Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Opinion

Debate between Oliver Heald and Geoffrey Cox

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I would need to see the hon. Lady’s quotation in detail. The position is that if you agree and put your name to a joint instrument of this kind, you are bound by it. You are bound by it as to its interpretation and, if it expresses agreement to specific operational commitments, as this one does, you are bound by it on those, because it is an agreement that you will then carry out those specific commitments. It is an agreement, so we should not get hung up on labels. The question is: what is its substance? It is binding.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that article 31 of the Vienna convention makes it perfectly clear that this protocol does have legal force, is binding and is of equal status to the treaty? Does he also agree that substantial, legally binding changes have been delivered, and that it is wrong to read just one paragraph of his legal advice—one has to read each paragraph of it? When it comes to paragraph 17 of his advice, my right hon. and learned Friend makes it clear that this is a substantial change in the level of risk.

[The Attorney General]

I think I had better just say that I agree with that one.

Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position

Debate between Oliver Heald and Geoffrey Cox

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The regulatory regime in Great Britain will be a matter entirely for the Government of the United Kingdom. It is permitted and agreed under the protocol that they can maintain their regulatory regime in the way they choose, in which case they could choose to maintain, as I have no doubt they would wish to do, regulatory parity with the position in Northern Ireland. That is all the Secretary of State is saying, and I see nothing controversial in that.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. and learned Friend on the statement he has made. Does he agree that in international law concepts of good faith and of using one’s best endeavours are very important, because right at the heart of international law is the idea of a rules-based system that good countries aspire to? Does he agree that it is therefore important both to the UK and to the EU that they should show good faith and should use their best endeavours? Does he also agree that if they did not do so when it came to the point that has just been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) about paragraph 11 in the references to the protocol, it would be an absolute disaster for either the UK or the EU to be found not to be in good faith?