Checks on Goods: Northern Ireland and Great Britain

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union if he will make a statement regarding checks on goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain and Great Britain to Northern Ireland under the current withdrawal agreement.

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Stephen Barclay)]

On 17 October, the United Kingdom and the European Union reached political agreement on a new withdrawal agreement and political declaration for the future relationship. That includes a revised protocol for Northern Ireland, which has been extensively debated in this House. The agreement is clear that Great Britain and Northern Ireland are one customs territory. Goods that are not at risk of moving to the European Union will attract no tariffs. These arrangements mean that Northern Ireland would remain in the UK’s customs territory and could benefit from the UK’s new trade deals with third countries. Goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland that are destined for the European Union will have to comply with European Union rules. To ensure that the correct tariffs are applied and that goods comply with the rules of the single regulatory zone, some information will be needed on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

The deal also explicitly allows the United Kingdom to ensure unfettered market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. There will be minimal targeted interventions designed to prevent, for example, trade in endangered species, which I would have thought the House agreed on. We will work with the European Union to eliminate those limited processes as soon as possible after Brexit. The most important point is that the arrangements automatically dissolve after four years unless a majority of the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont votes to keep them.

[Tony Lloyd]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, which really does matter.

There is confusion at the very heart of government. Yesterday, the Prime Minister told the House there would be “no checks” and “no tariffs” between Northern Ireland and Great Britain; that is in direct contradiction to what the Secretary of State just told the House. It is in contradiction with the steadily progressing views expressed in different statements from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Justice Secretary, who said last night on “Newsnight” that there will be checks in both directions—from GB to Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland to GB. The manifest confusion at the heart of government is compounded by the confusion for businesses in Northern Ireland—particularly small businesses—and the Northern Ireland civil service in planning for the long term. That is simply unacceptable. The Government were trying to ram the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill through the House in three days, but they themselves do not properly understand what they are doing. That is problematic, and we need absolute clarity.

While this is outside the Secretary of State’s immediate brief, there are other consequences. The House spent a long time arguing that there should be no hard border across the island of Ireland to prevent an impact on the nationalist community; we did not think we would now be talking about the impact on the Unionist community and political Unionism. The new Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said:

“whatever ends up as a Brexit deal, if there is one that could be perceived in a way that sort of threatens the security of the loyalist community...our concern is also the loyalist community has at times shown it can mobilise quickly, bring large numbers of people on to the streets and engage in public disorder in support of their cause.”

I hope that every Member takes that warning very seriously, because it is a profound warning from a senior and experienced police officer.

I have a number of specific questions for the Secretary of State. First, what overall impact assessment have the Government made for the Northern Ireland economy? What assessment have they made for trading ports and airports in Scotland, Wales and England? Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates that each declaration for shipments from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will cost between £15 and £56, and Border Force says that a “minimum amount” of electronic information will be required for movements from west to east. When will the Secretary of State be able to give certainty to businesses about what the checks will be and how they will be undertaken? If the Justice Secretary was right when he told “Newsnight” that there would be checks from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, when will we know the detail of what those checks will be, rather than their being superficially dismissed as of no importance?

In the end, the Government have to put an end to this confusion. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that he will make an early statement to the House about the full impact of the checks in both directions? Does he accept the warning of the Chief Constable about the potential impact and do the Government take that seriously? If so, what is their assessment? Finally, I have to ask about a political point, although it is an important one: does the Secretary of State believe that the Prime Minister himself at last understands the impact of his deal on Northern Ireland and on the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of our country?

[Stephen Barclay]

I know that the House and the hon. Gentleman take these issues very seriously. He raises some very legitimate points, which I will seek to address.

First and foremost was the hon. Gentleman’s concern about any hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. I am happy to give him assurances on that; it is a key part of what the Government have agreed. If he looks at the preamble to the Northern Ireland protocol, he will see clear commitments from the EU and the UK to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It states that

“nothing in this Protocol prevents the United Kingdom from ensuring unfettered market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom”.

