Northern Ireland Protocol — House of Lords, 2021-07-21
Topic: International Affairs
David Frost (Conservative, Centre-right): No doubt, that is the source of some of what is read in the press this morning, but I would not like anyone to think that we were not showing appropriate respect to this House in the way that we have gone about this matter Turning to the substance: a lot was said about us not standing by our commitments as a Government, about unilateral actions and so on—which I find slightly surprising, because that is not what we have proposed. We have proposed a way forward based on consensus and negotiation. That is the responsible thing in these circumstances. We have always said that all options remain on the table, but we have chosen the way of negotiation and compromise, and we hope that the EU will respond in that way. We believe that the possibilities, if it does, are really quite exciting, so that is the way we would like to proceed The issue was raised of why we did not foresee this situation. The current protocol reflects the extraordinary circumstances in which it was agreed, when this Government risked being unable to deliver on a democratically determined referendum result because their negotiating hands were tied by actions in this Parliament. We proposed, and eventually agreed, a protocol that was substantially different from our initial proposals, particularly in customs arrangements and in limiting the consent principle. We thought these changes might well cause problems, but we thought that, with a pragmatic, light-touch application of the rules, the right thing to do was to try to make the protocol work We could not predict the future; we could not have foreseen the political turbulence the EU would spark off with its Article 16 proposal in January; we did not anticipate the very purist application that would be applied to some of its provisions. We have all learned from experience. We now know what is working and what is not, and we believe that the best way to resolve the situation is to try to negotiate changes—and we do not see what is wrong with that. Anyone would think that it was a highly unusual thing to renegotiate a treaty; of course, it is not. To take one example: the UK-France treaty on juxtaposed controls was itself a supplementary protocol to an agreement reached in 1986, signed in 1991, renegotiated in 2000 and renegotiated in 2007, as the nature of the juxtaposed controls and the situation they were working in changed. So, there is nothing particularly unusual in this, and we do not apologise for it The issue of checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain was raised, and the noble Baroness raised the issue of the Prime Minister’s comments about "throwing forms in the bin". I would note that he made those comments in the context of movements from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, and there are no forms for such movements. That was something we secured with the EU in 2020, and that unfettered access is extremely important for these arrangements. The issue of trust was raised, which is clearly extremely important. Trust takes two, and the EU’s actions on vaccines, on Article 16 and on the immediate resort to legal action to try to stop people in Northern Ireland going on holiday to Great Britain with their pets are all actions that are not conducive to trust. We do not want a relationship with high levels of mistrust. The current problems in the relationship are caused by the extreme difficulties in operating the protocol reasonably. If we can get to a better protocol, we will have resolved some of those problems. That is why we are trying to proceed by consensus and get to a better situation The issue of people in Northern Ireland was raised. Of course, the protocol itself requires there to be no impact, or minimised impact, on the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland. The fact that that is not being observed is one of the major problems with the current situation, and that is why we wish to see if we can resolve it in a negotiated way The veterinary agreement was raised, and we have made it clear that our position is that an agreement by equivalence could solve problems. But in this Command Paper we are proposing something more fundamental: dealing with the fundamentals of the difficulties rather than the problems. Our proposal for a dual regulatory zone with appropriate processes backing it up—and one of those things could be a veterinary agreement—will resolve these issues in a more fundamental way The issue of Article 16 was raised. We set out the thinking on that in the Command Paper, and it is a very legitimate tool for use within the protocol. That is why it is there. We made it clear that the situation would justify the use of Article 16, if we wished to, to deal with both current issues—for example, chilled meats, parcels and so on—and the broader arrangements under which goods enter Northern Ireland from Great Britain. But we have chosen not to go down that route. We prefer to proceed by negotiation, and I hope we can I will make a few final points. I have seen the comments from the US State Department spokesman overnight in which he urges everyone to solve differences by negotiation and protect the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We absolutely 100% agree with that, and that is what we have set out today The issue of stability in Northern Ireland is very important: business needs stability. The problem is that we do not have stability now, and anyone who heard the comments from the chair of Marks & Spencer this morning and has seen his letter will be very clear about the kind of extreme difficulties that businesses will face if we simply proceed without trying to rectify the situation. We do not have stability now. We need to produce a solution that will generate stability and get us forward into the future So we look to make proposals. We have made proposals that set out a negotiated approach. They are significant and substantive; they offer a good chance, in our view, of resolving difficulties on a durable basis; and we very much hope that the EU will look at them, consider them carefully and go forward with us on that journey.