Northern Ireland

The restoration of the strand 1 institutions is therefore welcome news, and I am hopeful that we will soon see the North/South Ministerial Council and other strand 2 implementation bodies return to full operation, alongside the meetings of the British-Irish Council and British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference that are already scheduled to take place in the coming months. It is this three-stranded approach—this delicate, careful, interdependent balance —that will honour the spirit and letter of the agreement, providing a fitting tribute to those who, some 26 years ago, helped deliver the agreement that is, as I have just said, the foundation of so much peace and stability in Northern Ireland. I pay tribute, as always, to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, for his contribution and role in delivering that agreement in 1998.

To be clear, this Government will always uphold the long-established three-stranded approach to Northern Ireland affairs, meaning that internal arrangements for the governance of Northern Ireland, including any potential reforms to the institutions, are for the Northern Ireland parties and the UK Government to decide. This humble Address also rightly acknowledges the foundational importance of the Acts of Union 1800, including the economic provisions under Article 6 of those Acts. The Government are clear that the new arrangements committed to in the Command Paper, including the UK internal market system, ensure the smooth flow of trade across the UK. Our determination to ensure that that happens was demonstrated when we enshrined the unfettered access of qualifying Northern Ireland goods to the whole UK internal market.

The final part of this humble Address relates to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The Belfast agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 are explicit that any change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland would require the consent of a majority of its people. The UK Government are absolutely clear that there is no basis to suggest that, at present, a majority of people in Northern Ireland wish to separate from the United Kingdom. Our position is therefore straight- forward: Northern Ireland has a bright and prosperous future within the union for as long as the people of Northern Ireland wish it. As a Conservative and Unionist Government, that is something we warmly welcome.

What we cannot countenance and will not consider is what some have described as “joint authority”—a vague and frankly ill-defined concept that would see the UK and Irish Governments somehow exercise joint sovereignty over a part of the United Kingdom. That will not happen, either de facto or de jure. The agreement sets out two constitutional futures: Northern Ireland as fully part of the United Kingdom or wholly part of a sovereign, independent united Ireland. There is no third way. The UK Government are absolutely clear that the consent principle of the Belfast agreement governs the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. We will not countenance any arrangements that are inconsistent with that. It follows, therefore, that Northern Ireland is not some kind of hybrid state. It is, under the consent principle, clearly and unequivocally an integral part of the United Kingdom.

My central motivation is to make Northern Ireland work and flourish, and to do so for everyone, regardless of their community background or ultimate political aspirations. That requires fully functioning devolved power-sharing institutions, with locally elected politicians taking decisions over local matters, accountable to a local Assembly. I once again welcome the decision of the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, to return his party to Stormont, backed by the legislation that has now been passed in both Houses of Parliament. As local representatives work again in the interests of the people who elected them, we remain committed to building a brighter, stronger and more prosperous future for Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and that is what this humble Address affirms and delivers. I beg to move.

I listened last night to the debate in the other place. Sadly, I again heard the leader of the DUP attacking the very people he stood with over years of campaigning and protest—the people he now says talk nonsense, who do not know facts or history and have not read the Acts of Union. This latest attack on other pro-union people who, incidentally, he refuses to debate with in public, is based on a claim that such persons urged restoring the Acts of Union. It seems that now, perhaps after spending some time with the Northern Ireland Office—too much time—anyone who thinks that are fools. Whoever would suggest such a ridiculous thing as restoring the Acts of Union, our foundational constitutional statute?

The problem for Sir Jeffrey is that on 21 July 2021, he said in Parliament:

“what does the Prime Minister intend to do to fully restore the Act of Union for Northern Ireland and remove the Irish sea border?”—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/21; col. 971.]

As I said earlier, he stood before on platforms all over Northern Ireland with myself, Jim Allister, Ben Habib, Jamie Bryson and many others campaigning in pursuit of that objective. Furthermore, he actually wrote a foreword to Jamie Bryson’s book on the Acts of Union, commending it to fellow unionists.

