European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill

Scott Arthur Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member may wish to see the whole of the United Kingdom sucked back into the EU. I want to see my part of the United Kingdom enabled to follow the rest of the United Kingdom properly out of the EU.

All this is for an international border over which the trade flow is infinitesimally small. We have had diversion of trade since, but in 2020, 0.003% of all the goods going into, and trade with, the EU passed from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. Yet for that, we are building border posts at the cost of tens of millions of pounds, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), in Larne, Belfast and Warrenpoint. As I will set out, there is another way.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is talking with great passion about an issue that is really important to him, and that he has raised many times in this House. He will accept that 2020 is not a representative year, because of the pandemic. Also, although it might be a small part of trade within the EU, that trade with the wider EU is probably very important to traders in Northern Ireland, including those in his constituency. Many businesses in my constituency are still struggling to come to terms with Brexit, and they envy the trading relationship that Northern Ireland has with the EU. He must recognise that.

[Jim Allister]

I will deal with that more fully, but for now I will say that the trade that matters the most to Northern Ireland is with our biggest partner, Great Britain. That is the source of the overwhelming majority of our raw materials that keep our manufacturing industry going, but as a result of this pernicious Irish sea border, that trade is fettered. All raw materials have to pass through the full ambit of an international customs border. If the hon. Member’s constituents envy the position of my constituents, they really need to reassess the situation, as does he. It is nothing to envy.

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[Dr Arthur]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for giving way again; he continues to speak with passion. The issue about medicines is really interesting. I know that he has spoken at some length already, but it would be useful if he could outline some of the medicines that will be prohibited and what the alternatives to them will be.

[Jim Allister]

There are human medicines, and there are veterinary medicines. The vast swathe of veterinary medicines currently stand to be prohibited. As for human medicines, there are some for diabetics that are still subject to difficulties.

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[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend may be in a much better position to say, but I suspect that this is the place where that consultation happens. We listen to the views of people, and we can reflect them in our observations.

I want to continue on the theme of trust. Dictators and autocrats consider treaties a sign of weakness, to be dispensed with as soon as is practicable. In this country, we tend not to take that transactional and cynical approach. I am forever thankful for that. Keeping faith with a treaty or agreement that we have signed without duress says a good detail about our moral compass as a nation.

Having started on the issue of the importance of treaties, I want to look at one or two examples of the 14,000 treaties to which this country is a signatory. [Interruption.] No, I will not go into the treaty issue again, but I refer Members to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s online treaties database if they wish to look up the treaties that this country has signed over the years—and yes, I do have a life.

This country has had a good deal of experience in writing, agreeing, monitoring, enforcing and advising on treaties. There is little that this country does not know about the history, implementation, negotiation, monitoring and abrogation of treaties. We may even be the place to go to get that advice. Over the decades, this country has decided in good faith and with good intentions to put its name, credibility and integrity up front by signing treaties to ensure that its national interests can are secured as far as is practically possible. We have centuries of experience of the pitfalls, implications and consequences of a unilateral breach of a treaty. I ask colleagues to hold that thought during the deliberations on this Bill.

It goes without saying that serious, sometimes convoluted, diplomatic manoeuvres and mental gymnastics are involved in agreeing the terms of a treaty. That will come as no surprise at all to Members—if it did, that would be surprising to me. One has to be careful before signing a treaty. That does not mean that one does not sign it, but once an agreement is reached, signed and ratified, it remains duly constituted until the treaty is renegotiated through the proper channels. Do we really want to feel, as Sophocles said, that

“No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat”?

I do not believe we are cheats. Sophocles also said:

“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.”

I hope that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim does not have too much pride. Call me old-fashioned, but I am afraid that whether we like it or not, we have to negotiate a treaty or an agreement through the proper channels.

[Dr Arthur]

I am impressed by my hon. Friend’s knowledge of the classics. He makes an important point, because it is almost as if we were being presented with a false choice between ripping up the Windsor agreement and setting it in stone. It has already been shown that the agreement can adapt and evolve, and it will continue to do so.

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point: treaties are renegotiated all the time. Yes, that can be messy—as I have said, we have a great deal of experience of how messy it is—but that has never stopped us from doing it, or attempting to do it, in good faith.

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[Alex Burghart]

I will not, actually. I have points to make and I want to leave the Minister time to make her speech and take interventions from Members in all parts of the House.

One thing that strengthened the Windsor framework was “Safeguarding the Union”, which is critical to where we are now. Hon. Members will remember that the Northern Ireland Assembly came back together only because of “Safeguarding the Union”. If elements of it are removed, it is possible that that agreement will fall away, although we hope that it will not. If it does, it will risk the stability of our institutions in Northern Ireland.

There are many points that one could raise—I have asked a lot of parliamentary questions on this—but there are some specifics on which we are now owed some detail. The first is about the independent monitoring panel. The internal market system is supported by the UK internal market guarantee, which is overseen by the independent monitoring panel, but when will the panel first report? Secondly, we have Intertrade UK, which could be an important body. We were all pleased to see Baroness Foster appointed in September, but as far as I am aware, Intertrade UK’s terms of reference have still not been published. That is unacceptable. We are now three months on from appointing a chair, and many months on from the publication of “Safeguarding the Union”. Intertrade UK must have its terms of reference, and they must be shared with Members of this House.

Similarly, we must have regular updates from the Government on business preparedness for the internal market system. It is not enough for us to depend on Members of the Opposition to ask questions proactively; the Government should report regularly on that.

[Dr Arthur]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way—I am sure that he will be grateful for the chance to sit down briefly. He has been very constructive, and I welcome that, but in reality the Government have largely inherited this situation, which is quite a difficult one, given the friction and the other issues that we need to discuss. Does he not think that he is being a little impatient by demanding progress so soon?

[Alex Burghart]

No, I do not think I am being impatient, because this is an extremely important subject. We were all aware, when the Command Paper was published earlier this year, that this would need to be done. The framework was in the Labour party’s manifesto, so we assumed that it was making those preparations. It is perfectly possible to put together terms of reference for Intertrade UK within three months, for example. We are not being impatient; such things need to be done for a reason and within a reasonable time. I know that the Minister is alive to the importance of those things, but I hope that she will hurry that work along.

It is clear that under this Government the Windsor framework will continue to run. How successfully it runs will depend on any deals they strike and on whether they are able to uphold the commitments made in “Safeguarding the Union”. However, as Opposition Members have said, the limitations of the Windsor framework, in practical terms and on constitutional principle, are clear. That is why we must continue to seek even better solutions.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green talked about the Bill’s central issue: mutual enforcement. During the Brexit negotiations, mutual enforcement was categorised as “magical thinking,” but I think that was an unfair ploy used by people who did not want to do it. It is thinking that has magical potential but it is not magical thinking, because, as my right hon. Friend spelled out, mutual enforcement has already been done. We have seen it work in the EU’s dealings with New Zealand. Significantly, we heard that Monsieur Barnier was open to it, and that people involved in formulating policy at the time have stated again that they know it is deliverable. I just do not want anyone on either side of the House to think that mutual enforcement cannot be pursued; it can and must be. With the good will and the technology, there is no reason why there cannot be a future in which mutual enforcement plays a role.

During the Brexit negotiations, I remember being told repeatedly, as a Back-Bench Member, that there could not be any border checks, any infrastructure, or any checks near the border. However, in recent months we have seen that is not true. We know that it is not true because the Republic is conducting Operation Sonnet, which it is perfectly entitled to do. Operation Sonnet is a series of checks performed by the Garda on people crossing the border to make sure that they are not crossing illegally.