The hon. Gentleman also raised a legitimate concern about the statement from the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The Government take it incredibly seriously, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland liaises closely with the Chief Constable and other senior officers. This is one reason why it is important to get the Executive back up and running, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees. Part of the reason why the Government extended article 50, for which they were criticised at the time, was precisely that the previous Prime Minister took those concerns very seriously, and we have continued to work with the PSNI to address them. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman that one of the central concerns is the potential impact of no deal on the border, which is another reason it is important that the House comes together and agrees a deal, because that is the best way of safeguarding the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and addressing those concerns.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the comments of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was distinguishing between the paperwork required, which will be done digitally and is a single form, and the introduction of physical checks. In the coming months, we will work within the United Kingdom and with the European Union to discuss how to eliminate the limited administrative processes that there are. The hon. Gentleman will know that article 6 of the protocol requires further work through the Joint Committee to minimise any impact. That is an ongoing commitment.

The hon. Gentleman made a valid point about certainty for business. It is something we hear about in our engagement with businesses in Northern Ireland. It is important to reassure businesses that this is an administrative process—an electronic form—and something as part of bookings that will be done with the haulier as an aspect of the shipment of goods. It will involve fairly straightforward data about who is exporting, who is importing and the nature of the goods. That said, I am happy to have further discussions with him, because he does reflect concerns among businesses, particularly the small and medium-sized enterprises sector in Northern Ireland, about these arrangements.

The hon. Gentleman also asked when we would come back to the House with further updates. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is keen to continue to update the House, following his discussions on this issue and, more widely, about the restoration of the Executive. I will speak to my right hon. Friend about how we keep the House updated.

The issue is that these are administrative processes pertaining in particular to international obligations on things such as Kimberley diamonds and endangered species and to things that hauliers will be able to prepopulate in their IT systems. However, it is the case—the hon. Gentleman is right—that concerns have been expressed in Northern Ireland. Indeed, concerns have been expressed, which I very much respect, by our confidence and supply partners. Again, I very much offer to work with colleagues across the House on how we address the real concerns—the very real concerns—that I know they have to minimise any disruption that they are concerned about.

Irish Border: Customs Arrangements

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and he makes a very good point. The British public do want us to get on with this, and the best way we can get a deal is continuing serious discussions, through use of these technical papers, with the EU and coming forward with more concrete proposals shortly.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Let us return to the question of the Irish border, because it matters. The Good Friday agreement was a guarantor that we had moved beyond the period of conflict. What we are risking now is not only a dangerous time in the history of this country, but our relationships across the island of Ireland and the world. We are 70 days into the premiership of Prime Minister Johnson and there are 30 days until the Brexit date. It is now time that the House had clarity from this Minister or from other Ministers about what the Government intend to do to deliver on the Irish border.

Everybody in the House knows that the backstop was there to guarantee that there would be no hard border across the island of Ireland. That is fundamental to delivering on the Good Friday agreement. We all know that while the European Union has said that it is prepared to negotiate around the words of the backstop, it is not prepared to compromise on the spirit of it—that Northern Ireland should be part of the customs union and the single market regulatory standards of the European Union. When the Prime Minister says that “the reality” of Brexit is that there will need to be customs checks on the island of Ireland, it is in stark contrast to the words of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland this morning that there would be no checks five or 10 miles into Ireland. That would be in breach of the joint declaration of 2017, and importantly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) pointed out, would be in breach of section 10 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which made it clear that any arrangements for Northern Ireland after exit day that featured border posts or customs controls would not be acceptable.

The Minister has to come clean to the House about what the future holds for us. The Good Friday agreement is far too important for us to put it at risk by fooling around. If this were just farce, we might all laugh at the high-wire tricks of the Prime Minister, but this is dangerous. It puts the Good Friday agreement and its hard-won gains in jeopardy. It is not just Northern Ireland and Ireland that deserve better, as the Irish Foreign Minister said, but this House and the whole country. The Minister has got to do better.

