Northern Ireland

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Gentleman is a friend of mine, so I hope that he does not mind my disagreeing with him on this. The Command Paper will, I hope, deliver the restoration of Stormont: the most important strand 1 institution of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It will also allow for Ministers to be appointed to the North South Ministerial Council: an important institution in a different strand of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which could then function properly. What the Command Paper does is allow for all strands of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement to start humming again as they should. He will have to forgive me, but I must disagree with him on that point.

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for being so generous. Does it not all boil down to this? As is outlined in annex A, it is important to distinguish between Northern Ireland’s “integral place” constitutionally within the United Kingdom and its internal market, and the access it has to the single market as a result of its unique position. Those two words—the difference between access and its constitutional place—are what we really need to focus on when trying to square this circle.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. He makes an important point eloquently, as ever.

Mr Speaker—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is very nice to see you in your place, and I am sorry I did not see you come in—the regulations undoubtedly will strengthen Union. It is for that reason, and more, that I wholeheartedly and unequivocally commend them to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I will certainly bear that exhortation in mind, Madam Deputy Speaker.

This debate has properly focused on the statutory instrument that will amend primary legislation through the powers of the 2018 Act, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) and I both spent a lot of time dealing with in its enactment. However, it is right to look again at what is outlined in the helpful annex A to the Command Paper, in terms of the history and the legal background to what the parties have been dealing with and why it is that many of the arguments from the naysayers do not pass close scrutiny at all.

I am delighted to see on page 53 of the Command Paper a clear exposition of the position with regard to the Acts of Union—I say the Acts of Union because, of course, there was more than the one in 1801. Since that time the Acts have been amended, and not just by the seismic events of 1921; they were amended right through the 19th century, and indeed beyond, to take into account the evolving position of Northern Ireland. Just as every other part of our United Kingdom has evolved, so has Northern Ireland.

It is right to pause and say that the arguments that were asserted, in particular in the Supreme Court, about what we can now call the old protocol being inconsistent with the Acts of Union are just wrong. That point was never at issue before that Court. The Court specifically said that it did not have to rule on it.

[Ian Paisley]

A lot of this is quite surreal, because it falls into the grounds of piffle. I remember sitting in the Select Committee on Northern Ireland, and the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), telling me, in October 2019, “This will all be light touch—you won’t even notice it.” We have spent the last four years now trying to unravel the heavy hand of Europe and still need to prise those fingers off what is happening in Northern Ireland. We have also been told that yes, there was a problem, and we all now know what the problem was: this House failed to stand up to Europe and allowed Northern Ireland to be a buffer zone to protect its single market and threw our single market down the toilet in the process.

[Sir Robert Buckland]

I feel the emotion and hear the proper points that the hon. Gentleman makes. The process became the legislative and constitutional equivalent of brain surgery, and the patient was Northern Ireland. Everybody was feeling it. This is not just an archaic debate: this is a debate about the business and economy of Northern Ireland. This is real and important for the businesses that right hon. and hon. Members represent—absolutely right —which is why the hon. Gentleman’s party should claim proper credit for the painstaking approach that he and his colleagues, including the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), have shown in this process. They have not taken no for an answer. They have actually sought to try to reach a solution and be part of that brain surgery process—that neurological change.

But I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that there is a distinction between the integral part that Northern Ireland plays in our United Kingdom constitution and our internal market—our single market—and the inevitable access that Northern Ireland will have to the EU single market. Why? Because of the nature of the border that exists in Northern Ireland, the unique nature of its status and all the history and, indeed, the reality that goes with that. That is why there is not going to be an elegant or perfect solution to all this. It was always going to involve compromise.

Compromise is a difficult word—it implies weakness and fudging; it implies a lack of clarity—but right hon. and hon. Members opposite have recognised that that is the world in which they operate, which is why we are able to be here today to debate important changes that will underpin not just declaratory words about Northern Ireland’s place within the UK internal market, but concrete actions that are set out in the Command Paper. I am thinking in particular of the operation of the Stormont brake. Yes, we need to see more guidance about its operation—we need to understand the evidential thresholds that will be required for MLAs to bring the brake to the attention of the UK Government to lodge their objections; that work has to be done—but today will allow it to happen.

In its judgment, the Supreme Court looked in particular at the question of the sovereignty of Parliament, and affirmed that—as article 6 of the Acts of Union itself recognised—it is the most fundamental rule of UK constitutional law. There is nothing novel, unexpected or controversial about that, which is why some of the language that emerged from that case was not just unhelpful but wrong. I know that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, shares my view. It was time for leadership, and leadership means being straightforward and getting it right. That is why I commend the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues for the work that they have done: they got it right, and as a result of their approach we are able today, I hope, to pass this much-needed change. I welcome it warmly, I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I commend this measure to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.