United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

There you have it: he didn’t read the protocol, he hasn’t read the Bill, he doesn’t know his stuff.

Let us deal with the second bogus argument. The Prime Minister claimed on Wednesday that it was necessary to protect the Good Friday agreement. The first outing for that argument was on Wednesday, at Prime Minister’s questions. I have to say to him, I would rather trust the authors of the Good Friday agreement than the Prime Minister, who has prominent members of the Government who opposed the agreement at the time. However, this is what John Major and Tony Blair wrote—[Interruption.] They don’t like John Major. They said that the Bill

“puts the Good Friday agreement at risk”—

[Interruption]—this is very serious—

“because it negates the predictability, political stability and legal clarity that are integral to the delicate balance between the north and south of Ireland that is at the core of the peace process.”

These are very important words from two former Prime Ministers, both of whom helped to win us peace in Northern Ireland. The Prime Minister may not want to believe them, but he will, I hope, believe himself—[Laughter]—maybe not—because this is what he said about the Northern Ireland protocol:

“there are particular circumstances in Northern Ireland at the border that deserve particular respect and sensitivity, and that is what they have received in the deal.”

It is

“a great deal for Northern Ireland.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 578-579.]

I do not understand this. He signed the deal. It is his deal. It is the deal that he said would protect the people of Northern Ireland. I have to say to him, this is not just legislative hooliganism on any issue; it is on one of the most sensitive issues of all. I think we should take the word of two former Prime Ministers of this country who helped to secure peace in Northern Ireland.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Before the shadow spokesman lectures the Prime Minister about reading documentation or starts lecturing us about the Good Friday agreement, does he not recognise, first of all, that the Good Friday agreement talks about the principle of consent to change the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, which is what this protocol does? The Good Friday agreement has within it a mechanism to safeguard the minorities in Northern Ireland through a cross-community vote, which again the protocol removed. So before he starts talking about the threats to the Good Friday agreement, does he not recognise that the protocol was a threat to it in the first place?

[Edward Miliband]

The right hon. Gentleman did not like the protocol at all. He would rather have not had the protocol. He and I just have a disagreement on this issue. I believe it was necessary to make special arrangements for Northern Ireland, or for the UK to be in the EU customs union to avoid a hard border in Ireland. That is why the Prime Minister came along and said the protocol was the right thing to do.

Let me deal with the third excuse we heard. This is the “It was all a bit of a rush” excuse. As the Prime Minister said in his article, times were “torrid” and there were “serious misunderstandings”. He tries to pretend that this is some new issue, but they have been warned for months about the way the protocol would work. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who is sitting in his place, was warned at the Select Committee in March and was asked about these issues. The Business Secretary was written to by the House of Lords Committee in April.

Let us just get this straight for a minute, because I think it is important to take a step back. The Prime Minister is coming to the House to tell us today that his flagship achievement—the deal he told us was a triumph, the deal he said was oven-ready, the deal on which he fought and won the general election—is now contradictory and ambiguous. What incompetence. What failure of governance. How dare he try to blame everyone else? I say to the Prime Minister that this time he cannot blame the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), he cannot blame John Major, he cannot blame the judges, he cannot blame the civil servants, he cannot sack the Cabinet Secretary again. There is only one person responsible for it and that is him. This is his deal. It is his mess. It is his failure. For the first time in his life, it is time to take responsibility. It is time to ’fess up: either he was not straight with the country about the deal in the first place, or he did not understand it.

A competent Government would never have entered into a binding agreement with provisions they could not live with. If such a Government somehow missed the point but woke up later, they would do what any competent business would do after it realised it could not live with the terms of a contract: they would negotiate a way out in good faith. That is why this is all so unnecessary. There is a mechanism designed for exactly this purpose in the agreement: the Joint Committee on the Northern Ireland protocol. What did the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster say on 11 March at the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union? He will recall that he was asked about state aid. He said:

“the effective working of the protocol is a matter for the Joint Committee to resolve.”

The remaining issues to which the Bill speaks are not insignificant, but nor are they insurmountable, and that is the right way to pursue them, not an attempt at illegality.

Let me come back to the excuses. Fourthly, on Sunday, there was the Justice Secretary’s “the fire alarm” defence: “We don’t want to have to do this, but we might have to.” I want to be clear with the House about something very, very important about a decision to pass the Bill. I have great respect for the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), but I want to make this point. The very act of passing the Bill is itself a breach of international law. It would be wrong for hon. and right hon. Members on either side of the House to be under any illusions about that as they decide which Lobby to go into tonight. If we pass the Bill, even if there is a nod and a wink from the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, we equip the Government with the power to break the law. That in itself is a breach of the Northern Ireland protocol and therefore a breach of international law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The warnings that my party gave about the withdrawal agreement when it was discussed at the end of last year are now coming home to the Government. They are beginning to realise the impact that it had; indeed, they are beginning to admit what their own assessment said: that the withdrawal agreement would reduce trade and business investment in Northern Ireland, affect consumer spending and have a disproportionate impact on small businesses. If the Bill is an attempt to undo some of the damage done by the withdrawal agreement and respond to the points that Arlene Foster and other Ministers have pressed the Government to address, we welcome it. However, I have to say that it does not go the whole way or address all the issues that need to be addressed. Indeed, those who are criticising the Government about the non-implementation of the withdrawal agreement ought to know that only on Friday the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs overrode the Northern Ireland Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister and instructed civil servants in Northern Ireland to put up border posts and put in a proposal for border posts, even though all the information about what would be necessary had not been accepted.

Two arguments have been made against the Bill. The first is that it goes against the Good Friday agreement. For the life of me, I cannot understand why a Bill that prevents businesses in Northern Ireland from being able to sell goods freely in the rest of the UK is going to bring about violence in Northern Ireland. For the life of me, I do not understand why a decision that will enable businesses in Northern Ireland to bring goods from GB without paying unnecessary taxes, which they then have to claim back at some future time, is going to affect peace in Northern Ireland. The argument about the Good Friday agreement and violence in Northern Ireland is always rolled out when the arguments are weak against what the Government are doing.

The second argument is that the Government are reneging on their international obligations. The obligations in the withdrawal agreement are two-sided. There is a requirement for both the EU and the UK Government to act in good faith and with best endeavours to ensure that there is unfettered access and unfettered markets within the UK between Northern Ireland and GB, and to ensure that the Government of the United Kingdom have the ability to rule their own country and to make laws that affect their own country. Even a casual observer would see that the tactics of the EU and the comments that have been made by the negotiators make it quite clear that there has been no good faith and no best endeavours from the EU in these negotiations. In those circumstances, the withdrawal agreement allows the UK Government to act unilaterally.

The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) said that we have obligations to the rule of law and obligations to the EU. What about the obligations to the people of the United Kingdom to ensure the provisions of the Act of Union? The economic basis of the Act of Union makes it quite clear that there shall be no barriers on trade between different parts of the United Kingdom. I believe that the Government are fulfilling, in part, their obligations to the people of Northern Ireland in this Bill, and that is why we will support it tonight.