[James Duddridge]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman: the Good Friday/ Belfast agreement is essential. Where we differ is on where we feel conflicts may be brought about on that agreement. He feels they will be brought about by removing the backstop; I think there is a greater risk of leaving the backstop there and ending up in a situation in which Northern Ireland is part of the customs union in perpetuity and takes a different direction. I think that is the greater risk, and I remind him that the alternative arrangements are not a solution to the backstop. The alternative arrangements would always have to be there. What we are doing is putting a date on when we will get that sorted out, rather than leaving an indefinite period.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Duddridge]

Specifically on alternative arrangements, there is an architecture that supports these discussions. There is a technical-level group, which is chaired by the Secretary of State, and which includes industry experts, and there is also a business consultative group working towards alternative arrangements under a deal that will come after exit day.

[Tony Lloyd]

You don’t believe that.

[James Duddridge]

The hon. Gentleman says he does not believe it. I chaired the group last time, along with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. There is constructive agreement and frank discussion within that group, and that happens outside the consultative group forum as well—I have set up several bilateral meetings with businesses since.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

This has been an interesting and passionate debate, with a wide range of views expressed. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster may be in a small minority among those who have spoken, but nevertheless, I know he is up for the debate.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) told us earlier that nothing much has changed since the debates before Christmas but, of course, one significant thing has changed. I am happy for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and me to be winding up this debate, but the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was due to speak in the original series of debates. The change is a matter of great regret given that Northern Ireland, which did not figure very much in the referendum—although I recognise that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster spoke in Northern Ireland numerous times—has now come to be probably the single most dominant issue. I propose to devote the bulk of my remarks to the situation in that part of the United Kingdom.

It is a shame and a mistake that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has not been with us at some point in today’s debate, and I hope the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will take that message back. It is obvious that, although a no-deal Brexit would be very difficult for my constituents in Rochdale and for constituents across this United Kingdom of ours, it would be potentially catastrophic in Northern Ireland.

I recognise there are different views, and hon. Members from Northern Ireland have expressed those views, but I have to disagree with the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who told the House that the European Union did not figure as part of the Good Friday agreement. In fact, the context in which the Good Friday agreement was able to flourish existed precisely because, when the agreement was drawn up, both the United Kingdom—Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom—and Ireland were part of the European Union. There was no question of a hard border across the island of Ireland, and no question of regulatory non-alignment down the Irish sea.

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene, because there is a danger that he misunderstands my point. I was referring to the suggestion that there were provisions in the Belfast agreement that specifically said there could be no border infrastructure. I entirely recognise not only the support that is given but the encouragement and full co-operation in developing mutual understanding and respect and in building relationships. Those are the grounding principles to which he refers, and I think they will endure no matter what.

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Gentleman and I are on the same page in hoping that those relationships do endure and are not put at risk.

When I say that a no-deal Brexit would be potentially dangerous, it is not a personal view. It is a view that many people in Northern Ireland have expressed to me, and one of the most influential of those voices is that of Chief Constable George Hamilton. He has put it on the public record many times that he thinks a no-deal Brexit, with the possibility of a hard border and some kind of infrastructure—and not necessarily only on the border—would be a potential source of difficulty for his officers and, ultimately, a potential source of danger to the people of Northern Ireland and, beyond that, the people of the island of Ireland and of Great Britain, too. My constituency at the time was where the last IRA device went off in Great Britain. We are all aware of the absolute ambition not to go back to those days, and a no-deal Brexit is simply unconscionable in that context.

In that light, it is not surprising that the Irish Government have wanted to work hard on this issue. I understand why the backstop was put into the agreement; there is no disagreement among the Opposition that there is a need for a guarantee that there be no hard border on the island of Ireland. What is difficult, though, is to recognise that equally important to the Good Friday agreement was the idea that there be no regulatory misalignment between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is the problem that we are currently confronting.

The current situation arose because although both elements I have mentioned are important parts of the Good Friday agreement, the Prime Minister introduced a third element in her Lancaster House speech when she said that there would be no customs union, no single market and no reference to the European Court of Justice. In doing that, she created three incompatible positions. With any two of those three positions, it would be possible to get a deal, but it is not possible to have a Brexit agreement that satisfies all three. That is the situation we now face. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union extolled the virtues of this new document earlier but, although I do not wish to be unkind, it says nothing new. There is nothing in it that gives succour to Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies or to those of us who believe that we should stay together as one United Kingdom in this process.

