European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Report: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, I had a five-page speaking note when I arrived here. I have now written more than 10 pages myself. I am not sure my speaking note will do the debate justice so I will set it aside.

I will try to capture the key elements of this discussion. I will turn, as I often do in matters concerning Ireland and Northern Ireland, to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, who reminded us that we have heard the same words used many times about the Good Friday agreement, to the extent that earlier today we almost had to use a thesaurus to find a replacement for “steadfast” because we have said it so many times. As it happens, the word in the note is “unwavering”, if you are looking for a description of our support for the Good Friday agreement. But the noble and right reverend Lord is correct: we must give comfort and certainty to the people of Northern Ireland that they will not be abandoned, sacrificed, left behind, have their rights trimmed to suit a separate agenda or find themselves in a situation where what they thought they had they do not have at all. I had the pleasure of having a cup of tea yesterday with the noble and right reverend Lord and he spoke about what he called the Ballymena spade—where they call a spade a spade. We need to be clear that there can be no border down the middle of the Irish Sea. We simply cannot create a division between one part of our country and another.

Michel Barnier, the chief negotiator for the EU, has said that there needs to be some adjustment to particular rights and proprieties, that there needs to be some acceptance that we cannot have these things, and that some of the red lines themselves, as the Foreign Minister of Ireland has said, may need to be adjusted in the light of peace and prosperity. But they cannot be, that is the point. So if I was to give a message to Michel Barnier, it would be: “Ecoutez les deux communautés”—you must listen to the two communities in Northern Ireland. You cannot listen to only one of them. Both are integral to what we will be able to achieve on the island of Ireland, and any suggestion otherwise is fallacious and unhelpful. In truth, it risks creating greater uncertainty for this particular negotiation. I would advocate great caution on behalf of Michel Barnier in this regard.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

The Minister knows the respect in which I hold him and the job he is doing. I have no wish to have a border which differentiates Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. But will he accept that the problem was not created by Michel Barnier? The promise to have complete alignment between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland was not made by Michel Barnier, it was made by the British Government. Michel Barnier is doing no more than holding the Government to the promise they made to Europe in the initial agreement, and it is not his responsibility that outside that the Government also promised the DUP—correctly, in my view—that there would be complete alignment between Britain and Northern Ireland. That is the essential problem, because if you have alignment between Britain and Northern Ireland, between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland, and between southern Ireland and Europe, you automatically have alignment between Britain and the European Union; in other words, staying inside the customs union.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I hear the noble Lord, Lord Reid. With the greatest respect, I recognise what he is saying, but the joint report did not have just one element in this regard, it had three elements. The important thing about the three elements is that each must be afforded the ultimate engagement to try to deliver a solution. If Michel Barnier has decided that the first and second are sacrificial elements and he must now focus only on the third, frankly, he is becoming part of a bigger problem.