Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position

Oliver Heald Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The regulatory regime in Great Britain will be a matter entirely for the Government of the United Kingdom. It is permitted and agreed under the protocol that they can maintain their regulatory regime in the way they choose, in which case they could choose to maintain, as I have no doubt they would wish to do, regulatory parity with the position in Northern Ireland. That is all the Secretary of State is saying, and I see nothing controversial in that.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. and learned Friend on the statement he has made. Does he agree that in international law concepts of good faith and of using one’s best endeavours are very important, because right at the heart of international law is the idea of a rules-based system that good countries aspire to? Does he agree that it is therefore important both to the UK and to the EU that they should show good faith and should use their best endeavours? Does he also agree that if they did not do so when it came to the point that has just been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) about paragraph 11 in the references to the protocol, it would be an absolute disaster for either the UK or the EU to be found not to be in good faith?