I refer the House back to the December 2017 joint report of the United Kingdom and the European Union. Paragraph 50 made it clear that

“the United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, unless, consistent with the 1998 Agreement, the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree that distinct arrangements are appropriate for Northern Ireland.”

There was a guarantee in December 2017, but that guarantee had disappeared by the time we got the protocol. I use moderate words, but that is not acceptable. The House has to understand the emotional setting of the Good Friday agreement. It is not simply about technical trade agreements; it is of emotional significance. It is an agreement about a balance between the two communities. The need for there to be no hard border across the island of Ireland, but also no regulatory dislocation down the Irish sea, is fundamental to guaranteeing the continuation of what the Good Friday agreement achieved.

[Gavin Robinson]

It would be remiss of me not to intervene again. The point that the shadow Secretary of State is making is incredibly important. The rationale behind paragraph 50 was that it replicated paragraph 12 of strand two of the Belfast agreement. It is now impossible for the Government to say that they implement and respect the Good Friday agreement in all its parts, because paragraph 50, and the parts of the Belfast agreement that I have referred to, do not feature at all in the withdrawal agreement.

[Tony Lloyd]

Again, the hon. Gentleman and I are on exactly the same page. The Prime Minister also agreed with that viewpoint. On 28 February last year, the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) asked her to

“reinforce her earlier comments”

and

“confirm that she will never agree to any trade borders between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom”.

The Prime Minister replied:

“The hon. Gentleman is right: the draft legal text that the Commission has published would, if implemented, undermine the UK common market and threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish sea, and no UK Prime Minister could ever agree to it.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2018; Vol. 636, c. 823.]

This Prime Minister has agreed to it.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster now has to explain how we get out of this morass. Frankly, it will not be enough to adopt the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), which suggests that there can be a unilateral British disruption of the “no hard border” guarantee, because of course that will not be acceptable to the European Union. When the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster replies, he needs to sort out how we can unpick this. Back-pedalling may be necessary to try to bring on board votes to keep this deal going, but it will betray the principles on which the Good Friday operates, and we cannot allow that.

There has been a wide debate today about trading relationships, which are crucial. It is important that trade continues. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras tried to reach out across the House on that. It is interesting to see how much the debate has already begun to move on from the Government’s deal to the possibility of a wider deal that Parliament will have to strike. When this deal fails next week, as, I think, most of us believe it will, the House will have to begin a thoughtful process of bringing together the consensus that can take this nation of ours forward.

To return to the Good Friday agreement and the impact of Brexit, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster knows, this is not just about trade but about the important issue of security. In his earlier role as Minister for Europe, he told the Belfast Telegraph in the run-up to the referendum that

“the ease with which security agencies in the EU could share intelligence provided the best protection against terrorist threats.”

He went on to say that

“while extradition of criminals in Europe in the past could have taken years, it now happens within weeks.”

He said that police can also more easily and quickly share evidence such as fingerprint and DNA files. Importantly, he said this to the people of Northern Ireland—and to the people of the whole of the United Kingdom:

“If you’re outside the EU you can try to negotiate an arrangement, but you’re going to be at the back of the queue”.

As of today, because of this blind Brexit process that we have been offered, we have no knowledge of what will happen with the European arrest warrant, and no knowledge of whether we will be able to continue to use the Secure Information Exchange Network Application and the European Criminal Records Information Exchange System. Those databases are fundamental to law and order across the whole United Kingdom, but also fundamental in the Northern Ireland context. I hope that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster can say something a lot more positive than simply that we can rely on a blind Brexit to guarantee the safety of our citizens.

I also say to the Government that their lack of preparation for the possibility of a difficult Brexit is remarkable. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) referred to “fridgegate” and the improbability of the Health Secretary buying in so many fridges, but at least there is some sense of preparation there. In the context of Northern Ireland, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been asking for extra police for a long time. When my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) was shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, he pressed the Government on the issue many times, asking when those extra police—the Patten numbers—will be made available. At last, those numbers have been announced. But to recruit and train a police officer is about more than just a Government press release. It takes months and months to get them operational. The Government have said that they rely on mutual assistance from police forces in the rest of the United Kingdom, but as a former police and crime commissioner with the knowledge of how stretched our police services are here in England, Scotland and Wales, I must say that the idea that mutual assistance should be the mainstay of the way in which we police Northern Ireland is, frankly, ridiculous.

