lord Chief Justice and the Archbishop of Canterbury before the debate has barely got going. However, maybe something can be salvaged in this debate.

The first point that all noble Lords must remember is that, leaving aside the controversial Part 5 and Clause 47, the Bill is still important and necessary. We need an internal market Bill after Brexit. As the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, remarked earlier, we had an internal market in this country for 300 years, and it was effectively taken over when we joined the European Economic Community. Now, as we leave the European Union, the Government must make provision to restore the union and the internal market that existed before we became members of that community. It is my impression that although there is a lot of politics surrounding some of the provisions for replacing the internal market, none of the devolved Assemblies will lose powers that they already have. They will have the same powers when the Bill is passed. In that sense, the glass is half full.

There are, of course, some very controversial measures in the Bill and they are entirely of the Government’s own making. We face a conundrum which has been present ever since the country voted for Brexit and we started looking at how to implement the referendum result: either to have a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, or a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The then Prime Minister, Theresa May, tried to find a way out of that conundrum, and did so very elegantly by seeking to keep us within the customs union. When I was in the other place, I voted for her withdrawal agreement—I was fond of remarking to some of my more ideological colleagues that I had voted for Brexit more times than they had. The Government then decided to return to a form of Brexit which brings us to where we are today: potentially having to choose, inevitably, between a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom and a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Again, however, my glass gets slightly fuller, because I think that there may be a way out of this impasse. We know that, despite the confrontational attitude that seems to be adopted now by both sides, who are negotiating the future of millions of people in this country and the rest of the European Union, there is a potential way forward and we may have a free trade agreement. The European Union has said that it will hold a special Council in order to achieve that. I very much hope that that will come about. If it does not, and the provisions in the Bill reach a conclusion without a free trade agreement, we will face some very serious consequences. If, as I hope, we are able to preserve the internal market in the United Kingdom, but we do so under the provisions of the Bill without a free trade agreement, it is inevitable that we will get a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, either one that Ireland itself feels it has to impose or one that the European Union chooses to impose on its behalf. That will be extremely damaging for everyone in this country.