Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

We hear a lot about the egregious use of powers and regulations being imposed, but we hear very little about what specific powers people do not want to have. I think they are about the volume of lawnmowers and other such crucial things. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is more damaging to democracy to withhold the Northern Ireland Assembly, in which elected Members are supposed to address wider issues around health, education, the economy and everyday issues for Northern Ireland? The Assembly being withheld creates a far wider democratic deficit.

[Stephen Doughty]

Indeed. The point I have made is that the powers the Government are taking remove responsibilities from the Northern Ireland Assembly. We want all communities to have a say on matters that affect them going forward. I am sure we will come on to a number of those amendments in due course.

In the same vein, we would support amendment 12, which relates to clause 18, tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), were he to press it to a Division. As the Hansard Society points out, clause 18 would give Ministers the power to “engage in conduct” relevant to the Northern Ireland protocol if they consider it—again this word—“appropriate” in connection with one or more of the purposes of the Bill. However, the Bill provides no elaboration on what type of activities that “conduct” could involve. Nor have the Government given a justification for why the additional power is needed. Indeed, the former head of the Government Legal Service, Sir Jonathan Jones QC, someone who has said a lot about the legality of the Bill, described this as a

“do whatever you like power”.

Given that the Government can provide no assurances on what types of “conduct” the power will be restricted to and that we have no justification for why it is even needed, this is not something we can support. That is why we support amendment 12, tabled by my right hon. Friend. The Government are in no position to expand their powers to such a degree, particularly in areas so sensitive. Not only are they a gross overreach of power, but they are also disrespectful to the constitutional role of this House.

I turn to some of the amendments that have been tabled. Labour has been clear, since the Bill was first introduced, that the way to solve the problems before us is to negotiate, and to do so in good faith. We recognise that the operation of the protocol has created genuine tensions that need to be addressed, but that is best done by all sides listening to each other and acting in good faith, and with the Belfast/Good Friday agreement at the heart of those discussions. I contend that the Bill simply does not do that. It is not an act of good faith for Westminster to unilaterally impose a solution, not least across Northern Ireland, and nor, tragically, will the solution proposed achieve its ultimate objectives. Only an agreement which delivers for the people and businesses of Northern Ireland, and respects the wishes of those on all sides and all communities, will provide a long-term and sustainable solution to this problem. That is why we support amendment 49, which references the fourth point in the protocol and the importance of protecting the Belfast/Good Friday agreement in all its parts, if it were to be pressed to a Division. Unilateralism is not the way forward on matters of such sensitivity.

I do not want to detain the Committee further at this stage. We have many amendments to get through today. To conclude, Labour’s amendments will prevent handing the Government overreaching powers that they are simply not fit to hold. Our amendments will protect the much-valued scrutinising and functioning of this House, and give a voice in this hugely delicate and important process to the people of Northern Ireland.

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[Michael Ellis]

The right hon. Gentleman is certainly right about the dual regulatory regime, as the Committee discussed at some length yesterday; I agree with his contention.

[Claire Hanna]

Will the Minister please clarify? I am struggling to understand. He repeatedly refers to the need for cross-community consent. Does he understand and has he noted the letter from a majority of MLAs—[Interruption.] Does he acknowledge that all MLAs representing others and representing nationalists reject this Bill in the strongest possible terms, and can he outline how these recommendations and powers have cross-community consent if they are rejected by two of the three traditions in Northern Ireland?

[Michael Ellis]

As I think the hon. Lady knows, this cannot be about majoritarianism, and by the way I note a poll in December 2021 that indicated there was 78% agreement in Northern Ireland that the protocol needed to change. There is a requirement that there is cross-community consensus and—

[Claire Hanna]

And there is not cross-community consensus!

[Michael Ellis]

The hon. Lady is shouting from a sedentary position, but I think I have made the position clear. [Interruption.]

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[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that if we examine the proposals that the Government are making, we can see that they are fair and balanced. Despite the criticism that some have made that my party supported Brexit, at no stage in the process have we argued for a hard border on the island of Ireland. That is because we recognise the sensitivities of nationalists—it is precisely because as Unionists we are alive to and aware of the sensitivities of nationalists about having infrastructure on the border. We have therefore sought to encourage a solution that respects and acknowledges their concerns, but it would be nice to have a bit of reciprocation from the nationalist side for a change, and a recognition of our concerns that a border in the Irish sea is offensive to us in the same way that a hard border on the island of Ireland is offensive to nationalists.

