It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). We have become good friends since both serving together on the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and I hold him in the highest of respect.
On behalf of my colleagues, I pay tribute to the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who is in his place, for the work that he has done in bringing the Bill to this stage, and for the work that he did during his tenure as Secretary of State. He developed a good understanding of the difficulties in Northern Ireland with the protocol and the other issues. I know that it is his desire to move Northern Ireland to the next stage of the peace process to move towards reconciliation, but he recognised that there was a need to deal with these fundamental issues before we could get to that point. I thank him for the work that he has done in that regard. On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I extend our grateful appreciation.
I also welcome the new Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Shailesh Vara), to his place. I got to know him well when he was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office and we look forward to working with him in the weeks ahead on the issues that confront us at this time.
I want to respond to the points that have been made in relation to amendment 1 and related amendments, to deal with the question of necessity in particular and the immediacy of the risk that has given rise to the Government introducing this legislation. I understand the points that
have been made cogently here. Therefore, it is important, representing one element of the political community in Northern Ireland, to outline why we believe the Bill is necessary. We counsel against impeding the ability of the Government to press forward with this legislation.
On the risk, I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar). For us as Unionists, there is a risk to the Union in relation to how the protocol is being applied in Northern Ireland. Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland have stated that the protocol subjugates article 6 of the Act of Union. That article confers on Northern Ireland citizens the right to trade freely within their own country. It states that there shall be no barrier to trade between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. No one could reasonably argue that the protocol does not put in place barriers to trade. It most certainly does and I hear that every day from my constituents, whether they are consumers or businesses, and the difficulties that they are facing in trading with the rest of the United Kingdom.
Those difficulties have led to political instability in Northern Ireland. They have had an economic impact in Northern Ireland and I would argue strongly that there is the potential for that to lead to societal problems. We on these Benches have worked hard to ensure that those problems have not arisen. When people have taken to the streets and engaged in violence, we have worked in local communities to prevent a repetition of that. That has been the case across the community. It does not mean, though, that there are not strong feelings, particularly within the Unionist community, about what this protocol means not only for trade, which is important, but for their identity and for their place in the Union. As we have seen over the years in Northern Ireland, when people feel that their identity is threatened, when they feel that their place in the United Kingdom is being undermined, that can lead to societal problems.
The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has rightly argued that, from his perspective, he is looking to see the immediacy of the risk, but I say to him that it is there, it is very real and I ask him to take on trust from my contacts within the Unionist community that it is bubbling beneath the surface and we have worked hard to try to ensure that that does not emerge.
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