Whether this Humble Address is or is not a love letter to anyone, I will leave for others to debate, but it certainly can be described as a coda to the recent restoration of the institutions in Northern Ireland. As we have heard from the Minister, it addresses a number of matters that I shall briefly touch upon, but may I make it clear at the beginning that the Opposition will be supporting it?
This is our first opportunity as a House to welcome the return of devolved government, and I wish to acknowledge the leadership of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) in recognising that, for the sake of Northern Ireland and its people, the DUP needed to return to government, and in arguing the case for that course of action so persuasively. The Secretary of State and I have both had the pleasure of
meeting the new First Minister and Deputy First Minister. I must say that I agree with the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), that they have made a positive start and have set the tone for what we all hope will be a constructive and productive Administration. I join him in wishing both of them, together with the other members of the Executive and indeed the whole Assembly, every success in their responsibilities, because their task—our task, collectively—is to ensure that this restoration endures. Let us be frank, however. I hope people will also recognise that never again should Northern Ireland find itself without its Assembly and its devolved Government.
It is also right that we reaffirm our support for the Good Friday agreement in all its strands and dimensions. It is important for us to do so, because the agreement made possible the considerable progress we have seen in Northern Ireland, including the establishment of power sharing. That reaffirming is also needed because there was a perception that some of the language in the recent Command Paper was not wholly in keeping with the spirit of shared commitment.
I will raise one section of the Command Paper that I found genuinely puzzling, which is what it said about the all-island economy and the Government’s commitment to remove the legal duties to have regard to the all-island economy in section 10(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. That section of the withdrawal Act actually refers to having
“due regard to the joint report from the negotiators of the EU and the United Kingdom Government on progress during phase 1 of negotiations under Article 50”
on the United Kingdom’s orderly withdrawal from the EU. The report runs to 15 pages, but there appears, as far as I can see, to be only one reference in it to the all-island economy, in the last two lines of paragraph 49.
In responding, can the Minister explain what the effect would be of repealing section 10(1)(b) of the 2018 Act, given that it refers to the whole of the joint report, and not just to the reference in paragraph 49 to the all-island economy? Does that mean Ministers would no longer have to have regard to anything at all in the joint report —surely that cannot be the case—or are the Government saying that they wish to remove the reference to the all-island economy in paragraph 49? In that case, given that it was a joint report agreed between the United Kingdom and the European Union, have Ministers told the EU of their intentions? To follow up, when might we see the legislation and the new statutory guidance?
No one is in any doubt that Northern Ireland does far more trade with the UK internal market than it does with Ireland, and that will continue to be the case, but it is also evident that trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic has increased since we left the European Union. That tells us that the all-island economy is both a fact and greatly to the benefit of businesses and people in Northern Ireland, whether that is milk from Northern Ireland going south to be processed, or Coca-Cola produced in the firm’s flagship plant in Lisburn being sold all over Ireland and beyond, or Guinness coming north from Dublin.