There are reasonable solutions that can ensure that we avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and that we avoid a border in the Irish sea for goods moving within the United Kingdom. That is what this Bill does. That is precisely the outcome that it seeks to achieve, and in that respect it is, I think, balanced and fair.

[Claire Hanna]

Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why, in the case of all the Bills that preceded Britain’s exit from the European Union, he repeatedly voted against all the SDLP’s amendments to design in consent for the people of Northern Ireland? Where was this regard for the delicacies of the Good Friday agreement then?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I am a democrat, and I accepted the outcome of the referendum. The British people had voted for Brexit, and I was not going to go along with the SDLP’s desire to hold the United Kingdom within the European Union and its proposals to keep us in the single market and the customs union, because I believed that that was contrary to what the British people had voted for. We therefore sought a solution.

At the time, in 2016, the former First Minister of Northern Ireland, Arlene Foster—Dame Arlene Foster—wrote to the then Prime Minister and to the Irish Prime Minister, the Taoiseach, making it clear that we needed a solution for Northern Ireland that took account of the distinct situation that pertained. We always recognised that arrangements in respect of Northern Ireland would take account of the sensitivities, but that should and must include the sensitivities and concerns of Unionists as well as nationalists. The solution provided for in the Bill, I believe, does that. It avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland, meeting the needs and the sensitivities of nationalists—of the constituents, in particular, of the hon. Member for Foyle: I acknowledge that many of them cross the border every day. I do not want impediments to be put in their way, but nor do I want impediments to be put in the way of my constituents, because trade with the rest of the United Kingdom is the lifeblood of their business, or of the consumers who live in my constituency, who simply want to buy British products from British companies in England, Scotland and Wales in the way that they have always enjoyed. For all those reasons, we will oppose the amendments. On balance, we believe that the Government’s proposed framework for the solutions that will flow in the form of regulations will protect Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom.

Let me say this to the Government. I said it yesterday, I repeat it now, and we will come to it again later today. I know that the Government are currently consulting on what schemes they want to introduce to give effect to the Bill. It is important that there is consultation with business and with the political parties, that we have an input, and that the regulations are published as soon as possible so that we can all see that they do not pose the threat that some suggest they do, but instead offer us the solution that we need.

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[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson). I oppose all the amendments and I support all the clauses standing part of the Bill, and the reason I do so is that, as we have heard repeatedly in the Chamber over the past days, the Northern Ireland protocol is causing unacceptable disruption and friction to the UK’s internal market. So radical is the impact of the protocol that we have seen the astonishing court ruling that, in voting through the protocol, this Parliament has partly suspended article 6 of the Acts of Union, one of its foundational statutes.

The EU’s insistence that the protocol requires full compliance with its regime for food and goods, which is applied in a one-size-fits-all way to countries around the world with far lower standards than ours, is simply unreasonable. Northern Ireland’s chief veterinary officer has estimated that if the current grace periods were removed, the number of food certificates required in Northern Ireland could soon almost match the total number processed in the entire EU, so 50% of all food-related EU certificates would be issued in relation to trade between Britain and Northern Ireland. That is not just unreasonable; it is disproportionate, and arguably violates the fundamental international trade principle that border-related checks and controls need to be based on evidence and risk. The millions of checks being asked of us by the EU are in no way proportionate to the risk posed by GB food to the internal market of the European Union.

I noted the comments of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), about what he perceived as some kind of democratic deficit in relation to the delegated legislation clauses, but I think the democratic deficit is far more serious, in that we are asking the people of Northern Ireland to live indefinitely under rules made in the European Union over which they and their elected representatives have no say whatsoever. That is not sustainable. I believe that the protocol arguably violates a core principle of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, because it has altered the status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom without the consent of its people, and the one-off majoritarian vote every few years provided for by the protocol is just not sufficient to signify consent or to deliver political stability under the Good Friday agreement.

There can be no doubt that the protocol is the root cause not only of the practical disruption but of the political instability we have witnessed in Northern Ireland over the last few months. We cannot ignore the fact that every single one of the recently elected Unionist Assembly Members is against the protocol, and we cannot stand by while Northern Ireland is deprived of its power sharing agreement.

[Claire Hanna]

I genuinely share the right hon. Lady’s concern that all the elected Unionist Members oppose the protocol. It is not a desirable situation, which is why I poured six years of my life into preventing it at the time. Will she also acknowledge that every single other Member of the Assembly is against this Bill? Could she also please outline what aspects of societal disruption she is referring to and which products are not available in Northern Ireland?

