My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I will go straight to the amendments. Amendments 1 and 70 in
the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, would make the commencement of regulations under this Bill dependent on the Government confirming that they have been unable to reach a negotiated settlement with the EU and are of the opinion that all legal routes have been exhausted. I will repeat what I have said a number of times: our preference remains to resolve the issues around the protocol through talks. As I have already indicated, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and Vice-President Šefčovič have already spoken a number of times to reiterate their shared commitment to finding solutions to this issue. Consequently, as I have also said already, the Government are engaging in constructive dialogue with the EU to find solutions to these problems. The Government will update Parliament on the talks with the EU at the appropriate time.
My noble friend referred to possible briefings. I cannot make the detailed commitment that my noble friend is seeking, but I will certainly reflect on his suggestion. I have just spoken to my noble friend Lord Caine about whether we could provide, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, suggested, an outline at times; I certainly respect your Lordships’ insights on this. I will take that back and reflect on the proposals that have been put by my noble friend. As I said in concluding the earlier debate, to the Front Benches in particular, I assure noble Lords that I will seek to continue to update noble Lords on progress. I know that I speak with a similar commitment to that of my noble friend Lord Caine in dealing with Northern Ireland on this issue as well.
However, it is the Government’s view that we need to progress this Bill now to fix the practical problems that have been highlighted. Under these amendments, the UK would not be able to implement the solutions to the issues of the protocol while discussions with the EU were ongoing. This would mean that the EU could, for example, seek to introduce discussions indefinitely, under the knowledge that this Government would have to admit that negotiations had not reached a successful conclusion.
I am sure noble Lords would agree that we should not present ourselves with a choice between continuing negotiations indefinitely and no unilateral solutions for Northern Ireland. The Government—although I know that other noble Lords have different perspectives —have given their position as to why we feel it is necessary at this time to pursue and continue with the progress of this Bill.
We also believe that these amendments would require the Government to confirm that they have exhausted all legal routes under the withdrawal agreement before they could bring substantive provisions of the Bill into force. The Government have been clear that the Bill is justified, in our view, under international law. That is without prejudice to our position on other mechanisms available—