United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-21
Topic: International Affairs
Katherine Fletcher (Conservative, Centre-right): I intend to keep my remarks short to aid the House’s consideration of such an important topic. I am a proud child of the north-west of England and I am sure the House agrees that there are strong links between the communities of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and those in Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire and beyond. We travel, live and work on both sides of the short straits of the Irish sea, as my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) said It will shock several hon. Members that I am actually really old—old enough to remember the shock of seeing my home town of Manchester shattered by an explosion and the devastation of the Warrington bomb. From the ’90s onwards, I have been proud to have good friends on different sides of the Northern Irish community who studied, lived and worked here and in the north-west, and who are now successful business women trading on both sides of the Irish sea. That is not to forget my next-door neighbour Those wonderful women and men told me stories of their childhoods. They were often a difficult and heart-rending listen, but they are important for today’s debate. They were of losing a parent to a car bomb, of having two different ways to say house to avoid the beating that would undoubtedly come if they identified their community by their pronunciation, and of the fear that they would not be able to go home if peace was not secured. To the many hon. Members who have proposed that the Bill poses a threat to the hard-won peace and that the Government would consciously do something to bring about such awful events and bring them back, I say an emphatic no As a young woman, I listened to teenage girls crying in a pub about what had happened to them and their families. I promised myself that if I were ever in a position to have influence, "never again" would be my mantra. To keep that promise to my teenage self, I have examined in detail the measures in the Bill and studied the text of the Good Friday agreement, specifically the section on economic, social and cultural issues, which includes: "the British Government will pursue broad policies for sustained economic growth and stability in Northern Ireland and for promoting social inclusion, including in particular community development and the advancement of women in public life." The Bill in no way undermines the Good Friday agreement. On the contrary, it includes provisions to protect the agreement and help to ensure that, regardless of whether further agreement is reached in negotiations with the EU, there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and Northern Ireland businesses will continue to benefit from unrestricted access to the rest of the UK market when the transition period ends We need the ability to pursue, as it says in the Good Friday agreement, broad policies for sustained economic growth. My reading of the WA requires us to issue specific clarifications encoded in the Bill. The Government are taking reasonable steps to create a safety net that ensures that they are always able to deliver on their commitments to the people of Northern Ireland and uphold the gains of the peace process. To be specific, we cannot have a situation where goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland face restrictions from a third party and where we cannot help to pursue community development due to EU regulations I am confident that the Government’s commitment to the Good Friday agreement is beyond question, but I appeal to EU and UK leadership to redouble their efforts in negotiations to reach an agreement and render the safety net not required. I thank the Government for amendment 66 and for giving the House an ability to have its say should that eventuality even come close to coming to pass I will vote with the Government on the Bill today and I will keep my word to those old friends of mine who owned the white Vectra, enjoyed a good DJ set and to whom my drink will always remain a Guinness. They are all powerful businesswomen—I will support them and I will support the Bill.