Being blunt, the only person who seems to have U-turned on all this is the leader of the DUP. His outburst on the Acts of Union is, I believe, about covering his U-turn. He is making efforts to create a puff of smoke around the Acts of Union to conceal the reality that, far from undoing the constitutional damage to that foundational legislation, he now accepts and implements it and thinks that, by talking nonsense about tariffs in 1801, everyone will be confused.

In October 2022, the DUP leader also said:

“Some lay great emphasis on cutting the number of checks on goods”

moving from GB to Northern Ireland. He continued:

“If that were to happen they say all our problems would be sorted … The truth of course is that the checks on the Irish Sea border are the symptom of the underlying problem, namely that NI is subject to a different set of laws imposed on us”.

That is very different from the Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in 2024. I hope that he will reflect on his comments. There is nothing wrong with changing one’s opinion; there is nothing wrong with people changing their views. I respect people who do that if they say it with intellectual honesty rather than lashing out at those who have not changed and have remained true to their principles. He clearly wanted to get the Assembly back, and that is fair enough, but you do that by being honest and straightforward with people, not trying to do a deal with the Government to produce words that are meaningless.

Of all the deceptions in the humble Address, those concerning the Acts of Union and the Belfast agreement are probably the most insulting. It pledges support for the Belfast agreement “in all its parts”, meanwhile omitting that the core cross-community consent safeguard found at Strand One 5(d) of the Belfast agreement and given effect in Section 42 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 remains disapplied for the Article 18 protocol vote later this year. What is really meant by the words about upholding the Belfast agreement in all its parts is the Belfast agreement as constitutionally vandalised by the protocol and framework.

The previous government claim was that the cross-community consent mechanism applied only to devolved issues. That was the Government’s defence, but it is wrong on many levels, and I want to put why on record. Most fundamentally, if the cross-community consent mechanism was never applicable and we are all so misguided, why did the Government pass regulations to disapply that which never applied anyway?

Another part of what seems to many people to be duplicity is that the cross-community mechanism applies to a matter to be voted on by the Assembly. There is no limitation as to only matters which are devolved or within legislative competence. That is obvious from paragraph 107 of the Supreme Court judgment in the challenge to the protocol that I and others were involved with. The Belfast agreement is not upheld at all; it has been made subject to the protocol—in this instance Article 18—and gives way to it.

We have come full circle. We were told that the protocol was about protecting the Belfast agreement in all its parts, but now we are celebrating an altered Belfast agreement, with safeguards disapplied to the detriment of unionists in order to protect the protocol. It is shameful, and what was so disappointing to me was that neither the deputy leader nor the leader of the DUP in the other place highlighted this most obvious deficiency. That is of profound concern.

I turn to the next bold claim in the humble Address, which is

“the foundational importance of the Acts of Union”.

I believe that the Command Paper, and the way the DUP leadership presented its endorsement of it, is an exercise in deception on the Acts of Union. No other word describes it. It said a lot, much of it inaccurate, about the Acts of Union but then tried to convince everyone that black is white. It said that we must believe that the Supreme Court did not say what it said, close our eyes and pretend that the Acts of Union are not subjugated and in suspension. We must delude ourselves that we are all confused and there is no conflict between the protocol framework and the Acts of Union, and that if there is then we should embrace it because if we do not—most bizarrely of all—tariffs might be brought back on Bushmills whiskey.

I do not like the word “subjugation”, but it is not my word. It was first used not by unionists or loyalists but by this Government in their written and oral submissions to the Court of Appeal, in which they said that the Acts of Union were subjugated. This argument was accepted and repeated in the judgment of the Court of Appeal and upheld by the Supreme Court. People sometimes get annoyed when I refer to subjugation of the Acts of Union, but I am using the Government’s words, or at least their words prior to their U-turn. We are now supposed to believe that the interpretation that the courts and all of unionism applied to Article VI of the Acts of Union was wrong and instead embrace the new inventive interpretation which amounts to nothing more than meekly accepting the fundamental change to our constitutional status, while pretending otherwise.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson now puts his case—in a way much different from what he said on platforms prior to partnering with the Northern Ireland Office to sell his deal—on the basis that we cannot restore the Acts of Union because that would mean putting them back to 1801 and, as I said, there would therefore be tariffs on, for example, Bushmills whiskey. This sounds good symbolically and gets a good headline, but in substance it means that, because the Acts of Union have changed before since 1801, there is no issue. If you make this case, you must be willing to embrace the changes to the Acts of Union made by the protocol. Why else would previous changes add anything to your argument? When Sir Jeffrey talks about 1801, he is deflecting from the central point. The constitutional damage we have all campaigned on was inflicted by the protocol, and that is the cause of the suspension of Article VI. The fundamental issue is whether that has been undone.

