European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: International Affairs
Ian Duncan (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps I may make some progress but I will return to the noble Lord if he will allow me. We have had a very wide-ranging discussion and we will come back to his point As we go forward, I want to stress again that the key thing which the Government must achieve in the negotiations is an equitable, sensible and sustainable solution. A number of noble Lords have referred to certain elements which must and will appear in subsequent Bills, whether they are questions about agriculture, fisheries, broader trade or electricity. All these will fit in sensibly to those parts and the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill will afford an opportunity for noble Lords to address all these particular points. We as a Government are determined to ensure that all the commitments on Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland set out in the joint report are turned into legally binding text—not just one of them. Each of them has to be a component part. All the parties involved must recognise that, to ensure that it is indeed the case. Further, we have been clear that in all circumstances we will protect the UK internal market. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, was very persuasive in the way that he set out the reality of the market as it affects the Province of Northern Ireland, and we cannot lose sight of that. Nor can we see a border suddenly appear down the middle of the Celtic or Irish Sea; that in itself would be wrong. We therefore need to find, along with the EU, an approach that works I turn now to the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. In some ways the points I am going to make echo those of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, because in certain respects the key thing will be for the two respective Governments to ensure that they create a situation in which there is a disincentive to abuse the border. That will be the first step. On the points raised by the noble Baroness about the physicality of checks and the reality of what they might look like, I wanted to be very clear about what I would say in my response, so I scribbled a note for my officials in the Box in order that I would not in any way stray on to thin ice. To be clear: there will be no impediment at the land border to the movement of people—no checks and no profiling, full stop. That is the ambition and the policy of the United Kingdom Government Going forward from that, I shall address the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. She raised the question of regulatory alignment, which was covered in the joint report. It is important to recognise that alignment is about pursuing the same objectives. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stated in her Florence speech, it is about achieving the same goals by the same means or achieving the same goals by different means. In many respects, as a former Member of the European Parliament, I am familiar with that approach. It is like the difference between producing a regulation and producing a directive. A directive sets out clearly what the ambition should be but gives greater latitude to those to reach the particular ambition. A regulation does none of that. It is set in stone and in law and it must be followed. The noble Baroness will recognise that in the negotiations it will be necessary for both sides to achieve an understanding of what that will mean. That is because, in truth, it will affect both sides and it will disproportionately affect Ireland over the United Kingdom. That is why the negotiations will be conducted on a very sensitive and sensible footing. I do not impute the sinister motives raised earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle.