My Lords, I rise very briefly; I do not see any point in repeating what other people have said. I added my name to the attempt by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, to remove these clauses, and it has been observed by some that this is a wrecking move. I guess it is, in a way, if you do not agree with a Bill and feel unable to amend it in a way that would make it satisfactory, you attempt to remove clauses which then unravel it. We are not happy with this piece of legislation and we are seeking ways—some of them creative, others more blunt, as this one is—because we think the Government are taking the wrong approach.
The points about necessity have been made at length. I think the Minister needs to be as thorough as he can—although perhaps not as lengthy as he can, just very clear. I think we want clarity about exactly where the Government think they are on this. My suspicion is that the Government are backfilling their answers as they go along and that they did not really think about this, because this piece of legislation was not really thought about. Introducing it in the first place was a political act to give the impression that the Government were playing hardball in negotiations. It has kind of served its purpose, as some people have explained,
over the months. Ministers are now having to justify where they have got themselves, and we are all intrigued about where it is going to go next.
I do not know how the Minister is going to respond to the concerns raised by the DUP, which are incredibly serious and ought to be considered with the utmost thoughtfulness. Especially in the absence of any draft regulations, I do not know how those concerns are going to be dealt with. It is all very unclear. This is not the way we should proceed with any issues, and especially not when it comes to Northern Ireland.
We have been around the houses on the issue of Article 16 rather a lot. It is just ridiculous to claim that Article 16 lacks the flexibility to be able to deal with the concerns that have been raised—obviously it does. The Minister’s explanation for why that is no longer the Government’s preferred route does not really add up. Again, I think that in their desire to have some legislation, they are having to make up reasons going backwards, and that is why they are now coming unstuck on the Floor of the House.
I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and her concerns about the haulage industry. It is absolutely right that those concerns should be raised. I would be very happy to go to Ballymena and to meet Mr Jackson to listen to what he has to say, because I am sure that what he said in his letter to us is true. Of course we ought to be looking at ways to make sure that those issues are fixed, but I do not think that this is the right way to go about it. This is not about the EU always being right; I think the EU was wrong to link these issues with Horizon. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other. We should have made progress on both issues, but separately. So, we do not always take the EU’s side. That is just not true.
The principal concern we have is that unless we get at the very least the things we have asked for in our earlier amendments—specifically these draft regulations; that is really important—we are going to be looking at ways to make sure that the Bill does not proceed as smoothly as the Minister would like. This is not a tweaking issue; we just do not think the Government are going about this in the right way.
10.15 pm