Let me put it simply, as this question must be responded to. Quoting the court, Sir Jeffrey talked about the subjugation of Article VI of the Acts of Union, which he said must be addressed to restore Northern Ireland’s place in the union. That has not been addressed. As it obviously has not, how can anyone claim, using his test as a measuring stick, that his deal restores Northern Ireland’s place in the union? That has not been answered by Sir Jeffrey or the Minister. Amid all this spin, there is a very simple question: as a matter of legal reality, the Acts of Union remain subjugated and in suspension—in the court’s words, not mine—so are the Government now willing to accept that as a legitimate change to the Acts of Union?

What we mean by restoring the Acts of Union is very simple. It means undoing the damage inflicted by the protocol. This has been turned around into a bizarre argument about tariffs on whiskey which is designed to confuse everyone. The reality is that, in 1801, there were no more tariffs or duties to be added to a specified agreed list unless they were equalised. These are known as countervailing duties. In simple terms, Schedule 1 to Article VI of the Acts of Union exhaustively specified certain items that would continue to be subject to tariffs and duties. This was an agreement between what was then Ireland and Great Britain; it was not imposed or agreed with a foreign power.

More fundamentally, it was designed to be transitional. As such, under the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1879, Schedule 1 was repealed. There have been no tariffs since. Contrary to the attempts to confuse and mislead people, doing exactly what Sir Jeffrey called for—repairing the damage done to Article VI by the protocol—would not, as if by magic, cause to spring back to life Schedule 1 and its list of tariffs abolished in 1879. It is silly and beneath such an experienced and eminent political leader, as well as others, to say such utter nonsense designed to create confusion because he will say nothing on the substance of the point around the Acts of Union.

The Acts of Union, prior to the protocol, remained in force. In the words of Lord Justice McCloskey, the intent of Article VI from 1801 was “unmistakable”. Yet now, listening to some senior members of the DUP and Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office, we are all supposed to believe that everyone has just fallen into one big misinterpretation, including our courts. The notion that, if the subjugation of the Acts of Union were lifted and the damage of the protocol undone, somehow Schedule 1, which was repealed in 1879, would come back to life and there would be tariffs on Bushmills whiskey—which would really upset the honourable Member for North Antrim—is complete and utter nonsense.

I will also address the claim in the Command Paper that the Supreme Court did not address the inconsistency between the Acts of Union and the protocol, as Ministers have said time and again. Yes, it did. It expressly proceeded on the basis that there was an inconsistency, as upheld by the High Court and Court of Appeal before it, the highest courts in Northern Ireland. This is set out clearly in paragraphs 54 and 64 of the Supreme Court judgment. It confounds emphatically the claims of the Government. The most remarkable thing is that the Government accepted there was such an inconsistency and did not cross-appeal to the Supreme Court. Now they are trying to tell us something different. The inconsistency was held by the courts to be: first, the continued application of EU law; secondly, the ongoing fetters on trade; and, thirdly, Northern Ireland having privileged access to the EU single market, the price of which was our exclusion from being a full part of the United Kingdom internal market.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, who is in his place, has said repeatedly in this House that the Acts of Union have been changed before. That is quite true, but the basis of his argument, as with Sir Jeffrey’s new position, must be that, because they were changed before, the present change should not offend unionists. Sometimes he seems to be urging us to embrace it. If he wants to deploy that argument, he should be honest about what it means: accepting the constitutional damage to the Acts of Union inflicted by the protocol. It means accepting that change on the basis that the Acts of Union have changed before. That is what some, including the noble Lord, have said. We should be honest about that.

