Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2021-05-12
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nigel Dodds (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): My Lords, I pay tribute to Her Majesty the Queen, who, in her 96th year, delivered her 67th gracious Speech in this place. In a year of great loss, once again her great courage, commitment and dedication to this kingdom have shone forth very brightly I add my congratulations to those noble Lords who made their maiden speeches and wish the right reverend Prelate the very best on his retirement The gracious Speech rightly began with reference to the national recovery from the terrible pandemic that we are still going through. It is right that we should recognise the immense success of the vaccine rollout and enormous amount of economic and financial support that has been poured in to sustain jobs in all parts of the United Kingdom. That has to be acknowledged and welcomed, and the Government deserve enormous credit for what they have done on both those fronts, with £352 billion of economic support for 1.7 million jobs To many people across the United Kingdom, this reinforces once again the value of the union—of being part of the fifth biggest economy in the world. I gently ask those in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and elsewhere, who advocate separation to reflect very strongly on where they might find themselves were they not part of this United Kingdom, which has done so much, I believe, to rescue so many people’s livelihoods at this very precarious time I very much welcome those parts of the Queen’s Speech that talked about levelling up, strengthening the economic ties across the union and ensuring that support for business reflects the United Kingdom’s strategic interests and drives economic growth. Those pledges and commitments from the Government in the gracious Speech apply throughout the United Kingdom —and rightly so However, I would be failing in my duty to the people of Northern Ireland today if I did not reflect that many of these objectives will be hindered in their application and enforcement if the Government do not rapidly deal with the problems that arise from the Northern Ireland protocol. There are two aspects of this: the trade and economic disruption to communities, businesses and people in Northern Ireland, and the damage that is done to the constitutional settlement and to devolution as a result of the application, across vast swathes of the economy of Northern Ireland, of laws on which no one in the Northern Ireland Assembly or in this or the other place will have any say or vote. In the 21st century, in a modern democracy, that is absolutely scandalous and cannot be allowed to endure Yesterday, and in recent days, the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland have listened to businesses and communities in Northern Ireland on the challenges of the operation of the protocol. They heard about the level and complexity of paperwork required, even on goods remaining in Northern Ireland, notably in the agri-food sector. They talked about disruption to supply chains from Great Britain and the consequent diversion of trade, and they talked about the risks associated with the expiry of the grace period and the introduction of even more processes as a result At the moment, Northern Ireland carries out two and a half times more checks on goods coming in from Great Britain than the Port of Rotterdam does for the entirety of imports across the world. We carry out 20% of all the checks in the European Union—more than all French ports combined. As the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said, this is unsustainable; it cannot operate in its current form for long, and rapid solutions need to be found. I heartily endorse that call by the noble Lord because, if we do not deal with these issues and the democratic deficit that is at the heart of the protocol, the Government and all the parties in Northern Ireland will not be able to build the economy We have a wonderful vision for the Northern Ireland economy over the next 10 years, which was set out yesterday—I declare an interest in that my wife is the Minister for the Economy in Northern Ireland, but she did it on behalf of the whole of the Executive and all the parties. However, we will not be able to fulfil that and restore democratic stability to Northern Ireland unless the issues that have arisen from the application of the protocol—for which no one in Northern Ireland voted—are dealt with very swiftly.