Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Brandon Lewis and John Redwood

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Brandon Lewis)]

I thank all Members who have spoken on Second Reading. I will attempt to respond to as many of the points raised as possible, perhaps leaving out the choice of sandwich that the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) has been talking about this evening and in various interviews. There have been a huge number of thoughtful and insightful speeches and a wide range of views have been expressed across this House. That shows the interest and the support, certainly from the Conservative Benches, for ensuring a resolution to the issues affecting the people of Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland protocol, while agreed with the best of intentions, is causing practical problems for people and businesses in Northern Ireland, including trade disruption and diversion, significant costs and bureaucracy for traders. It cannot be right that it is easier to send goods from Great Yarmouth to Glasgow than to Belfast—still a part, and an important part, of the United Kingdom. Everybody in the United Kingdom should be able to access products and goods in the same way.

Political life in Northern Ireland is, as it has been, built on compromise and power sharing between communities, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) outlined, but the protocol does not have the support of all communities in Northern Ireland. As a result, we are seeing both political and social stress in Northern Ireland, including the lack of functioning of both the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly, as rightly outlined by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland).

It is clear that the protocol has become a major political problem, and it is putting a strain on the delicate balance inherent within the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is worth noting, and it might be forgotten from what some Opposition Members have said today, that all party leaders in Northern Ireland, at some stage or another over the past few months, have been clear that there is a need to change the Northern Ireland protocol. This legislation is about preserving the wider social and political stability in Northern Ireland, finding a more stable and sustainable solution, and ensuring that the frictions faced by businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland on goods coming from the rest of the United Kingdom are removed.

It remains the preference of the UK Government to achieve these benefits through negotiations. These are negotiations that have been conducted by the Foreign Secretary and predecessors over the past 18 months. The lack of flexibility that we have seen from the EU, as rightly outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), has led us to the point where it is right that we make a decision about taking forward a solution that works for the people of the United Kingdom and, within the United Kingdom, the people of Northern Ireland.

This Bill will enable us to implement a successful negotiated settlement as well. It is important to recognise that that will require a significant change in approach from the EU Commission, as a number of hon. Friends have outlined. I am afraid that that change has not yet been forthcoming. The scale of problems and the depth of feelings aroused by the protocol unfortunately, if anything, have been exacerbated, rather than eased by the current EU approach—whether it was through triggering article 16 over crucial vaccine supplies to Northern Ireland in January 2021, launching infraction proceedings following emergency easements to ensure the movement of food and parcels to Northern Ireland in March 2021, or repeatedly failing to show pragmatic flexibility in more than 300 hours of negotiations over the past nine months and continuing to insist on processes that would add to, rather than remove, the burdens currently felt by businesses moving goods to Northern Ireland.

[John Redwood]

Has my right hon. Friend noticed how Labour always takes the side of the EU, even when, as in this case, the EU is damaging the Good Friday agreement and diverting trade expressly against the legal provisions of the protocol?

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point. He will know from attending oral questions to the Northern Ireland Office that I have regularly had to listen to the hon. Member for Hove at the Dispatch Box taking the side of the EU—but then, the hon. Member wants to rejoin the EU, so I suppose we should not be surprised.

We should also be clear about the reality, when we hear about the flexibility of the European Union and the offer it has made, based on its October offer. That would be a backwards step from the current situation, which is already not working for businesses and people in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland

Debate between Brandon Lewis and John Redwood

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we took unilateral action just a few weeks ago to ease some of these issues—issues that would have made matters even more difficult, as I suggested at the time. I think it is now very clear that that was the right action to take and that, through that, people can see that we are determined to deal with some of the problems and the issues in the protocol. My right hon. Friend the noble Lord Frost is working through the correct established bodies—the Joint Committee and so on—with our partners in the EU to come to and work out a proper, long-lasting solution in terms of the challenges around the protocol.

The right hon. Gentleman is also absolutely right about—as I mentioned in my opening remarks—people perceiving that not everybody has been treated equally in terms of the implications of the rules around coronavirus. The Bobby Storey funeral is a very clear example of that, with the decision that came through just a few days before the violence got to the point that it did. There is a very important role for the PSNI and the Northern Ireland Policing Board in working with communities to restore and build trust. I have been talking to the Chief Constable about that, and to the parties on the Executive, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. I think everybody is very alert to the very real fact that, whatever anybody’s view of what happened around the funeral, the decision that was made has had a very substantial impact. There is work that the various agencies and bodies, including the PSNI and the Policing Board, need to do to reconnect with communities to show them that the PSNI is there for the safety and protection of everybody across the entire community of Northern Ireland.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

I strongly support all that the Government and the Opposition have said about the violence. As the Northern Ireland protocol stresses the need to maintain Northern Ireland’s integrated place in the United Kingdom’s internal market, will the UK Government now ensure the easy and free movement of all goods from GB to Northern Ireland that are not at risk of going to the Republic? Should a good not be able to move as easily from Liverpool to Belfast as from Liverpool to Birmingham, and should that not be under the direct control of the UK authorities?

[Brandon Lewis]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments on the violence, and he is absolutely right. The position that he has outlined that we need to get to is exactly where we want to get to. Obviously we want to do that in partnership and agreement with our friends and partners in the EU, and that work is what we are doing at this very moment.

Northern Ireland Protocol: UK Legal Obligations

Debate between Brandon Lewis and John Redwood

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As I said earlier, specific issues in the protocol were always designed to be worked out through the Joint Committee. It is right that the Government are taking reasonable, sensible and limited actions to make sure we have that certainty for people in January should the Joint Committee and the withdrawal agreement negotiations for the free trade agreement not come to a satisfactory conclusion.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The EU signed a withdrawal agreement and political declaration with two things at its core: it would respect the restoration of UK sovereignty, and it would work for a free trade, tariff-free agreement. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if the EU kept its word on those two colossally important points, the problems it has created in Northern Ireland would disappear?

[Brandon Lewis]

This is exactly why it is important that we are clear about our intentions to ensure that we are delivering for the people of Northern Ireland. As I say, I am sure that the EU negotiating team will continue to be negotiating in good faith. Michel Barnier has said that peace in Ireland is due

“thanks to the open border”,

and that this process

“should not and must not lead to the return of a hard border, neither on maps nor in minds.”

He is absolutely right on that and we are determined to ensure we deliver on it. I am sure that the negotiations will be able to get us to that point, but it is right that we are able to say to the people of Northern Ireland that should those not succeed, we will legislate in UK law to ensure that.