It has also been said that EU law was never one of the DUP’s seven tests. Members of the DUP answered that pretty strongly in our last debate. An MLA called David Brooks set out last week in the Belfast News Letter that it was never a DUP test. That is really odd, because the leader of the DUP said in October 2022 that the core issue was EU law, and he said it again in February 2023 in an interview with Tracey Magee of UTV. The very first of the DUP’s tests was directed to the Acts of Union. You cannot restore the Acts of Union without removing EU law, because EU law is the most fundamental breach of them. It is very simple. A mention of restoring the Acts of Union cannot be anything other than a commitment to end EU law; otherwise, achieving such restoration would be impossible.

Practically everything I have said has been lifted more or less directly from the court judgment, which I hope many noble Lords will read, because it is clear that they are inconsistent with the Acts of Union.

If there are those who are willing to forsake the fundamental principles of the Acts of Union—as determined not by me but by the courts—in favour of the arrangements giving effect to the protocol, they need to be clear about what that means. What is happening here is something quite different, aided and abetted by the Northern Ireland Office: to evade the political costs for accepting the recasting of Article 6 of the Acts of Union by pretending—yes, pretending—that it is not happening at all.

This is important, and I have gone on about it —although I have not gone on as long as Sir Jeffrey did yesterday—because I want to get it on the parliamentary record that I and others here have not engaged in this con trick, for that is what it is. That is why I have said what I have said today and why I tabled the amendment to draw out this debate. In the weeks and months ahead, we will see all the glitter fall away. Unionist people and people in this House and elsewhere in Parliament will see what has been tricked, pulled and put out to deceive people. No matter how hard those who have participated in this and have gone along with it may wish it not to be so, there will be a political cost to pay, because they have been warned.

All this, as well as being in the courts, was also agreed to by the independent lawyer, the former Attorney-General John Larkin, in his published legal advice. There has not been one single piece of legal advice produced, by the Government or the DUP leadership, to support the increasingly bold claims that they have made—I wonder why not.

I will conclude. The Acts of Union remain suspended. The cross-community consent mechanism central to the Belfast agreement remains disapplied. The Irish Sea border remains. The green lane, for which you are required to provide information for customs purposes to obtain authorisation to trade a little more freely in your own country, remains. The red lane, which operates on the basis of an at-risk category over which the EU has a veto, and which catches a significant amount of material and goods that go nowhere near the EU, remains. EU law continues; it is law that we did not make and cannot change. The protocol, in all its core aspects, remains in full force and continues to reign supreme. The only thing that has changed over the last year are the views of the DUP leadership, who now seem to accept all those facts and have returned to Stormont to implement them. If we are going to address His Majesty the King, we should tell him the truth. I beg to move.

On the other hand, the case for the union is positive and enduring, and that is even more so today in a changing, uncertain and dangerous world. We are part of the sixth-biggest economy in the world, part of a kingdom still with vast influence, through both hard and soft power, and part of a country that stands four-square behind the cause of freedom and democracy across the world, as we have seen in Ukraine and other places, and has the ability to do things about it. This country still matters in the affairs of the world, so we want to remain part of that United Kingdom. This is not just about trade matters or the economy; it is a matter of our birthright, citizenship and identity.

It is because we value the union so much that I come to today’s debate with such a sense of concern. The humble Address before your Lordships’ House is part of the reassurance package, if we can call it that, promised by the Government to unionists in the deal—Command Paper 1021, where it is set out that this would be the mechanism used to provide reassurance. But the reality is that Command Paper 1021 retains the Windsor Framework/protocol with all its inherent anti-unionist contents. This is where words collide with reality, and where propaganda collides with the facts.

There is nothing in this humble Address that changes anything in relation to Northern Ireland or that undoes the damage done to our constitutional position as part of the United Kingdom by the protocol. We saw the same last week when we debated the statutory instruments—the legislation promised in the deal. Not one of the six or seven provisions in the regulations debated last week alters the superstructure of the Windsor Framework/protocol. It of course affects the smoother operation of the Irish Sea border and the application of EU jurisdiction over a large part of our economy in Northern Ireland, but it does not go any further than that.

