Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Opinion

Debate between Geoffrey Cox and Caroline Spelman

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I will try to obey the hon. Lady’s strictures about comments that I have made before. May I say to her that that is not quite right? I have said that the legal risk is reduced. The legal risk of being held in the backstop by bad faith or by want of best endeavours has reduced. It has reduced because of significant improvements which, as I have said, set the context and benchmark for the enforceability of those important duties. But it is absolutely true, as she rightly says, that the risk of remaining in the backstop absent any fundamental change of circumstance, if no bad faith or if no want of best endeavours is present, remains the same.

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I, too, am not a lawyer, but the Attorney General is doing a very good job of clarifying to me and to the House the important improvements that the negotiating team has brought. A lawyer I know characterised paragraph 19 of his letter as

“a minimal legal risk unlikely to be crystallised”.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree with that opinion?

[The Attorney General]

Yes, I do. Given what is at stake for the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, for the credit and faith of the European Union, which will be on the line, and for our ability to measure its performance against the detailed timetables and procedures that are now in place, I simply do not believe that we will be unable to reach any agreement with them. I repeat: it is perfectly possible to approach this in stages—to agree several agreements. We will be able to agree something over the next two or three years and the first priority, which is set out in this instrument, is the subsequent agreement replacing the backstop.