Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-04
Topic: Immigration
Nigel Dodds (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): I shall speak briefly on Motion T1. It was a pleasure to listen to the noble Lords who have spoken to this important matter. One thing we all agree on is that there should be no checks or barriers along the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and certainly there should be no barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. That is an equal assertion. Unfortunately, those of us from a unionist position sometimes feel that the concentration is very much on the north-south dimension and that the east-west dimension is almost forgotten or people call for the rigorous implementation of checks, which is a bizarre position to adopt when there has been so much passion. I agree with those who have argued that there should be no checks between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and vice versa As someone who lives just about 15 miles from the border, I understand the concerns. However, there are a couple of myths that need to be dispelled. First, we are talking about an international border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. It is a different jurisdiction for currency, taxation and fiscal rules. For goodness’ sake, even the road signs change from kilometres to miles. We have different voting systems. All these things matter, and it is wrong to dismiss the guarantees and agreements that were made in the Belfast agreement, as amended by the St Andrews agreement, because it enshrined the principle of consent and that the people of Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom so long as they voted that way The second thing to say gently to the House is that there were checks for immigration on the UK side and on the Irish Republic side of the border—not at the border because nobody wants to stay at the border—even before we left the European Union. I am looking at a tweet put out by the Garda and PSNI in 2018, which eulogises and praises a checkpoint near the Monaghan/Armagh border seeking those in breach of immigration law. There are many other examples we could give. Eight illegal immigrants were caught at a checkpoint in Dundalk just across the Irish border by the Garda Síochána after travelling via England and Northern Ireland. These checks are not done at the border but they are intelligence-led, so it is wrong to suggest that somehow any checks are contrary to the spirit of the Belfast agreement because that is exactly the sort of regime that will apply going forward as it did previously The final thing I will say, very briefly, is that—as I mentioned at the start—we must have the same considerations and the same passion and desire to avoid problems against the spirit of the Belfast agreement which has been evoked today and we must ensure that it applies east-west for strand 3 as it does for strand 2. In June 2021, the European Union, as published by the DAERA department in January of this year, was complaining to the UK Government that ferry passengers coming from Great Britain into Larne or Belfast, where there is no border at all—British citizens moving from one part of the United Kingdom to the other—were not having their luggage checked. If anything illustrated the detriment to tourism, for instance, which has been mentioned in this regard, there is an example. Issues have been raised about people getting access to health and the protocol’s effect on medicines for UK citizens and Irish citizens coming from one part of the United Kingdom to the other. There are barriers to that, yet we do not hear the same concerns. All I am pleading for is balance and equivalence. If checks are wrong north-south, they are wrong east-west.