It is ironic that it is claimed that joint authority is not provided for in the Belfast agreement, according to the contents of the humble Address, and yet the Government have abdicated their own authority and responsibilities and granted full authority to the EU to make laws over significant parts of the economy of Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. It is ironic in the extreme to acknowledge

“the foundational importance of the Acts of Union”,

while doing absolutely nothing to repair the modification or suspension—or, as we have heard, “subjugation”; that is the word used by the court—of those Acts of Union as set out in the judgments of the Court of Appeal and, subsequently, the Supreme Court. It is astounding that we are supposedly reaffirming the importance of upholding the Belfast agreement in all its strands, while at the same time undermining the cross-community consent requirements on which the Assembly and the institutions were set up—I have referred to that consistently: the Article 18 vote which comes at the end of this year on the applicability of the protocol; I will come on to that in more detail shortly.

Looking at the main elements of the proposed Address, it states first that

“joint authority is not provided for in the Belfast … Agreement”.

Of course, that is nothing new; that has always been the case. I welcome the fact that the Government stress the importance of maintaining the three-stranded approach to the affairs of Northern Ireland, because very often in recent years they have not respected it. One remembers a former office-bearer in the Northern Ireland Office, the Secretary of State as he then was in 2020, who was very keen to involve Simon Coveney, the then Irish Foreign Minister, on virtually every announcement that was made, including those internal to Northern Ireland. However, given that, in March last year, the Government had the audacity to argue that the Windsor Framework removed any sense of an Irish Sea border and actually protected our constitutional position, it is clear that the words in front of us must be subject to great scrutiny. The Government have in reality accepted a form of joint authority. How have they done that? By actively legislating for the EU to have the power to make law in some 300 areas in Northern Ireland.

I have here that legislation—sometimes we just talk about these things, but every page in my hand contains law after law from the European Union that applies directly to Northern Ireland. There are hundreds upon hundreds of EU laws, and not one of them is subject to any democratic input from anyone elected in Northern Ireland. Legislators in the Irish Republic have had, and enjoy, greater power than anyone in Northern Ireland in respect of those laws. So when we talk about joint authority, let us recognise the reality of the situation that faces Northern Ireland today. In this area covered by the protocol, colonial status is exactly what we have as far as those laws are applicable. We will hear arguments about the Stormont brake and how the pipeline of EU law has been stymied. However, I challenge the Minister or anyone else in this House to show me anywhere in law where the Stormont brake applies to any single one of those laws in Annex 2 of the protocol, because it does not. That is a matter of fact and a matter of law.

Then we come on to the part of the Address about

“acknowledging the foundational importance of the Acts of Union … including the economic provisions under Article 6 of those Acts”.

There has been a lot of distraction, misrepresentation and revision of history in relation to arguments around the Acts of Union, particularly by the Government and others. We should revert to the only opinion that matters, stripping away all the technicalities and arguments. The only opinion that matters is that of the Supreme Court, not of some commentor or lawyer, however distinguished, or politician or government spokesman. This is a Supreme Court case, let it be remembered, that was brought by the leaders of unionism in Northern Ireland, including the then leader of the DUP. That fact, and the fact that the Supreme Court saw fit to hand down a judgment in the case, demonstrates that this is not academic or esoteric but a real and significant issue.

The Supreme Court said at paragraph 65 of its judgment that

“article VI is modified to the extent and for the period during which the Protocol applies”.

In paragraph 67 it talks about Article VI being subjugated. Again, these are not our words, but the words used by the Supreme Court. We need to contrast those words with the words in the humble Address, which do not bear comparison to the reality of what was outlined by the Supreme Court. If the Government were serious, they would seek to undo the constitutional damage. But there is nothing in the legislation last week, or here today in the humble Address, which does that.

Then we come to

“the importance of upholding the Belfast … Agreement … in all its strands”.

