Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Paul Girvan and Robert Buckland

2nd reading
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). I listened very carefully to his assertions about an independent Scotland being a member of the European Union. I am not sure that that assumption is actually the right one, bearing in mind the view of some member states of that Union, notably Spain. That provides a reality check on some of the loftier rhetoric of the SNP about its position in Europe and the world, should it choose to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom.

I make that point, because the consequences of Brexit inevitably meant that an arrangement for the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would always be difficult. I certainly bear the scars on my back, having been involved as a Law Officer throughout that process. Indeed, I helped to put together the Malthouse compromise—anybody remember that?—back in early 2018. I know DUP Members will remember that time very well, when we tried to work together to get somewhere that would satisfy everybody.

As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said, we have to work in the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. The one way we can actually find out about the operation of the Windsor framework is for the Executive to be able to operate it and to see how the green lane works—and if there are operational problems, then let us deal with them. I am as anxious as anybody to make sure that businesses and individuals, and everybody who wants to trade in Northern Ireland or through Northern Ireland, are able to do so in as free and uninhibited a way as possible. I do not want to see Northern Ireland cast adrift from the rest of our United Kingdom in that way.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The right hon. and learned Member makes reference to Northern Ireland being set adrift from the rest of the United Kingdom. Businesses in the United Kingdom are finding it difficult—bureaucratically difficult—to trade with Northern Ireland. As a consequence, the divergence of trade is continuing daily, and it is increasing. Everyone says, “Oh, the Republic of Ireland is booming”, but that is simply because its supply chain has changed. Goods are no longer coming through the UK, but straight from France. There is one point I want to find out about: what engagement has the British Government had with the EU on the changes that need to be made to the Windsor framework and the protocol in order for them to work?

[Sir Robert Buckland]

Obviously, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will answer on any engagement that the UK Government have had with Brussels. He is right to cast it at that level, because it is a matter between that Government and the EU, bearing in mind the Republic of Ireland’s membership of the EU, and the fact that the EU has that competence to negotiate a treaty. However, it is barely a year since the Windsor framework was agreed and in reality, coming back to the world as it is, it would be wrong of us blithely to assume that somehow that can be reopened here and now. I am not saying that it can never be reopened—of course everything can be reopened, and there will be an opportunity in a few years to look at the whole trade agreement that we reached with the EU in the 2025-26 review period.

My point is that unless we see a functioning Executive with responsibility for the operational aspects of Windsor being able to identify and highlight the problems and to raise them with the UK Government, at an appropriate level, we will not move the process on in the way that I know right hon. and hon. Members want to happen, as do I.

As I have said many times, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, which we debated long and hard when I was Lord Chancellor, contains some measures that have been helpful and are now on the statute book. However, putting aside the “notwithstanding” clause, more was intended to be done legislatively to help cement the place of Northern Ireland in our UK internal market. I think that we should legislate, and I know my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) very much agrees with me on that point. We want to see that happen, but we are here in January 2024. I note the shortness of the period that the Secretary of State seeks to extend in the Bill, and I think that is sensible and right. Tempting as it is to have longer periods—I will not call them blank cheques—I do not think that would be right. I wish the Secretary of State, and everybody in the negotiations, well in coming to a sensible and pragmatic solution that allows the Government of Northern Ireland to continue.

I will not repeat the points made by right hon. and hon. Members. I see in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which I chair weekly, the inability of the institutions of Northern Ireland to plan ahead in a multi-year way, and to provide the level of public service that I know they want but which they cannot do, bearing in mind the constraints under which we have to operate. Unlike previous periods of direct rule, this time there would need to be legislative change on the Floor of the House for that to happen. It has been made clear by the leadership of both main parties that that is not the policy of the British Government.

That is the world as it is, I am afraid, not the world as some would like it to be. I certainly do not want a situation where there is again an imbalance in our UK constitution that will only lead to more tension being stoked in the communities of Northern Ireland, rather than less. It therefore seems to me that the most obvious way forward now has to be the restoration of the Executive.

[Sir Robert Buckland]

We are in the process of preparing a report on the state of public services in Northern Ireland. We have taken a wealth of evidence, and I am grateful to the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), who are active members of the Committee. They will have heard the same evidence we have heard. We are looking into the energy market and the move to net zero in Northern Ireland. That is a very important issue, bearing in mind hard-pressed bill payers, and the particular pressures that they are under given the way that energy is supplied. We are also looking at issues as varied as education right through to paramilitarism.

On the Windsor framework, I sound a bit like Zhou Enlai, in that in some respects it is still “too early to say” precisely what its effects are. There is no doubt that, as the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) said—I am sure he will intervene again—there is already evidence of excessive bureaucracy and problems that are real for businesses on the ground.

[Paul Girvan]

Because Northern Ireland sits under EU rules and laws, the carbon tax offset for energy costs is twice what it is in the rest of the United Kingdom, simply because we are having to take on board European law as opposed to what is passed in this House.