International Trade Opportunities

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to your Lordships for permitting me to speak in the gap and I thank my noble friend Lady Mobarik for securing this debate.

I returned two days ago from the meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Malahide, near Dublin. As your Lordships will know, the assembly was created in the bad days of the 1990s to enable Back-Benchers from both sides to talk to each other. On the British side, it owed much in its early days to the imagination and vision of the then Peter Temple-Morris MP, before he entered this House. I am very happy to see the noble Lord, Lord Temple-Morris, in his place.

It will come as no surprise to your Lordships that there is considerable anxiety in the whole of the island of Ireland at the outcome of the referendum but particularly in the Republic, which, among the 27 members of the EU involved, probably has the most to lose from Brexit. In the context of this debate, Great Britain is Ireland’s largest trading partner. The Irish are especially worried about the effect of the weakness of the pound against the euro on their tourism, which depends on visitors from the United Kingdom. The retail trade in the south could be affected by the stream of shoppers from the Republic who will once again take the high road to Belfast and make shopping expeditions to take advantage of the weakness of the pound there.

I cannot say too strongly that a reversion to a closed border, which would become an EU border when Brexit takes place, would have a disastrous psychological impact, particularly on north-south relations within Ireland but also on wider British-Irish relations. It could have the effect of putting back Anglo-Irish relations 30 years or more, a theme that ran through the whole of the BIPA meeting from speakers from both sides. I am happy to say that at our meeting we had an assurance from the Minister for the Diaspora and Overseas Development Aid that it was the policy of the Irish Government to maintain the open border. I understand that following the referendum result, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister had an early conversation with the Taoiseach on this sensitive matter. I hope that as part of the Brexit settlement, the Irish border will be maintained in something like its current open state, whether by derogation or other means.

I finish by saying that the Anglo-Irish relationship is unique within the European Union as it is now constituted, and I urge Her Majesty’s Government, through the Minister, to do all in their power to ensure that in the coming Brexit negotiations this very special, close and mutually beneficial relationship will suffer the minimum disruption.