As we have heard already, the Belfast agreement—as amended by the St Andrews agreement and amended after sufficient consensus of support from both the unionist and nationalist sides—has, of course, been upended by the protocol/Windsor Framework. The most pertinent example is the one outlined in the amendment before us: the continuing application vote in the Assembly later this year, which is to be carried out by a simple majority vote. That is the only major vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly subject to a majority vote; every other major decision taken by the Northern Ireland Assembly is either a cross-community vote or susceptible to being turned into one through a petition of concern.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, outlined, this was voted on in a debate in December 2020, in Committee, which both she and I attended. That Committee was attended by two of the most prominent architects of the Belfast agreement, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the late Lord Trimble, who both railed against it as a severe breach of the Belfast agreement which they had negotiated. Yet the Government proceeded in a clear and flagrant breach of the principles which are supposed to underpin power-sharing in Northern Ireland. Many who supposedly champion the Belfast agreement are content, it seems, to turn a blind eye to—or worse, actively connive in—the disapplication of cross-community safeguards when it suits them. This cannot stand. This is not right.

The removal of cross-community voting is not only fundamentally wrong in this case but creates a very dangerous precedent for unionists. For almost 100 years, we have been told that majority rule was unacceptable in Northern Ireland, and for the last 50 years it has been beyond the pale as far as government structures in Northern Ireland are concerned. But if it is acceptable to permit a reversion to majority rule on something as fundamental as the protocol, with all its economic and constitutional implications, then it is very hard to argue that the same majority voting rule should not apply to other areas of operation within the remit of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is the danger here. We have already heard the siren calls and we will hear more. I am afraid the argument against it has been gravely weakened by those unionists who accept the provisions in relation to the Article 18 vote later this year.

What is going on at present is a full-blown effort by the Government to paint a one-sided picture of real events as far as the Windsor Framework is concerned. There is an all-out PR operation to put the most favourable gloss on the operation of its provisions. It is seen, for example, in the refusal to answer Parliamentary Questions in a proper way. The Government appear embarrassed to set out unpalatable truths, so they are economical with the reality and hope people will not notice.

Of course, we remember a time when Ministers in this place and in the other place came to the Dispatch Box to advocate and argue for a radically different approach, which would have removed foreign laws. They enthusiastically backed that approach. Now, they equally enthusiastically back a position which surrenders sovereignty over parts of the Northern Ireland economy and way of life, and creates customs borders within the United Kingdom, where Northern Ireland is subject to the EU customs code and in the EU single market for goods and agri-food products. A necessary consequence is that there is an Irish Sea border, so that goods are not in free circulation between Great Britain and Northern Ireland still. As a result of Article 8 of the protocol, we are under EU VAT rules and, under Article 10, subject to EU state aid rules for the entire economy.

Yesterday in the other place, when the Minister was challenged in relation to VAT, he said that it was time to move on. Ministers do not want the details to be exposed but they need to be continually raised, highlighted and challenged. Unless they are called out consistently as being unacceptable, it will all become more and more embedded. If we settle for and champion the current position then there is little hope of getting the change we need in the future.

We demand equal citizenship in Northern Ireland. We do not demand it in some arrogant way. We demand it as our right as subjects of His Majesty the King, and we demand that those rights should be restored as quickly as possible. We have been uniquely disfranchised and we need to ensure that those wrongs are put right as soon as possible.

In a week when we have seen the other House bow to threats of violence, we should pay tribute to the DUP and the unionists in that they secured these improvements by constitutional means. That is all the more so because the whole reason we are in this position —the whole reason why the Government agreed to try to have a border in the Irish Sea rather than in the natural place, between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland—was republican threats to blow up or shoot anyone who enforced checks at that border. Shamefully, the Irish Government waved around pictures of a blown- up customs post, dating from decades ago, to try to persuade their European colleagues to insist that there be no border within Northern Ireland and that we had to have one in the Irish Sea. In fact, the EU’s insistence that it would need border checks to maintain the security of the single market was entirely bogus.

For entirely other reasons, I was reading the European Commission White Paper, Completing the Internal Market, which it published in 1985, ahead of the measures to create the single market. At that time, member states had different SPS rules—different veterinary rules, and so on—and they used to enforce them at the border with border checks between Germany, France and other countries within the European Union. Naturally, the European Commission did not like that, and it proposed to abolish these border posts within the European Union, despite the fact that these different standards would persist on different sides of the border. It wrote:

“As a further … step towards the objective of abolishing internal frontier controls by 1992, all veterinary controls (live animals and animal products) and plant health controls will have to be limited to the places of departure, and controls of veterinary and plant health certificates made at the places of destination”.