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, as we discuss the Bill this afternoon.

I wish to say at the outset that I am speaking very much in support of the Government’s position on the Bill. It seems to me that we are dealing with a very complex, sensitive and fluid situation. I recognise that we have heard from everybody, from the former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, right through to business organisations on the ground, all of whom recognise that there is no clear right or wrong to this situation at the moment, that we need to take forward this debate in a constructive way, and that we need to reach solutions that continue to support stability and the economic development of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.

My attention was particularly drawn i to amendment 51, because of the points that it illustrates about referring disputed matters to the UK-EU Joint Committee, which is envisaged as part of the withdrawal agreement. That highlights that there remains a number of avenues still to explore, and it is with a sense of optimism that I look at those avenues. It is clear that the political situation that we face today, with the departure of one Prime Minister and a new Prime Minister to be elected, creates an opportunity for a reset in the relationships and the negotiations that are taking place with the European Union on this issue. It was clear from the Dispatch Box when we first debated the Bill that it remained the Government’s preferred outcome that negotiations would result in changes that would address fully the issues of concern to all communities across Northern Ireland and, indeed, to those in my own constituency, whose businesses are involved in trade with the UK single market and the European single market. They are watching closely at what the outcomes of this will be because of the implications for other parts of our international trade in future.

The success that we have seen in Northern Ireland—in particular its ability to attract inward investment to drive that economic growth, to be the other region of the United Kingdom, outside of London, that is really bouncing back strongly—demonstrates the strength that there is in that economy and that community, and that it deserves the support and attention of this House to a greater degree perhaps than it has enjoyed in the past. The reality is that the protocol that we are discussing today is clearly our Prime Minister’s protocol, and we now have an opportunity to revisit those negotiations and find a new way forward.

I wish to address the point that was made strongly by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) in his eloquent contribution around the issue of a democratic deficit. There was one thing that piqued my attention. I have served as a member of the Committee of the Regions, alongside cross-party members from Northern Ireland, such as Jonathan Bell, Arnold Hatch, Stewart Dickson—all of whom were part of a process that was set up, as an EU member state, whereby the elected politicians from different parts of the European Union undertook a supervisory and oversight role on the operations of the European Union and the single market.

I spent a good part of my life in the Centre Borschette in Brussels—the conference centre in which the European Union undertook its negotiations and discussions about the development of the single market. I was there to talk about education. I was sharing that building with people who were there to deal with anything from veterinary products, to agriculture and to any other conceivable economic area of interest. It is clear that, now that we have left the European Union, we need to make sure that we are putting in place an equivalent degree of oversight so that everybody involved in the community has the opportunity to play an appropriate part in the development of these markets. It is clear from the eloquent contributions that we have heard from a number of Members on the Benches opposite that there remains a very live concern in Northern Ireland about whether the arrangements currently in place allow for that to happen.

Even with the results of the recent election, where I recognise that the majority of people in Northern Ireland voted for parties that were in favour of the protocol, it is clear that the essence of the peace and stability that supports that economic development is that everybody has the opportunity to be part of that discussion. We know that that has not always been done as fully as it should have been in the past, and as we debate the Bill in this Committee we have the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to ensuring that that does happen in future.

It is also important to recognise, when we look at the important progress that Northern Ireland is making in its economic development and in bouncing back from the covid pandemic, that the European Union is making a reasonable point about the need to ensure that we carry out the relevant checks on goods and products that are traded in and out of that single market—a point that we have an equivalence for in our own United Kingdom single market. There is a lot of history to that. The United Kingdom has historically been notorious, as a member of the single market, for not carrying out the checks on goods and services that we were committed to carrying out as part of that single market.

Indeed, the United Kingdom was significantly fined for having failed to carry out those checks. I know that there are businesses in my constituency trading in goods and services that have seen their ability to do so undercut when the integrity of that single market has been damaged by our failure to carry out those checks. That failure means that we have, for example, counterfeit car parts being brought into the United Kingdom and traded—not only putting people’s lives and wellbeing at risk, but damaging the economic prospects of those businesses.

