My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, and I will take that back to the department. As I have said, where we can, we will certainly seek to update noble Lords on our current engagement, negotiations and discussions with our partners in the EU. From our perspective, the end objective is that the protocol must work for all communities in Northern Ireland, as I have said repeatedly. Clearly, it is not.
I turn specifically and briefly to Amendment 24, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed. I will take this together with Clause 15 as a whole, as he did in introducing this group. This amendment would effectively entirely remove the ability for Clause 15 to operate. From the Government’s perspective, Clause 15 is important to ensure that the Bill is flexible enough to tackle any unintended consequences or future issues that may arise and that threaten the objectives of the Bill, particularly considering the importance of the issues the Bill is intended to address. This means that Ministers can make regulations to adjust how the Bill interacts with the protocol, and to reflect which elements are disapplied.
I fully understand that there is concern about the breadth of the powers under this clause; we have had debates on this, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has raised this repeatedly. I reassure noble Lords that the power is limited to a closed list of specified purposes set out in Clause 15(1)—the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, alluded to this—for example, to ensure
“the effective flow of trade between Northern Ireland and another part of the United Kingdom”.
We have also applied the stronger standard of necessity to this clause, given its content. This is clearly an area where Ministers should be asked to reach a higher bar and have less discretion, a point we have debated extensively already. Additionally, as has already been discussed—and just to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, on her amendments relating to Article 2—Clause 15(3) provides that this power cannot be used to terminate the “rights of individuals”, the “common travel area” and
“other areas of North-South co-operation”
in the protocol. Of course, these are not the only areas of the protocol left unchanged by the Bill, but they are specifically defined here to provide particular reassurance on these very sensitive matters. I hope noble Lords are therefore reassured that Clause 15 will be used only in the event that it is absolutely necessary to address the Bill’s core objective of preserving political stability in Northern Ireland, an objective that I know all Members of your Lordships’ House share.
I turn briefly to Amendment 32 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington. We have already talked about the terms “appropriate” and “necessary”, and I put on record that we believe there is an appropriate level of discretion for Ministers in this respect.
I turn to Clause 16, which supports the functioning of the Bill by granting the power to make new arrangements in any cases where it becomes necessary to use the powers contained in Clause 15. This means that new law can be made via regulations, if appropriate to do so, in relation to any element of the protocol or the withdrawal agreement that has been the subject of the powers in Clause 15. This clause can therefore be understood as the equivalent of Clause 15 to the other domain-specific powers provided in other clauses of the Bill.
From the Government’s perspective, it is vital to ensure the functioning of the Bill and to prevent any gaps in the underpinning arrangements. Without it, there is a risk that any new issues arising from protocol provisions would not be properly addressed due to an inability satisfactorily to make replacement arrangements. I therefore recommend that this clause stand part of the Bill.