My Lords, the report from your Lordships’ European Affairs Committee and its Northern Ireland sub-committee and the introduction to both by our two chairs do not stand alone. They need to be considered alongside the Government’s July White Paper on the same subject. Indeed, the fact that the Government chose to table
their proposals for modifying the Northern Ireland protocol just 24 hours ahead of the committee’s report without waiting to consider its views or, indeed, without taking the opportunity to provide in evidence, which the noble Lord gave to the committee not long before, their own thinking was, I fear, a singular and lamentable act of disrespect to Parliament.
Although a member of the European Affairs Committee, I can without immodesty say that the report is a balanced, unvarnished account of the difficulties that have arisen over implementing the protocol, since we did not modify or criticise any of the sub-committee’s findings. I wish I could say the same of the White Paper, but it is an altogether more partisan document, designed as much to dismantle and renegotiate as to implement what was agreed so recently between the UK and the EU.
The hard fact is that the protocol was agreed by the two parties to it and was then endorsed and ratified by the two parliamentary institutions on both sides, thus becoming binding international law. It must seem odd to some looking at this that its principal negotiators on our side, the Prime Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, now find so much in it to challenge despite probably having more experience of the way the EU operates than any of their predecessors in these jobs. Did they really not understand what it meant, or did they understand and conclude the agreement without any intention of implementing it? I shall be interested to hear which of those two the noble Lord, Lord Frost, opts for.
No one disputes that implementation raises a number of sensitive and complex problems which need solutions. They are reviewed in detail in the committee’s report. They cannot and must not be ignored. No one disputes either that solutions need to be found in a spirit of pragmatism and flexibility, but pragmatism and flexibility are two-way streets; they are not something you can ask just one side to show. You have to be prepared to show it yourself as well. I am afraid that pragmatism and flexibility are not encouraged by modifying deadlines and the protocol unilaterally, as the Government did earlier in the year, nor by threatening to invoke the main safeguard clause if we do not get our way, nor by seeking pretty fundamental changes in the governance procedures laid down in the protocol, nor by dismissing out of hand the idea of negotiating sanitary and phytosanitary conditions on a temporary basis, which would remove many implementation problems. Better surely to practise the qualities we are calling for, pragmatism and flexibility, and to eschew megaphone diplomacy.
A clear example of megaphone diplomacy was last week’s speech by the relatively new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. That sort of bluster and blackmail will serve no useful purpose, provoking, as it has already done, a reiteration of the EU’s refusal to renegotiate the Northern Ireland protocol, so recently concluded. It reflects too a refusal by the DUP to recognise the validity of a protocol which was agreed by the UK Parliament despite the DUP’s objections. That is the very conjunction which resulted in Britain’s exit from the EU despite the majority of Northern Ireland voters having voted to remain. Surely what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.
There are obviously major issues at stake here, including the overall health of the UK-EU relationship, which can hardly be said to be flourishing. We should not forget that triggering the Article 16 safeguard clause would open up the possibility for the EU to retaliate. Do we seriously accept the assertion that it is the protocol which endangers the Belfast agreement rather than a breakdown over implementing it being the immediate cause, with the main cause, of course, being Brexit? I know that that last statement will be considered a bit provocative, but how else is one to interpret a reversion to pre-Belfast agreement rhetoric by the leader of the DUP, which we heard last week?
Then, what price the prospects for a UK/US trade deal in circumstances where the protocol fails to be implemented or is set aside? The Government quite rightly take the view, and have often said so from the Dispatch Box, that Britain’s interests are best served by upholding the rules-based international order, but this protocol is part of that order. A post-Brexit Britain whose word is no longer its deed will pay a heavy and unnecessary price. It is surely preferable to negotiate calmly and purposefully to implement the protocol that we put our name to. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, when he replies to this debate, will confirm explicitly that that is the objective that the Government are pursuing.
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