The one point on which I hope the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will agree with me is that, while there is the possibility of the armed forces being used during the Brexit process in the rest of the United Kingdom, the one place that the return of the Army would be very difficult to explain and unacceptable is Northern Ireland. I hope that tonight, the Government will guarantee that the use of the Army in Northern Ireland will simply not be on the agenda.

I welcome the 300 extra police officers, but the Government must begin to get real and say that if we are looking at a Brexit-related security situation in Northern Ireland, the PSNI needs the resources to do the job. That feeling should be common across this House. It is a matter not of party political dialogue but of common sense, and I hope that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will take that point on board.

One of the problems with the Brexit debate is that in some ways it has been very dry and technical. The people my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) talked about—those who felt they had been left out—simply did not know what this debate was all about. That is a really important point that this House has to understand. In the end, this is about the nature of the society that we are. One thing about the Good Friday agreement that was fundamentally important and that went beyond the technical issues, the institutions and all the rest was the process of human reconciliation; it was about saying that we can live better together than apart.

[Mr McFadden]

While my hon. Friend is on the point of communities that feel left out of the national story, does he agree that nobody in the European Union is preventing us from building more houses, challenging educational inequality, improving the physical environment or doing many of the things that we need to do to create a better future for the type of communities we are talking about?

[Tony Lloyd]

I fundamentally agree with my right hon. Friend. That is true for those in the west midlands, the north-west of England and other parts of Great Britain, and especially in Northern Ireland, where jobs, housing and decent health services are so important but are not yet on the agenda. Raising our aspiration there is of fundamental importance.

If we are to be true to the Good Friday agreement when it comes to Brexit, the present deal does nothing for the process. This deal divides people. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) about the level of hate that has come out of this debate. In Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, we have to get back to a more rational politics that builds hope for the future, but that is not on the agenda with this deal. That building of hope is fundamental in Northern Ireland. When people felt dispossessed, they turned to violence. When people feel dispossessed, they turn to despair. We know the price that society pays for that, and we know the price that people in Northern Ireland and throughout the rest of the country have paid for that in the past. The Government have to raise their sights, recognise that this Brexit deal will not work, and move on. They must bring this House of Commons together in a way that allows us to get the consensus we need to build a Brexit that offers hope for the future to all the people of this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

There are certainly no plans to hold elections in this country to the European Parliament. In any hypothetical extension of article 50, that would be an important point for the EU27, because there could be a question mark about the legality of actions by a European Parliament in the future if not every member state had members of that European Parliament who had been properly elected. That is yet another reason why it would not be sensible for Members of this House who advocate an extension of article 50 simply to assume that the EU27 would happily be prepared to accept that. I do not believe that that is the case at all.

I will now turn to some of the points made. Like the hon. Member for Rochdale, I want to spend a lot of the time I have speaking about the Northern Ireland question, which came up not only in the extremely moving and compelling speech from the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), but in speeches from Members in different parts of the House.

First, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras challenged the Government over the paper that we published earlier today and said that he did not think there was any new commitment in it. There are two things that are completely new. On the other matters, we have put greater flesh on commitments that had already been given at a high political level. But we have not previously committed to requiring Stormont agreement to any new laws that the EU proposed to add to the backstop, and we have not previously committed to giving a restored Northern Ireland Executive a seat at the table at the committee overseeing the Northern Ireland backstop.

I accept, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did, that the paper we have published today will not be sufficient to meet all the concerns that the hon. Member for Belfast East and his colleagues have expressed, but it marks a genuine step forward in giving expression to our wish to make it very clear that we see Northern Ireland’s place in not only the political union of the United Kingdom but the single economic internal market of the United Kingdom now and into the future.

