My Lords, as ever, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, for her amendments, which have provoked a wide-ranging debate at this late hour. I put on record my acknowledgment of her forthright defence of human rights in Northern Ireland over very many decades.
I note that some of the amendments that have been debated this evening follow on from briefings and comments made by the Northern Ireland Human
Rights Commission and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, both of which are important institutions that were established under the 1998 agreement and were set out in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. They perform a hugely important function, as noble Lords have pointed out, as part of the dedicated mechanism under Article 2 of the protocol. I do not think there is any difference between us on that point.
I therefore reaffirm at the outset that the Government are committed to Article 2 and to ensuring that rights and equality protections continue to be upheld in Northern Ireland. If noble Lords will forgive me, I think I have long enough experience in Northern Ireland itself to understand the importance of those protections. That is why Article 2 is explicitly protected from being made an excluded provision by Clause 15 in the Bill. To be clear, the Government will not do anything to undermine the provisions of Article 2. We believe that the Bill gives us all the powers we need to ensure that we can protect it. The noble Baroness’s amendments therefore seek to address problems that we do not envisage arising from the Bill.
I could go into great detail now but, given the lateness of the hour, I will say that we will continue to look at these issues as we consider plans for secondary legislation under the Bill. We will be particularly mindful of any interactions with Article 2, given the interest of the Committee. In that spirit, I look forward to receiving the detailed questions from the noble Baroness in writing. Of course, I give her an undertaking that we will provide her with very detailed responses, which will be placed in the Library well in advance of Report so that noble Lords have a chance to consider them.
On the noble Baroness’s specific question, Article 2 is not excluded and cannot be. Section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 will always apply. None of the provisions that the noble Baroness mentioned ceases to apply to Article 2 under this Bill, including Article 13(3), the arbitration provisions, Article 5 of the withdrawal agreement and Section 7C of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. As I say, I am happy to put this down in much more detail in writing so that all noble Lords will have a chance to consider the responses.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, regarding the EU negotiating mandate, I am happy to confirm that the Government are still engaging with the EU in talks, and we are clear that movement from the EU is needed that goes beyond its 2020-21 proposals. We need to be able to make changes to the protocol.
To conclude—