European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Tony Lloyd and David Lidington

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

There are certainly no plans to hold elections in this country to the European Parliament. In any hypothetical extension of article 50, that would be an important point for the EU27, because there could be a question mark about the legality of actions by a European Parliament in the future if not every member state had members of that European Parliament who had been properly elected. That is yet another reason why it would not be sensible for Members of this House who advocate an extension of article 50 simply to assume that the EU27 would happily be prepared to accept that. I do not believe that that is the case at all.

I will now turn to some of the points made. Like the hon. Member for Rochdale, I want to spend a lot of the time I have speaking about the Northern Ireland question, which came up not only in the extremely moving and compelling speech from the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), but in speeches from Members in different parts of the House.

First, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras challenged the Government over the paper that we published earlier today and said that he did not think there was any new commitment in it. There are two things that are completely new. On the other matters, we have put greater flesh on commitments that had already been given at a high political level. But we have not previously committed to requiring Stormont agreement to any new laws that the EU proposed to add to the backstop, and we have not previously committed to giving a restored Northern Ireland Executive a seat at the table at the committee overseeing the Northern Ireland backstop.

I accept, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did, that the paper we have published today will not be sufficient to meet all the concerns that the hon. Member for Belfast East and his colleagues have expressed, but it marks a genuine step forward in giving expression to our wish to make it very clear that we see Northern Ireland’s place in not only the political union of the United Kingdom but the single economic internal market of the United Kingdom now and into the future.

The hon. Member for Rochdale said that his personal test was that there should be no regulatory divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Of course, as he will know, there are some sectors where there is such regulatory divergence at the moment—notably on animal health and trading in livestock—for good practical reasons that are long established. One element of today’s package is greater clarity than we have given before that Northern Ireland goods under all circumstances would have full access to customers and markets in Great Britain, and that in the event of a backstop ever coming into operation, we would seek to align regulations in Great Britain with those that applied in Northern Ireland for the duration of the backstop.

[Tony Lloyd]

This is a serious point, not a polemical one. We now have a situation where the rest of the UK will follow Northern Ireland. If that is the case, why was that not the base case written into the protocol?

[Mr Lidington]

Because these things are about the sovereign constitutional order of the United Kingdom. They involve decisions that we in this House make and that, in respect of certain devolved matters, we would need to make in partnership and consultation with the Governments in the three devolved areas of the United Kingdom. That is why these are things that we are expressing unilaterally.

[Tony Lloyd]

This comes to the nub of things, and it is the point that the hon. Member for Belfast East made. If I disagree with the Government proposing any form of regulatory change that affects my constituents in Rochdale, I can vote in this House. The hon. Member for Belfast East does not have that same facility, and that is what is different about this agreement.

[Mr Lidington]

I want to come on to talk more generally about the backstop. I am not going to hide the fact—the Prime Minister has said it openly—that this is something we find uncomfortable as a Government, but we do not believe it poses the risks to the Union that are expressed by its critics.

I want to take up the point about the Belfast agreement. The question has been raised in this debate and previously, including by the hon. Member for Belfast East, as to whether the protocol breaches the integrity of the three-stranded approach that is embodied in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is clear to me that the text of the protocol says in terms that it protects the 1998 agreement “in all its parts”. That is on page 303 of the document that is on the table. The protocol also refers to the scope for possible new arrangements for north-south co-operation but then goes on to define those as being in accordance with the 1998 agreement.

The Government’s own legal position is clear that article 13 of the protocol does not alter the remit of the North-South Ministerial Council or the north-south implementation bodies; nor does it alter strand two in any way. However, to avoid any doubt on this matter, in the paper today we have again given a commitment to legislate to provide explicitly that

“no recommendations made under Article 13(2) of the Protocol will be capable of altering the scope of…the North-South Ministerial Council, nor establishing new implementation bodies or altering the arrangements set out in the Belfast Agreement in any way.”

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: Border Arrangements

Debate between Tony Lloyd and David Lidington

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The trade surplus that the EU27 enjoy with the United Kingdom, particularly in trade in goods, is just one more compelling reason why it is to our mutual advantage to negotiate a future economic partnership that allows trade to be as frictionless as possible.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

The Minister is doing his level best to fudge the principal question: if we go into the negotiations with a view that there will be no hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland and no hard border down the Irish sea, how do we begin to negotiate—what is the mechanism?

[Mr Lidington]

The mechanism is that which is set out in the joint report and in the Government’s various speeches and publications over the past 12 months, the latest of which the Prime Minister will deliver this Friday.