The hon. Member for Rochdale said that his personal test was that there should be no regulatory divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Of course, as he will know, there are some sectors where there is such regulatory divergence at the moment—notably on animal health and trading in livestock—for good practical reasons that are long established. One element of today’s package is greater clarity than we have given before that Northern Ireland goods under all circumstances would have full access to customers and markets in Great Britain, and that in the event of a backstop ever coming into operation, we would seek to align regulations in Great Britain with those that applied in Northern Ireland for the duration of the backstop.

[Tony Lloyd]

This is a serious point, not a polemical one. We now have a situation where the rest of the UK will follow Northern Ireland. If that is the case, why was that not the base case written into the protocol?

[Mr Lidington]

Because these things are about the sovereign constitutional order of the United Kingdom. They involve decisions that we in this House make and that, in respect of certain devolved matters, we would need to make in partnership and consultation with the Governments in the three devolved areas of the United Kingdom. That is why these are things that we are expressing unilaterally.

[Tony Lloyd]

This comes to the nub of things, and it is the point that the hon. Member for Belfast East made. If I disagree with the Government proposing any form of regulatory change that affects my constituents in Rochdale, I can vote in this House. The hon. Member for Belfast East does not have that same facility, and that is what is different about this agreement.

[Mr Lidington]

I want to come on to talk more generally about the backstop. I am not going to hide the fact—the Prime Minister has said it openly—that this is something we find uncomfortable as a Government, but we do not believe it poses the risks to the Union that are expressed by its critics.

I want to take up the point about the Belfast agreement. The question has been raised in this debate and previously, including by the hon. Member for Belfast East, as to whether the protocol breaches the integrity of the three-stranded approach that is embodied in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is clear to me that the text of the protocol says in terms that it protects the 1998 agreement “in all its parts”. That is on page 303 of the document that is on the table. The protocol also refers to the scope for possible new arrangements for north-south co-operation but then goes on to define those as being in accordance with the 1998 agreement.

The Government’s own legal position is clear that article 13 of the protocol does not alter the remit of the North-South Ministerial Council or the north-south implementation bodies; nor does it alter strand two in any way. However, to avoid any doubt on this matter, in the paper today we have again given a commitment to legislate to provide explicitly that

“no recommendations made under Article 13(2) of the Protocol will be capable of altering the scope of…the North-South Ministerial Council, nor establishing new implementation bodies or altering the arrangements set out in the Belfast Agreement in any way.”

EU Exit Negotiations

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the shadow Brexit Secretary—for his opening remarks at least. He asked a number of questions. First, let me say that the Prime Minister would not normally update the House on an informal summit; that was not the practice under the previous Labour Governments, as he probably well knows. He asked me about the October Council. We have always been clear that we would aim for the October Council but there would be leeway that it might slip into November—we are still clear on that. The October Council next week will be an important milestone. We expect that to be a moment where we will make some progress. Of course, as I have said already in my remarks, we need the EU to match the ambition and the pragmatism that we have shown.

The shadow Secretary of State asked whether we were signing up to an indefinite customs union for Northern Ireland; no, that is categorically not correct.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

So what are you doing?

[Dominic Raab]

Had the hon. Gentleman been paying attention, he would have heard me set that out clearly in my statement.

The shadow Secretary of State talked about investment into this country, so I was surprised that he did not welcome Rolls-Royce’s recent decision to increase its investment in the UK or Unilever’s decision to maintain its dual UK-Dutch structure.

The shadow Secretary of State referred to my letter asking him some of the most basic questions on Labour’s policy on the substance. He has almost become the prince of process: he argues about protocol and procedure but cannot answer a single question on the substance. In reality, we got some answers at the Labour party conference. We had the shadow Secretary of State saying that Labour would whip a vote against any deal outside the customs union that the United Kingdom strikes with the 27 EU member states. Let us be clear: if all 28 Governments agree on a deal that works for the UK and for the EU, the Labour Front-Bench team, at least, would vote against it—they would try to veto it.

Worse still, the leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—I am glad that he is present to answer for this—has opened the door to a second referendum. That is a thinly veiled ruse to reverse Brexit altogether. It is now clear to every voter that the Labour leadership team have trashed their promise at the general election to deliver on Brexit; they have allowed political opportunism to consume what is in the national interests; and they have demonstrated, yet again, that they are just not fit to govern.