Unfortunately, I missed it, but I have heard from one of the enraptured fans of the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) that he asked what in the withdrawal agreement, what in Brexit and what in this protocol defends the Good Friday agreement. If the Committee does not mind, I will take a minute to explain.
I do not know whether Members watched the sit com “Only Fools and Horses”, but anytime Del wanted Rodney to do something difficult or emotional, he would say, “Rodney, on her deathbed, our mother said…” Then he would proceed to make his pitch. I feel that, sometimes, the Good Friday agreement is used in the same way.
For example, the Prime Minister is before a Committee today, invoking the Good Friday agreement and then proceeding to endorse actions that would go through it. I will take a minute to explain this to people and invite them to take their understanding of the Good Friday agreement not from those who stood outside and screamed through the windows when people were negotiating that agreement, and not from people who fought tooth and nail to prevent the implementation of the agreement while others were doing the heavy lifting to prevent slaughter on the streets and hopelessness for young people.
When people go to listen about the Good Friday agreement, they should please select their sources carefully. It does not have an enormous amount to say about borders, hard or soft, because, it is fair to say, in 1998 there was an assumption that shared EU membership, like the air around us and the ground beneath our feet, would be something that we would have in common between Britain and Ireland. There are numerous references to growing friendships between our two islands through that body. It says a lot about relationships. It is about relationships at its core—about relationships within Northern Ireland between different traditions, relationships north and south, and relationships between our two islands. The past four years have profoundly strained every single one of those relationships. Furthermore, the things that that we wanted or needed to talk about less—borders, sovereignty and passports; the things that the Good Friday agreement allowed us to potentially move on from—have been inserted into our everyday lives every minute of every hour of the past four years. It also has a lot to say in the political declaration about the rule of law—about democratically agreed structures and respectful process. Members can decide whether or not what has happened in the past four years meets those criteria.
Our amendment 19 seeks to mitigate some of the damage caused by clause 46. As well as all that I have said about the Good Friday agreement, it was also about local decision making and putting power in the hands of local people—building up trust between communities and between elected representatives by working in the common interest in making decisions together. Indeed, it was those factors, with the possibility of self-determination and unhindered access to the whole of the island, that allowed peaceful, constitutional, democratic Irish nationalism of the tradition that my hon. Friend the
Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and I represent to triumph over violent republicanism. That is some of what we are losing whenever we take away the ability for people to make their own decisions.
We are not making a nationalist argument. The argument is not that we are opposed to a UK internal market. I can read a spreadsheet as well as anybody in this room, and I understand the value of the economy and all that flows east to west. By the way, of course, the barriers to trade are a consequence of hard Brexit ideology; we argued and fought against barriers in any direction. The point that we are trying to make is that we need to protect the discretion to tailor to our own needs. The late John Hume, who passed away last month, said many times that the best peace process is a job. It was EU structural funds, regional funds and rural funds that transformed Northern Ireland at a time when it desperately needed them. They did that by engaging local expertise and an understanding of local need. I have heard Members complain that some of the regions got more than their fair share. I do not feel any shame about that, because those funds were targeted on the basis of need, and Northern Ireland did benefit very substantially. But those funds will disappear and will be replaced by the shared prosperity fund, which has no defined role for the devolved institutions. As we heard earlier, we were promised a consultation on what that would look like by the end of 2018, but, as far as I am aware, it has not appeared.
I will never be one to turn up my nose at investment for anywhere, particularly for the region I represent, but it has to be investment that is spent strategically, with consent. Public money should be spent in a joined-up and transparent way—and I say, with the greatest respect, that this Government do not have a tremendous record on any of those things. Every few months, they raise the prospect of a bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland—this, by the way, from a Prime Minister who could not build a bridge from London to London. If you actually go to Northern Ireland, you will find that most people would much rather have a decent road from Belfast or Derry.
A core part of the 1998 agreement, strand 2, was about north-south co-operation and the potential for that through shared EU funds. The new proposed approach could greatly undermine that if these investments are made without appropriate consultation. I appreciate that people have different perspectives and I try to understand them, but what some Conservative Members and others here might see as the opportunities of global Britain I worry will become, under this Bill, the obligations of global Britain to accept things like chlorinated chicken and the US forays into public services. With respect, before the summer we gave this Government numerous opportunities, in numerous Bills, to put into legislative effect protections against those things, and they refused to do so. It is therefore understandable that people within those industries in devolved areas do not have the confidence that they would be able to ward off those changes. It must also be understood that our economy is very different. A third of Northern Ireland’s exports are in agrifoods; we cannot withstand that same pressure, as this is how people make their living.
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London-led development also, of course, has the potential to be inconsistent with the needs of future generations, and for that reason we will certainly be
supporting amendment 20, which would require funded projects to be consistent with environmental goals and targets. The Bill is wide in its scope, but it talks about water, rail and health, and about acquisition. I want to ask the Minister: at what point does acquiring become acquisition? Would the provision in question allow the UK Government to acquire Northern Ireland Water or Translink, our transport company, and privatise it? They can tell me whether or not they would do that, but I think that the Bill is clear that they could do it.
It is also possible that as well as the withdrawal agreement another document the Prime Minister has not read very well is January’s “New Decade, New Approach” deal in Northern Ireland, because it promised to
“restore public confidence in devolved government”.
This Bill undermines devolved government—it does it very clearly. As I mentioned, the political declaration that accompanied the 1998 agreement does talk about primacy of the rule of law and democratic arrangements. I would hope that all Members in this House, whether they voted leave or remain—no matter how sore I am about it, I accept that a decision has been taken—and regardless of their position on that issue, could support the rule of law. No matter whether someone is a nationalist, Unionist or completely agnostic, the principle of devolution has been endorsed by the people of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This Bill is an assault on that principle, and anybody who respects consent, and the views of people in those Administrations and those populations, should support the amendments.