As we take those negotiations forward in a constructive spirit, while we are rightly determined to protect the integrity of the UK, it is absolutely right that we also recognise that the United Kingdom has not always been as good at this as we should have been. The constructive partnership with the European Union means that we must recognise that and show our commitment to ensuring that those checks and standards will be carried out in future in a way that we have not always done in the past. It may well be that the joint committee referred to in amendment 51 will play some role in ensuring that, as negotiations progress and those matters are taken to a lower level, there will be an opportunity to drive forward to reach agreements.

I will finish where I started. The opportunity of a change of leadership is that it creates some scope for a reset in the relationship that has been clearly described at the Dispatch Box as the Government’s preferred route for achieving a better outcome. I entirely support the Government in that objective. We have already heard intimations from some of our partners across the European Union that, regardless of what they think about the merits of any individual, that reset is the chance for a fresh start.

I hope the outcome will be that we reach that negotiation without any of the powers that have been referred to at the Dispatch Box and that are causing concern ever having to come into play, exactly as we saw with the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. The priority for this Committee, for Members and for my constituents whose trading interests are strongly affected by this Bill is that we ensure that we respect the complexity of the politics of Northern Ireland, to which we have often paid far too little attention in this House. We must support all our colleagues in achieving a deal that they can live with, one that will continue to support the stability and economic development of both the Republic of Ireland, our ally, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

[Claire Hanna]

This afternoon’s amendments focus on the disapplication of the protocol and the extravagant powers that the Government hope to grant themselves. Our amendments, consistent with our amendments tabled on other days—I think we are on day 712 of this Bill—seek to balance and, where necessary, curtail those powers, to ensure that Ministers have due regard for the views and the needs of all the people in Northern Ireland and their elected representatives.

Through amendment 49, we also propose to formalise the safeguarding of the Good Friday agreement. It is referenced just once in this Bill, where I believe it is being used as an amulet to defend against repudiation of an international treaty. We are told repeatedly, although it does not reflect the understanding of the agreement that many of us have, that this Bill is about protection of the Good Friday agreement, so it is difficult to see why codifying that is being so forcefully rejected. As a lifelong and committed follower of John Hume, I am always very pleased when his ideas get a new airing and a new audience. However, it is frustrating when the concepts and ideas he spent his life developing and persuading Northern Ireland to adopt—many people took a lot longer than others to finally adopt those views, while we all seemed to happily operate in this framework—are misrepresented and distorted, as they have been at some stages of this debate. John Hume argued and finally persuaded, through the Good Friday agreement, which has enormous consent in Northern Ireland and is sovereign in Northern Ireland, that consent should rest on the will of the majority of people in Northern Ireland. Crucially, he framed that within the architecture and the institutions of the three-stranded approach in the agreement, which explicitly saw Ireland’s and the UK’s joint membership of the EU as underpinning that, and underpinning the relationships east-west and north-south, regardless of Northern Ireland’s constitutional settlement.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

There is, though, a clear distinction between the principle of consent, which relates to the ultimate question of Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom, or constitutional change affecting our place in the United Kingdom, and the principle of consensus, which applies to the operation of the political institutions. My point throughout this debate has not focused primarily on the principle of consent, although that is important, but relates to power-sharing on the principle of consensus. Without Unionist support, there is not a consensus, and that is simply the reality.

[Claire Hanna]

I am glad the hon. Member brought up that point, because I am sure that all the Members in the Chamber have read the Good Friday agreement and will know that in the original 1998 document, the only—only—aspect that required parallel consent, other than the potential petitioning of motions, was the joint nomination of the First Ministers. Would Members like to hazard a guess as to which party disapplied that one use of parallel consent in the Good Friday agreement? It was the DUP, at St Andrews, that ruled it out. The principle of consent, as codified very clearly in the Good Friday agreement and in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, is about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and about the consent of the majority of the people. Those are the facts, and, as people are disappearing up their own contradictions to try to justify support for this damaging Bill, those remain the facts.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I am afraid that I must disagree with the hon. Lady. Parallel consent does not apply on only one issue. In strand 1 of the agreement, the requirement for cross-community consensus applies to matters that are controversial, so the idea that consensus applies only on the constitutional issue is simply not true. The power-sharing institutions operate on the basis of consensus. If cross-community consensus was not required for power-sharing, then why on earth have we no power-sharing Executive fully functioning today in the absence of Unionist support? The facts speak for themselves: Unionists absent, no consensus, no power-sharing. For the hon. Lady to try to suggest that consensus is not required for power-sharing frankly leaves me bemused, because it is at the heart of the Belfast agreement.

