United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Lord Ricketts and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to speak after my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, although we come at the subject from slightly different directions. I have sat through much of the proceedings on this Bill. I have quite a few reservations, which I hope may be reflected in amendments or reassurances on Report. However, on Part 5 I have a great deal of sympathy with the Government and I thought my noble friend the Minister summed it all up very well in his statesmanlike speech at Second Reading.

The Government have come forward with safety net measures in domestic law that allow Ministers to protect the UK’s internal market, our union with Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland peace process, but only if needed. There will be a vote in the other place before these are used, and any SI will be subject to affirmative resolution. To pick up on something the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said in a strong speech, it is now half way to that oven-ready Bill-in-waiting that he felt would have attracted much more sympathy across this House.

Of course, had everything worked smoothly in the exit negotiations, had the EU acted in those negotiations as though dealing with close friends and allies, had the previous Administration been more nimble in defending the UK interest, and could everything be guaranteed to continue to work smoothly, there would be no need to adopt the provisions in Part 5 to which many take exception. Unfortunately, none of those possibilities has yet proven to be the case. Accordingly, as my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said at Second Reading, we should not tie the hands of the Government at this time. We should give them the elastic they need.

I am grateful for the work of the EU Committee, on which I have the pleasure to sit and support the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the work of its excellent staff on the complexities of the Northern Ireland situation and its special protocol which has helped to inform our debates. The problem—and the reason the Government are seeking the powers in Part 5—stems, I believe, from the unsatisfactory nature of the withdrawal agreement, but only if the EU were to take a disreputable and irresponsible stance. Unfortunately, that possibility cannot yet be entirely excluded. Such a development would make life very difficult for those businesses which operate in Northern Ireland and for goods and food coming in and out over either border. Indeed, today’s debate and the arresting contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown, have heightened my concern about the risks to the Northern Ireland economy and the Belfast agreement.

The joint committee has wide powers to prepare for and sort out any mess but, regrettably, it has not done so. Perhaps it has no intention of doing so while vital and delicate discussions on an FTA continue. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister can report on discussions in that joint committee, where there are concerns or disagreements and whether there is any hope, even now, that the difficulty will be overcome so that the Part 5 provision will become unnecessary.

With the promoters of these amendments having demonstrated their nobility of mind in the earlier discussions at Second Reading, I was hoping for a full discussion in Committee of the wide-ranging powers being taken in Part 5 and not just a rerun of the debate of principle of 20 October. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, touched on this in his speech and I am sure my noble friend the Minister, when he responds, will address some of our concerns about the breadth of the power. But, today, I think we should celebrate the fact that there was a startling breakthrough on a coronavirus vaccine. I have some hope that there will also be a breakthrough on the FTA with the EU and that Part 5 will not now be needed. In the meantime, I will be supporting the Government.

[Lord Ricketts (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise that I was unable to participate in the Second Reading debate. Many noble Lords this evening have set out with great power and authority the legal, constitutional and moral objections to this Bill. My purpose in speaking is to take a slightly different tack—which may be a good thing at this point in the debate—and to look at the operational damage that Clauses 42 and 47 of this Bill, if enacted, would do to the effectiveness of our foreign policy.

I do that on the basis of 40 years of experience representing this country as a British diplomat. I know at first hand that Britain has been widely respected around the world as the country that evolved the concept of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law and has played such a formative part in developing the body of international law as we now have it, from the Geneva conventions on the laws of war to the International Criminal Court.

My point is that this is more than an issue of the country’s reputation. Our power of example has strengthened our powers of influence in the world. It has given our country the authority to demand that other countries uphold their international obligations. It is part of the reason, for example, that Britain has been able to play such a leading role in the UN Security Council in crafting countless resolutions, holding to account those who break their international commitments and often imposing sanctions on them.

As other noble Lords have said, we are now standing on the cusp of a new American presidency, with a President-elect who is a passionate believer in the rule of law and in resolving disputes between countries through agreement. There is a great deal of important work that we can do together. An early priority with the Biden Administration should be to bring Iran back into compliance with the agreement it signed with the US, the UK and others in 2015. But how can we preach to Iran what we do not practise at home? It would be the worst possible start to the British partnership with a Biden Administration intent on rebuilding institutions of the rule of law if the Government now plough ahead with Part 5 even after Mr Biden has explicitly warned of the dangers. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, this is not about pleasing a new US President; it is about effective co-operation with a country that is now, once again, intent on helping to resolve the world’s problems through international agreement.