I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I begin by thanking my co-sponsors for their help and support with the Bill: the right hon. Members for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), and the hon. Members for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), for Clacton (Nigel Farage), for South Antrim (Robin Swann), for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), for North Down (Alex Easton), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). I also wish to thank my own staff for their assistance during recent weeks, particularly Dr Dan Boucher, who has worked tirelessly on these matters. I record my appreciation of international lawyer Mr Barney Reynolds for his help and guidance on many of the technical issues.
Since I came to this House in July, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard affirmations from the Government Benches about “fixing the foundations.” Well, there is one foundation that most assuredly needs fixed, and that is the foundation that flows from the inequitable post-Brexit arrangements as they affect my part of the United Kingdom: Northern Ireland. The foundations of this United Kingdom have been disturbed and dislodged by those arrangements. The primary purpose of this Bill is, yes, to fix those foundations—to restore equilibrium to Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom and to our relationship as a nation with the EU.
In fixing the foundations, we need to reflect on the most basic tenet of democracy, namely that a people should be governed by laws made by those they elect to make those laws. That is so fundamental that we all presumably almost take it for granted, yet tragically and with great constitutional detriment, that is no longer the position in respect of Northern Ireland. There are 300 areas of law where the right to make laws is not exercised in this House or in the devolved Assembly, but has been surrendered to the European Parliament. That is such a momentous thing that it should cause anyone who values the fundamentals of democracy—who clings to the principle that a people are entitled to elect those who govern them and make their laws—to be ashamed that this situation has evolved. It is not just a democratic deficit, but undemocratic plundering of the Northern Ireland statute book by the EU.
These are not incidental matters or trifling issues. They are the laws that deal with customs, general trade, goods, motor vehicles, cosmetics, toys, electrical equipment, textiles, medical devices, pesticides, waste, and food hygiene, ingredients and marketing. They cover 13 different areas of law dealing with food alone. They are the laws that deal with disease and with animals—with the breeding, welfare and identification of animals. Thirty-four different diktats of the EU govern all of that.