[Claire Hanna]

This is the problem we had in the stop-start 25 years of devolution: an obsession with and an addiction to veto by the DUP, and others. Some of these points would have more coherence and would be less hypocritical if that party had not correctly—correctly—bemoaned Sinn Féin holding the institutions to ransom, which was undemocratic when it did it between 2017 and 2020. The Member was not slow in pointing that out, rightly, and his words now would have a little bit more credibility if that had not been the case. There is a difference between consent and consensus. Again, it would be a little bit more credible if he was not repeatedly ignoring the fact that a democratic majority of people in Northern Ireland oppose Brexit, particularly the hard form of Brexit that is being applied without any form of consent. I say respectfully that his words do not have credibility on this. In fact, Hume developed the notions of complementary consent, north and south, for any agreement produced by negotiations for future constitutional change in Northern Ireland. The Good Friday agreement was mandated on that basis, and while I appreciate—I was a teenager at the time, so I do not recall the press conference—that the right hon. Member said on that day that he accepted the result of the referendum, it is a matter of record that his party spent many years doing everything they could to thwart its implementation.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

This debate is not about history, but at the time I was actually a member of the Ulster Unionist party, not the Democratic Unionist party—a small fact. As a member of the Ulster Unionist party at the time, even though I voted against the agreement, I said I accepted the democratic outcome. Subsequently, when I joined the Democratic Unionist party, I worked with my party to bring about the change required democratically to ensure that the flaws in the agreement were addressed. I am simply saying to the hon. Lady that that is what we are engaged in now in respect of the protocol. Let us get the change that works for everyone in Northern Ireland, rebuilds the consensus on a cross-community basis and gets us back to doing what we need to do for Northern Ireland.

[Claire Hanna]

I desperately hope with every fibre of my being that the position the right hon. Gentleman sets out in his final words is the one we reach at the end of this process. The people of Northern Ireland want more than anything in this world to not hear this situation being played out aggressively in a toxic fashion day after day, as it has for the last six years, but they do not believe it will happen unilaterally through this Bill. Anybody who legitimately and thoroughly supports the Good Friday agreement and the teachings of John Hume will know that this Bill is a world of logic, decency and reality away from what he outlined about consensus and power sharing.

We have tabled amendment 49 to give an opportunity to protect fully and truly the Good Friday agreement with negotiated solutions. That is where we want to get to. Members should be fair and current about the context in Northern Ireland, because people at home do not recognise the Mad Max scenario being portrayed of people unable to access goods and services in Northern Ireland—it is just not reflective of the reality. Once again I say, as I have probably done every time I have spoken on this issue, that I fully understand the hurt of many Unionists. I have also spoken about the constitutional identity of many of us. I am Irish and I am Northern Irish, and I do not pay my taxes to the same state that my passport comes from—I understand that those are compromises, and it is frustrating when the impression is given that such compromises are for non-Unionists, but Unionists should never have to compromise on their lines of governance.

In terms of the actual material effect on people’s identity, I quoted yesterday words from the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) that I agree with. He said clearly that customs checks do not alter the constitutional status of the UK, and I think he is correct, but it is also appropriate that people reflect on the reality of what is and is not happening with goods moving through, where there is not the full panoply of EU checks. The situation is evolving. We were not given the benefit of an implementation period—such was the rush from other parties to get Brexit done, they did not allow businesses a period in which to adapt—but as was always envisioned, the protocol is evolving and the EU has set out legally dropped checks that are available permanently for easement, so Members should be rational about that.

Members should also be rational about the impact of the European Court of Justice. If I understand it correctly, it applies to the sovereign parts of Cyprus in the absence of Brexit. Perhaps Ministers in their summing up could advise whether the constitutional status of those UK sovereign areas of Cyprus has changed due to the jurisdiction of the ECJ.

Consistent with those points, amendments 48 and 49 would try to apply the consensus and the trust of the Northern Ireland Assembly to some of the powers that will be exercised apparently for its benefit. That consent from the Assembly will better reflect the range of views across Northern Ireland’s diverse communities, as well as businesses, whose representative groups—Members and in particular Ministers should be honest about this—have all rejected this Bill and set out their grave reservations about it. It is important that those views be reflected, if only because Members have, shamefully, maligned some of those business representatives in the Chamber, and I do not believe that their accusations have been withdrawn.

