Northern Ireland Protocol

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), whose very sensible and pragmatic approach to the issue of the protocol is one I commend to his hon. and right hon. Friends on the Government Benches.

It is remarkable that it is the Prime Minister and Lord Frost who negotiated the protocol. I now read that Lord Frost is saying things like, “I had not really understood the chilling effect of the agreement.” We have to ask whether he did understand, really, what he was signing up to, or whether this is now part of political rhetoric and the unfortunate cycle of distrust and increasing mistrust between not just the United Kingdom and the European Union, but the United Kingdom and the United States and even, alas, the population in Northern Ireland. I understand that only 6% of the population in Northern Ireland have any trust in our United Kingdom Government. That is a staggering statistic. On the answer to this, I share the Select Committee Chair’s view that we have to rebuild trust in our relationships.

One of the bizarre things is that for an awful lot of industry and commerce in Northern Ireland, the reality is that the world is going on very well. If we cast our minds back to 9 January, I think it was, the Belfast News Letter carried an article that quoted the Road Haulage Association saying that we were within five days of our supply chains to Northern Ireland breaking down. We are now in day 208. Those supply chains have not broken down and most businesses are getting on with getting around some of the undoubted issues that arose through the protocol.

Manufacturing Northern Ireland tells me that its members are overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the protocol, not necessarily entirely as is, but as the basis going forward. They do not want to see another big change. The Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently reported in its quarterly economic survey that two thirds of its members believe that Northern Ireland’s unique status post EU exit presents opportunities for the region. These are not the cries that we have heard today about business and commerce being savaged by the protocol.

I accept that there are specific circumstances that are difficult. These are technical issues and technical issues require technical answers. Some of that can happen by us agreeing to adopt veterinary standards that are compatible with the EU. That would be a very sensible way forward. It would mean that even chilled meats could travel through Great Britain into Northern Ireland. If we make sure that we have that alignment, that is not necessarily against our interests, not simply with regard to Northern Ireland but in allowing GB produce from our farms to be sold into the rest of the European Union. We have to look for a common-sense solution.

These technical issues can be resolved only if we build back the relationship of trust between Brussels and London, and, as the Chair of the Select Committee said, recognise that we need to extend that climate of trust to all 27 capitals of the European Union countries if we are to go forward. The real tragedy is that the erosion of trust has been built on political advantage in terms of domestic politics by our Prime Minister. He has to turn away from that because it is so dangerous. The threat to the Good Friday agreement does not come through the protocol; it comes through the drip-drip erosion of trust in governance in the United Kingdom on the part of the people of Northern Ireland. The 6% who do trust this Government are now a remarkably small minority. We have to rebuild that trust now. Dial down the rhetoric, Prime Minister, and, yes, dial down the rhetoric in Brussels as well. We must recognise that the erosion of trust is damaging for the United Kingdom not simply in terms of UK-EU relations, and not even simply in the context of Northern Ireland—it is also massively damaging in our relationship with, for example, President Biden. We know that he reported that strong words were spoken advising the UK Government to dial down the climate of antagonism and distrust.

Let us get the technical solutions sorted out. Let us get issues around common veterinary standards sorted out. That would be popular in both GB and Northern Ireland. Let us dial down, as I say, this climate of mistrust. Let us begin to rebuild capacity to have these negotiations on the basis of not public rhetoric and public diplomacy, but the hard work that we expect our diplomats to do in quiet rooms. In that way, we can all move forward.