My Lords, I agree with Amendment 58 and I hope all noble Lords agree with it, because it is our shared intention. I am pretty sure that it is the intention of those negotiating on the part of the European Union that they will enter into an agreement that is thoroughly and completely compatible with the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.
However, the main point I want to make, apart from a subsidiary one on Amendment 82, is that this is neither necessary or, in truth, effective. Noble Lords will recall a number of occasions in Committee when
we discussed carefully the distinction between on the one hand the ratification of treaties and on the other their implementation into domestic legislation. In this instance, we already have in domestic legislation the enforcement of this principle. It is in Sections 21 to 24 and Schedule 3 to the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, which says, not least in Section 24, that Ministers of the Crown can make no alteration to the Belfast agreement. Therefore our domestic legislation already provides for our compliance with the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The point is that the purpose of this is to say that we will not ratify an agreement with the EU if it does not say that. I hope it will say that, but if it were not compatible, in any case it would have no effect in domestic law because domestic legislation already says that.
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However, I point out that we will come on to discuss this in this Chamber on Monday—although I may not be participating—in the Internal Market Bill, when we will be discussing a domestic legislative provision which would enable Ministers to disapply aspects of the protocol. The fact that the EU-UK agreement was or was not ratified does not change that. The question is about how the EU agreement with the United Kingdom is translated into domestic legislation. If we have that provision in the Internal Market Bill, the protocol could be disapplied, notwithstanding what is in the EU-UK deal. My view is that we should not have such a provision in the Internal Market Bill, but we will come on to debate that later.
I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the supporters of the amendment that they might like between now and Report to consider, first, what will happen on the Internal Market Bill, which I submit is of legislative significance, and, subject to that, whether they really need to argue that the deal with the European Union should not be ratified. I do not think that would be helpful in this context.
I will make one smaller and subsidiary point about Amendment 82. Only today, my noble friend Lord Agnew, speaking on behalf of the Treasury, said, “I can’t pretend that I am not worried that we haven’t nailed all this down.” By “all this” he meant all the provisions for the arrangements for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Time is short and the complexities are considerable. The trader support service is still being put in place. I therefore hope that my noble friend in responding to this debate will be able to say comforting things about the implementation of the trader support service. Amendment 82 does not have the effect that is claimed for it. It says that people should be able to access the trader support service at no cost. It does not say that there must be a trader support service, and it does not say that it must last beyond two years. If that is the intention of the supporters of the amendment, I rather agree with them. However, the trader support service is at the moment an administrative scheme. It would be simpler and better for Ministers to say that they are perfectly willing to review the need for that service and to continue it for as long as there is an agreed need among those who are trading with and through Northern Ireland and maintain it as an administrative scheme.