When Ministers sum up, will they say whether they will table a report that gives qualitative and quantitative information on the feedback that the Government have received from businesses on the Bill? It is frustrating for many that little pieces of feedback are being appropriated by some, while the vast majority of feedback—the representative feedback—is being distorted. I ask the Government to commit to publishing a report on the feedback—anonymised, where appropriate—that they have received, so that we can ensure that the voices of the economic actors in Northern Ireland are heard without distortion or impediment.

It is wrong to imply, as some did in debate yesterday, that Northern Ireland exporters will have a choice on regulations and standards. In fact, customers will have that choice; that is how these things work. The UK proposes a dual-regulation system on an open border. That will require customers—mostly other businesses—to make judgments and assumptions about the validity and standards of Northern Ireland produce. The Bill creates that serious reputational risk to businesses. I must repeat that the Bill’s powers, to the extent that they can be quantified—there are a lot of unanswered questions—are unwanted by a majority of Members of the Legislative Assembly, and by all the business organisations. Our amendment will help to ensure that those powers are appropriately moderated by the Northern Ireland Assembly. I do not want to hear the all-purpose excuse, “The Assembly isn’t sitting.” We are told, as part of the two-step that is going on between the Government and the Democratic Unionist party, that once the Bill passes, the Government will give democratic governance to the people of Northern Ireland, so that should not be an impediment. I ask the Government to accept that.

[Stephen Farry]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I want to make a few points about the European Court of Justice and my amendment 46. It is important to recognise that the ECJ has not been a big issue in Northern Ireland to date. No business has ever expressed any concern to me about its jurisdiction. Indeed, it was a very minor issue in political debate in Northern Ireland until Lord Frost took it upon himself to escalate the issue in a speech that he made last October in Lisbon, I think. It was on the eve of the European Commission tabling proposals for breaking the deadlock on this issue; that shows how well the Government have handled some of the so-called negotiations. The European Court of Justice seems to be an obsession for hard-line Brexiteers in this Chamber and elsewhere, and for those who advocate what could be described as a purist and old-fashioned approach to sovereignty that denies entirely the realities of the modern, interdependent world.

It is important to focus on the distinction between dispute resolution mechanisms in a free trade agreement, and the situation regarding the protocol. Many people suggest that we should simply have an arbitration mechanism for the protocol, and deliberately conflate the two types of agreement. It is entirely appropriate to have an arbitration mechanism for the trade and co-operation agreement, which is a free trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union. It is about two equals coming to the table and working out exactly how things will be taken forward. The position on Northern Ireland and the protocol is qualitatively different; we are talking about a region that continues to have direct access to the single market for goods, and is required to remain aligned with a body of European law, as is set out in annex 2 of the protocol. We will in a minute discuss the pros and cons of that, and the justification for it, but that is the situation that pertains, and why there is a different arbitration mechanism for a free trade agreement.

If the ultimate jurisdiction of the European Court is removed, that will jeopardise or destroy Northern Ireland’s ability to access the single market for goods. It is important that Members are fully aware of the implications of going down this particular road, because the two go hand in hand. Northern Ireland needs to remain in line with that law, and the European Court is part and parcel of how the situation works. Of course, if that were to happen, there would be massive implications for all businesses that operate on a north-south basis or that trade directly into the European Union. It is important that we do all we can to preserve that jurisdiction, while at the same time trying to fix the issues that pertain across the Irish sea. Through the Bill, a unilateral approach will be imposed on the European Union that probably will not address the issues across the Irish sea and at the same time will undermine Northern Ireland’s current dual-access opportunities.

I will go further and say this: we do not simply have to tolerate and put up with the situation. I maintain that being within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice is actively in Northern Ireland’s interests, because there may well be situations that come to light over the years where—due to the complications around the protocol, and the distinctions between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom—some businesses and places in the European Union do not accept goods from Northern Ireland, because they are confused about the overarching situation. In such situations, it is crucial that we have the European Court of Justice to enforce the rules and protect the rights of Northern Ireland businesses. If we are to change the jurisdiction, there is a real danger and risk that we throw away the opportunity and advantage that we have.

Last night, I had a conversation with a major export business in my constituency, whose representatives said that they were recently at a trade fair in Italy and people said to them, “Thank God you’re still part of the single market via the protocol, because we cannot do business readily with your counterparts in Great Britain, but because you’re part of the protocol we have that export opportunity.” Many hundreds of people are employed by that company. It is important to recognise that issue.