My Lords, I begin by joining the Minister in paying tribute to the late Lord Cormack. I had the pleasure of serving with Patrick Cormack in the other place for many years. Indeed, from 2005 to 2010, he was chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee; in that capacity, he contributed much to Northern Ireland debates. I sat on the same Bench as him, across the aisle, and we shared many conversations. He had a deep and abiding interest in Northern Ireland and its people, and we will miss his contributions on Northern Ireland. I did not always agree with him, as I am sure that other Members did not, but he always put his case eloquently, passionately and sincerely. We send our condolences to his family at this very sad time.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for moving the amendment standing in her name. Certainly, if she pushes it to a vote, I will be voting with her in the Lobby, since it is merely factual and adds the reality of the situation to the humble Address. I share the view that it is important that this Parliament sets out the full facts, as we now have them, with the Windsor Framework/protocol in place. I think that this is the seventh humble Address to be moved in this Parliament, apart from humble Addresses after a Queen’s or King’ Speech, and I had the pleasure of moving one of them in this House in March 2023. My humble Address would have had the effect of annulling the building of the border control posts and of doing something practical to remove the Irish Sea border. I regret that this humble Address does not do that.
I want to begin by celebrating the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Today, that union is strong and endures. Those who want to abolish Northern Ireland are failing—and that is how the campaign, sometimes styled for Irish unification, should be characterised. It is about the abolition of Northern Ireland and the removal of part of the United Kingdom; it is a negative campaign. The people who advocate it wish to eliminate and tear away the citizenship of the majority of the residents of Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.
On the other hand, the case for the union is positive and enduring, and that is even more so today in a changing, uncertain and dangerous world. We are part of the sixth-biggest economy in the world, part of a kingdom still with vast influence, through both hard and soft power, and part of a country that stands four-square behind the cause of freedom and democracy across the world, as we have seen in Ukraine and other places, and has the ability to do things about it. This country still matters in the affairs of the world, so we want to remain part of that United Kingdom. This is not just about trade matters or the economy; it is a matter of our birthright, citizenship and identity.
It is because we value the union so much that I come to today’s debate with such a sense of concern. The humble Address before your Lordships’ House is part of the reassurance package, if we can call it that, promised by the Government to unionists in the deal—Command Paper 1021, where it is set out that this would be the mechanism used to provide reassurance. But the reality is that Command Paper 1021 retains the Windsor Framework/protocol with all its inherent anti-unionist contents. This is where words collide with reality, and where propaganda collides with the facts.
There is nothing in this humble Address that changes anything in relation to Northern Ireland or that undoes the damage done to our constitutional position as part of the United Kingdom by the protocol. We saw the same last week when we debated the statutory instruments—the legislation promised in the deal. Not one of the six or seven provisions in the regulations debated last week alters the superstructure of the Windsor Framework/protocol. It of course affects the smoother operation of the Irish Sea border and the application of EU jurisdiction over a large part of our economy in Northern Ireland, but it does not go any further than that.
It is ironic that it is claimed that joint authority is not provided for in the Belfast agreement, according to the contents of the humble Address, and yet the Government have abdicated their own authority and responsibilities and granted full authority to the EU to make laws over significant parts of the economy of Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. It is ironic in the extreme to acknowledge
“the foundational importance of the Acts of Union”,
while doing absolutely nothing to repair the modification or suspension—or, as we have heard, “subjugation”; that is the word used by the court—of those Acts of Union as set out in the judgments of the Court of Appeal and, subsequently, the Supreme Court. It is astounding that we are supposedly reaffirming the
importance of upholding the Belfast agreement in all its strands, while at the same time undermining the cross-community consent requirements on which the Assembly and the institutions were set up—I have referred to that consistently: the Article 18 vote which comes at the end of this year on the applicability of the protocol; I will come on to that in more detail shortly.
Looking at the main elements of the proposed Address, it states first that
“joint authority is not provided for in the Belfast … Agreement”.
Of course, that is nothing new; that has always been the case. I welcome the fact that the Government stress the importance of maintaining the three-stranded approach to the affairs of Northern Ireland, because very often in recent years they have not respected it. One remembers a former office-bearer in the Northern Ireland Office, the Secretary of State as he then was in 2020, who was very keen to involve Simon Coveney, the then Irish Foreign Minister, on virtually every announcement that was made, including those internal to Northern Ireland. However, given that, in March last year, the Government had the audacity to argue that the Windsor Framework removed any sense of an Irish Sea border and actually protected our constitutional position, it is clear that the words in front of us must be subject to great scrutiny. The Government have in reality accepted a form of joint authority. How have they done that? By actively legislating for the EU to have the power to make law in some 300 areas in Northern Ireland.
