Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-06
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Henry Alexander Eames (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I want to address the terms of Amendment 26, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and others. I do so with a feeling of compulsion, not just for historical reasons but because of the situation as it is now in Northern Ireland. When we talked about this amendment for the first time, it was possible to refer to the fact that the Northern Ireland land border would soon become the border between the United Kingdom and the European Union. As time has passed and we have considered this Bill, the situation is now slightly different. The difference is that the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is the border between the United Kingdom and the EU. Because of that, many would say, "Well, the situation has clarified for Northern Ireland, and many of the worries that you have expressed to the House over the years have resolved themselves to a certain degree of clarity, because the situation is that your border is the border with the EU" I refer to a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, on a previous occasion in debate on this Bill. He said that trade was about people—a simplistic remark that it would be very easy to erase from the memory. However, in the light of what we who support this amendment today want to stress to the House, that remark stresses something of great importance. Over the years, I have at some length spoken to your Lordships of the sensitivities in Northern Ireland based on our history, and this is not the occasion to do so again—except to say that nothing in this Bill can be dismissed as having no historical context, because trade is about people. I speak after years of experience of dealing with those problems, and dealing with them on a practical level, as the Anglican primate of the whole of the island The wording of Amendment 26 attempts to answer what underlines a great deal of the trouble and worries in Northern Ireland at this moment. Those worries can best be summed up as uncertainty, because uncertainty brings with it stress. The business community is faced with Brexit, with the unknown future lying before us all and with the questions of our relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom which the noble Lord, Lord Hain, painted so clearly just now. All that uncertainty combines to figure dangers for the trade and business prosperity of a part of the United Kingdom—namely, Northern Ireland. If the sense of this amendment is not included on the pages of the statute book, in the light of what else is said about the Trade Bill, its absence will make even more visible the uncertainty and the stress for our local community We have spent a long time in this House looking at this Bill. We have had to face its terms not only in what is before us on the Marshalled List but in what is happening in the situation around us, far from Westminster. The plea that I make, coming as I do from Northern Ireland, is that your Lordships realise that we are not playing with words. We are not trying to overdramatise for historical reasons the need for this amendment. We are saying that we represent genuine uncertainty and doubt and, as one businessman put it to me at the weekend, the fear of the uncertainty that lies ahead of us as part of the UK I stress one other aspect. One lesson that the debates on this Bill has produced has been a new recognition of the doubts as well as the achievements of the devolved settlement. We have learned a great deal about that relationship and that settlement; we have learned how good it can be, how welcome it can be and how strong it can be for the whole United Kingdom, but we have also recognised its limitations. Amendment 26, so ably produced by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, shows the need to be clear in those areas of uncertainty where part of the United Kingdom finds itself not as a future border with the European Union, but the border today between two Administrations. I hope the Minister will realise, when he comes to reply, that one of the shortcomings of the way in which we work as a House under our present conditions is that there are often things that cannot be examined in detail. This is very true of matters of trade but even more true of matters to do with people, and because people are a part of trade, I support Amendment 26.