United Kingdom Internal Market

Stephen Farry Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Intertrade UK, a body about which Members will read in The Command Paper, will have an important job of work to do in that regard.

Back in October 2022, whenever we were under significant pressure to move and to accept our lot, my parliamentary predecessor, former First Minister of Northern Ireland and my mentor, Peter Robinson, issued a powerful post reminding colleagues and those of us who were under pressure that we had not come this far only to come this far. He was encouraging us to stand, and we stood our ground not only then but throughout all the hype and all the pressure associated with the publication of the Windsor framework. The three fundamentals that are expanded on in our seven tests were to repair the constitutional harm imposed upon our country, to remove the democratic deficit at the heart of the arrangements for parliamentarians in our Northern Ireland Assembly, and to reduce the friction on trade, and remove it in respect of GB-to-NI goods that are staying in the UK internal market.

That has been our quest. On the constitutional harm, I am delighted that, as a consequence of our party’s resolution, determination and stand over the past number of years, the leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) and this Parliament were able to speak to and agree the constitutional SI that just passed the House. That is an important milestone.

On the democratic deficit, let us not forget that what has been achieved in repairing and removing the democratic deficit, and giving Stormont a say in the rules that apply to Northern Ireland, did not just come by way of change in this place. The agreement of that resolution required a structural amendment to the Northern Ireland protocol, and article 13.3 and 13.4 of that protocol was amended. The Windsor framework did that, and, in the constitutional SI that we just passed, we have strengthened further still the legislative provisions around the operation of that process. I say that to indicate that what we were told could not happen—changes to these texts, these tablets of stone—has happened.

These regulations are an important document not in and of themselves but as part of a much wider package that has been secured, and that was published in yesterday’s Command Paper. That wider package has import in and of itself, and today’s proceedings have an importance attached to the prospect of a return to devolution. Our party is a devolutionist party. We believe in locally elected representatives in Northern Ireland having the ability to shape our future within the United Kingdom. The cost and consequence of not recognising the opportunity before us, of not seeing the gains that have been achieved, would be too damaging for Unionism and too damaging for the future of our Province within this country.

Neither this SI nor the SI we have just passed is the sum total of what we have agreed. I listened to the hon. Member for Aberconwy say that there is no issue for goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. He believes that because it has been said so many times, but it is not so. From 2017, successive Conservative Governments have always dismissed the fact that traders trade in both directions, and they have always answered through one prism, never recognising that we should be equally free to buy and sell in the marketplace.

Saying that trade has not been a concern is to belie the fact that, as Unionists within this country, we had a situation in which UK trade deals did not automatically apply to us in Northern Ireland. Consumers in Northern Ireland could not benefit from those trade deals.

Although it is not in this SI, it is worth mentioning that on Tuesday evening, as a consequence of our discussions and negotiations with the Government, and as published in the Command Paper, we saw the publication of 60 pages of legislative text that will see products from the rest of the world that are freely available in the rest of the United Kingdom now be available in Northern Ireland. Those products will be taken from the red lane into the UK internal market system.

Some 13,000 tonnes of products will be available that were not available until we secured the concession that recognises our rightful place within this United Kingdom and our access to UK free trade deals. That important step means that 14 million items will move from the red lane into the UK internal market system, and it will mean that free trade deals benefit the people of Northern Ireland in a way that they previously could not, in a way that they did not and in a way that was never previously considered. That progress has been secured by this agreement.

The House will also recognise that, as outlined not in this SI but in the deal itself, primary legislation will be introduced to remove what I can describe only as the legislative litter retained from the 2017 joint report on the fictional all-Ireland economy, which does not exist. The reason why goods are labelled “not for sale in the EU” when moving from GB to NI is because we have a separate and distinct arrangement. We are not the same as the rest of the island of Ireland. We are part of the United Kingdom, and this deal reinforces that.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about the phrase “all-Ireland economy,” but does he not recognise that a number of companies based in Northern Ireland essentially operate on an all-Ireland basis? His party’s leader, the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), has highlighted the obvious example of Coca-Cola, which is based in Lisburn and serves the entire island.

[Gavin Robinson]

It is always good to hear from the hon. Gentleman, but he knowingly confuses my point. He knows that Coca-Cola being situated in Northern Ireland and sending its products throughout the island of Ireland is a point that recognises our access to the single market, with which I take no issue—I see it as a practical benefit. He also ignores the fact that, in Northern Ireland, Coca-Cola is able to manage different tax regimes, different currencies and many different aspects which, in and of themselves, clearly demonstrate that there is no all-Ireland economy. I am not concerned about there being one, but I am concerned that there is one remaining reference in legislation that is totally irrelevant and has no force in effect but requires Ministers to have due regard to something that does not exist, and is part of this agreement.

The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill accepted red and green lanes but, under this new arrangement, there is no need for a lane to deal with goods coming from GB to NI and staying within the United Kingdom internal market. The checks required by the Windsor framework— tapering down to 5% by 2025 but, in real terms, 100% on some fruit and veg, 30% on meat, fish and poultry, and 15% on dairy—are gone, save for the ordinary checks we have in relation to smuggling and criminality. Those changes can only be achieved by opening the EU text and securing change in a way that we were told could not happen, that we were told was mythical or wishful thinking.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you have been very gracious in letting me speak around the SI up until this point. In the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, the Government proposed many things that were to be of benefit to us, but they dropped them. They had our support in protecting our place within the UK internal market, but they dropped the proposals. This deal brings them back again, but it also goes further.

Other Members have commented on this, but proposed new section 45A(2) of the 2020 Act says:

“Accordingly, this Act—

(a) prohibits the application of export procedures to goods removed from Northern Ireland to Great Britain”.

Whether or not Members think it has practical import, I can say as a Unionist that it has principled import. There should be no exit procedures. The exit procedures under the Northern Ireland protocol have caused us so much harm, and they have gone. That is important for all of us.

Subsection (3) says:

“In particular, that permanent unfettered access is achieved in relation to qualifying Northern Ireland goods through (among other things)—

(a) the mutual recognition”.

Mutual recognition has been discussed many times in this House, and it is an aspiration we all share. We were told it was mythical. We were told it was a unicorn project. We were told that it could never be achieved because the EU would never agree, yet in this SI, we have mutual recognition—something that could do away with the checks, the impediments and the impositions that were put upon us by this Parliament and resolve the barriers to trade within our own country. Something that had consequences for the principled and political integrity of our country is now gone, because we have achieved mutual recognition.

Why is that important? It is important in the context of the debate we have been having across the House. I am proud that we have put in measures about internal market impact assessments that probably seem a little boring, methodical and bureaucratic, but even if we go through the process of getting civil servants and policy- makers to understand that any choice they make could have an impact on the UK internal market and Northern Ireland’s place within it, to understand what those impacts are and seek to address them, and even if the conclusion is that parliamentary sovereignty reigns and the principal policymakers in this place decide that they will diverge in policy terms from where we are in Northern Ireland, we have a goods guarantee. Nobody on the DUP Benches is going to upset parliamentary sovereignty, but we will protect our place within this United Kingdom.

The goods guarantee—the mutual recognition that says that, irrespective of the standards that apply in either part of this country, our goods from Northern Ireland will always be welcome in the rest of the United Kingdom—is a gain. It is a gain even when others did not see it as a problem, because it future-proofs our place within this United Kingdom. It is something that was absent from the Windsor framework. It has been a long quest for all of those who have walked hard yards to resolve some of the issues that have arisen from our choice to leave the European Union, but our determination on those issues has never wavered, and a resolution has been achieved.

New section 46A of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act deals with indirect access. In that section, our Government are now saying very clearly that there can be no administrative checks, controls and processes, not only for direct movements between one part of our country and another but for indirect movements—direct movements, but for the fact that the goods have merely passed through the Republic of Ireland. That crystallises yet again the fact that we are not in an all-Ireland economy: we are different from our near neighbours. Legislatively, Northern Ireland hauliers and Northern Ireland businesses that are sending goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain will be able to do so in an unfettered way, even if they travel through a foreign country. Those controls will not apply to them.

Those achievements are worth focusing on, because we have been trying to resolve the unresolvable—to get focus on places where attention had moved elsewhere. It has taken much longer than we would have liked. I am sure that many Members on other Benches would have preferred the process to end a lot sooner as well, if only we had agreed to less, but we were not prepared to do so. The Windsor framework marked progress, but we said that there were unresolved issues: not only the potential for future divergence in GB that would put us in a difficult position, or gains that were offered in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill or, indeed, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act that were ultimately dropped—which we have now brought back and secured, and this Parliament is agreeing to—but resolving the unresolvable in a way that will have practical application for Northern Ireland, and for our place within this United Kingdom, now and for a long time to come.