I have here that legislation—sometimes we just talk about these things, but every page in my hand contains law after law from the European Union that applies directly to Northern Ireland. There are hundreds upon hundreds of EU laws, and not one of them is subject to any democratic input from anyone elected in Northern Ireland. Legislators in the Irish Republic have had, and enjoy, greater power than anyone in Northern Ireland in respect of those laws. So when we talk about joint authority, let us recognise the reality of the situation that faces Northern Ireland today. In this area covered by the protocol, colonial status is exactly what we have as far as those laws are applicable. We will hear arguments about the Stormont brake and how the pipeline of EU law has been stymied. However, I challenge the Minister or anyone else in this House to show me anywhere in law where the Stormont brake applies to any single one of those laws in Annex 2 of the protocol, because it does not. That is a matter of fact and a matter of law.
Then we come on to the part of the Address about
“acknowledging the foundational importance of the Acts of Union … including the economic provisions under Article 6 of those Acts”.
There has been a lot of distraction, misrepresentation and revision of history in relation to arguments around the Acts of Union, particularly by the Government and others. We should revert to the only opinion that matters, stripping away all the technicalities and arguments. The only opinion that matters is that of the Supreme Court, not of some commentor or lawyer, however distinguished, or politician or government spokesman. This is a Supreme Court case, let it be remembered, that was brought by the leaders of unionism in Northern Ireland, including the then leader of the DUP. That
fact, and the fact that the Supreme Court saw fit to hand down a judgment in the case, demonstrates that this is not academic or esoteric but a real and significant issue.
The Supreme Court said at paragraph 65 of its judgment that
“article VI is modified to the extent and for the period during which the Protocol applies”.
In paragraph 67 it talks about Article VI being subjugated. Again, these are not our words, but the words used by the Supreme Court. We need to contrast those words with the words in the humble Address, which do not bear comparison to the reality of what was outlined by the Supreme Court. If the Government were serious, they would seek to undo the constitutional damage. But there is nothing in the legislation last week, or here today in the humble Address, which does that.
Then we come to
“the importance of upholding the Belfast … Agreement … in all its strands”.
As we have heard already, the Belfast agreement—as amended by the St Andrews agreement and amended after sufficient consensus of support from both the unionist and nationalist sides—has, of course, been upended by the protocol/Windsor Framework. The most pertinent example is the one outlined in the amendment before us: the continuing application vote in the Assembly later this year, which is to be carried out by a simple majority vote. That is the only major vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly subject to a majority vote; every other major decision taken by the Northern Ireland Assembly is either a cross-community vote or susceptible to being turned into one through a petition of concern.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, outlined, this was voted on in a debate in December 2020, in Committee, which both she and I attended. That Committee was attended by two of the most prominent architects of the Belfast agreement, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the late Lord Trimble, who both railed against it as a severe breach of the Belfast agreement which they had negotiated. Yet the Government proceeded in a clear and flagrant breach of the principles which are supposed to underpin power-sharing in Northern Ireland. Many who supposedly champion the Belfast agreement are content, it seems, to turn a blind eye to—or worse, actively connive in—the disapplication of cross-community safeguards when it suits them. This cannot stand. This is not right.
The removal of cross-community voting is not only fundamentally wrong in this case but creates a very dangerous precedent for unionists. For almost 100 years, we have been told that majority rule was unacceptable in Northern Ireland, and for the last 50 years it has been beyond the pale as far as government structures in Northern Ireland are concerned. But if it is acceptable to permit a reversion to majority rule on something as fundamental as the protocol, with all its economic and constitutional implications, then it is very hard to argue that the same majority voting rule should not apply to other areas of operation within the remit of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is the danger here. We have already heard the siren calls and we will hear more. I am afraid the argument against it has
been gravely weakened by those unionists who accept the provisions in relation to the Article 18 vote later this year.
What is going on at present is a full-blown effort by the Government to paint a one-sided picture of real events as far as the Windsor Framework is concerned. There is an all-out PR operation to put the most favourable gloss on the operation of its provisions. It is seen, for example, in the refusal to answer Parliamentary Questions in a proper way. The Government appear embarrassed to set out unpalatable truths, so they are economical with the reality and hope people will not notice.
Of course, we remember a time when Ministers in this place and in the other place came to the Dispatch Box to advocate and argue for a radically different approach, which would have removed foreign laws. They enthusiastically backed that approach. Now, they equally enthusiastically back a position which surrenders sovereignty over parts of the Northern Ireland economy and way of life, and creates customs borders within the United Kingdom, where Northern Ireland is subject to the EU customs code and in the EU single market for goods and agri-food products. A necessary consequence is that there is an Irish Sea border, so that goods are not in free circulation between Great Britain and Northern Ireland still. As a result of Article 8 of the protocol, we are under EU VAT rules and, under Article 10, subject to EU state aid rules for the entire economy.
Yesterday in the other place, when the Minister was challenged in relation to VAT, he said that it was time to move on. Ministers do not want the details to be exposed but they need to be continually raised, highlighted and challenged. Unless they are called out consistently as being unacceptable, it will all become more and more embedded. If we settle for and champion the current position then there is little hope of getting the change we need in the future.
We demand equal citizenship in Northern Ireland. We do not demand it in some arrogant way. We demand it as our right as subjects of His Majesty the King, and we demand that those rights should be restored as quickly as possible. We have been uniquely disfranchised and we need to ensure that those wrongs are put right as soon as possible.
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