I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, but I want to develop the point on the Matthews case and the human rights.
In the Matthews case, the party at fault was not the EU, which was not a contracting party to the ECHR, but the United Kingdom Government, who were deemed to have failed in their treatment of the people of Gibraltar in allowing them to be subject to the EU without representation. The failure of the UK with respect to the Northern Ireland protocol is even starker, coming, as it does, in the aftermath of the Matthews case law. Some might seek to defend this arrangement on the basis that four years after being subject to EU law without seats in the EU legislature, the protocol affords the Northern Ireland Assembly a vote. Crucially, however, this is not a vote on the legislation made under the protocol but on the protocol itself: the arrangement whereby 300 areas of lawmaking for Northern Ireland are given to the EU, notwithstanding that Northern Ireland has no representation in the EU legislature. Rather than giving MLAs the opportunity to scrutinise, amend and vote on all the laws passed in the previous four years, the vote is effectively to determine whether or not the constituents of the MLAs should surrender their votes in relation to the determination of the law to which they are subject in some 300 different areas, having been denied any vote, even in this regard, during the first four years when their votes were, effectively, taken from them. In this context, we need Clause 7, and indeed this whole Bill, to meet the demands of international law with respect to Article 2(1) of the protocol and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In conclusion, this matter concerning the Northern Ireland protocol may not be the flavour of the month for many in your Lordships’ House, but it must be dealt with to the satisfaction of both communities in Northern Ireland, not one.