It depends on whether—we come back to the term “special status”—the European Union is very flexible. I want to see a successful negotiation between the United Kingdom and the European Union, but it will always be particularly difficult on the island of Ireland.
We have to keep this in perspective. The amount of goods travelling north to south is, in European terms, comparatively modest. It is about 15% of Northern Ireland’s trade. The trade coming to Great Britain is 60%, and among the rest of the world mainland Europe has only 8%. So our main trading concern is with the rest of the United Kingdom and to have any kind of interruption or border in that would make absolutely no sense. We would be inflicting an economic wound on ourselves.
I turn to a couple of other points that have been made. First, many people spoke about the Good Friday agreement or Belfast agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, was kind enough to give me responsibility in that regard, along with the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney. We were all part of it and, perhaps because they both had duties here at Westminster and I did not, I probably spent virtually every day of those two years in the negotiations. The role played by the European Union in them was very modest. In fact, it was rarely mentioned except when it came to the conclusion. Then we looked for help from the European Union, which was forthcoming—and very generous it was. European Union expenditure is still there and, although it is
probably reaching its penultimate phase, we nevertheless have to keep it in perspective. Even at its peak, when we were an Objective 1 region and had ERDF and so on, it accounted for only 3.5% of the total public expenditure in Northern Ireland at its maximum. It is a lot less now.
The second point is more psychological, because it was accepted that we were both parts of the European Union. Everybody understood that and it was never debated on a line-by-line basis. Your Lordships should remember one other thing: that neither of the two principal parties which are now not leading the Executive were present for the strand one negotiations. The DUP was outside—calling the rest of us Lundies and traitors—and, while Sinn Fein was inside, ideologically it refused to participate in strand one negotiations and produced no papers. Sinn Fein did not ask us for an Irish language Act then. It just sat there and did nothing, while the DUP was not there. So they have not got into their heads the essence of what we were trying to do: to create a partnership-led Government, where both main traditions walked up the aisle together to send out a signal that we had embarked upon that partnership. That has not happened.
While I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on some of his earlier points today, I agree with him on this: our voice on the Brexit debate is stilled. I am aware of no coherent process for getting our views in there and I would like the Minister to address this in his wind-up. How will our views be injected into the negotiations? How will we have any sense of where they are going? Does anybody really understand the minutiae? I doubt it. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, is absolutely right that our voices are stilled at this crucial time. Given that the Northern Ireland Executive does not exist and that our total contribution from Stormont has been one two-page letter last August—that was the only contribution the Executive have made to the Brexit debate—then, at one of the most momentous times in our history, we are out to lunch. That is a criticism on all of us. It is outrageous and cannot be justified.
I know that the Minister’s colleague, his right honourable friend the Secretary of State, is doing his best, but we are now up against people who have different and bigger agendas. The Government have to find a formula so that the views of our business, our trade unions and our professionals—the people making money and creating jobs—are injected into this debate. That, in my opinion, is the yawning gap that we face right now.
8.30 pm