Indeed, the Commission recognises that it is possible to maintain the security of its member states without controls at the border by doing so at the point of dispatch or the point of arrival. That is what it proposed then, and it could equally have been applied in Northern Ireland, should have been applied, and could be applied in future if the present arrangements do not work out satisfactorily.

I would like the Minister to confirm the following. It is not clear from the language in Safeguarding the Union that the arrangements we are now talking about are all under the protocol. The protocol has not been abolished, rescinded or removed from our law; it is part of our law. It allowed changes to be made by agreement within “the committee”, consisting of two people, one from Britain and one from the European Union, and that, essentially, is what is being done. All these changes are being done under the protocol.

At the risk of boring the House, I will repeat what I think we ought all to remember: that the protocol is intrinsically temporary and transitional. That is not my view, but the view of the European Union at the time of the negotiations. Noble Lords may recall that Theresa May said in her Lancaster House speech that she wanted to negotiate a future trade arrangement between Britain and Europe at the same time as our withdrawal arrangements under Article 50. The European Union said that that was not possible. It could not do it even if it wanted to, because Article 50 does not provide a legal base for negotiating trade agreements. Trade agreements with non-member states can be negotiated by the European Union only under Article 234. Therefore, we had to leave first before it could negotiate trade arrangements with us. How come, then, that we reached agreement on trade arrangements as far as Northern Ireland and the European Union was concerned in the Article 50 withdrawal agreement? The EU said, “Well, that allows temporary and transitional measures, and only temporary and transitional measures, arising from the departure of a member state”. Therefore, the arrangements we entered into—the protocol—are temporary and transitional.

It would be wonderful if what the Government have agreed, and what the DUP has said is at least enough for it to go back into Stormont, works out smoothly and resolves all friction, both economic and political, arising from differences in EU and UK law and the attempt to resolve these via the Irish Sea. If so, we can all carry on and live happily ever after. However, if not—and I fear it may well not work out satisfactorily in the long term—we should remember that we have the right, under the agreement we negotiated with the European Union and its interpretation of it, to say that the protocol was temporary and must be replaced; and obviously, we want to replace it with something satisfactory to the EU, as our neighbour, and which would ensure the integrity of the single market. Therefore, we should adopt the method it proposed and used initially, and which subsequently Sir Jonathan Faull, himself a former director-general of the Commission, proposed as a way of resolving the problems we currently face.

I am glad that some progress has been made, I hope more progress has been made than meets the eye, and if not, alternative possibilities exist for the future.

I said two weeks ago that I would not be content with the Command Paper because it was a deviation from a previous position, since it represented a unilateral decision-making process between the DUP and the UK Government—although listening here tonight you would not think that it was agreement between the UK Government and the DUP. The message must be clear: “Please cherish all traditions equally”, as required by the Good Friday agreement, which has been the hallmark for negotiations in Northern Ireland for nearly 38 years.

The current UK Government’s approach represents a departure from the GFA and from the Downing Street declaration. I say, not gently but very forcefully, that we all need to revert to the factory settings of the Good Friday agreement—to those principles of consent, inclusion and equality. Northern Ireland is a divided society, with unionists, nationalists and others. That is why it is important to underscore and ensure the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement through the operation of all the institutions in all the strands—the Assembly, the Executive, the North/South Ministerial Council, the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. That is why I want a renewed commitment from the current British Government to that bipartisan approach with the Irish Government, and I will ask the Irish Government the same. That means a true reflection of parity of esteem, partnership, power sharing, respect for political difference and the consent principle.

When will the next meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference take place to discuss that range of economic, trade, joint working on health and cross-border and, importantly, east-west issues? When will the next meeting of the British-Irish Council on east-west issues take place? When will the next meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council and the full operation of the implementation bodies take place? I believe in that reset of the principles of the GFA where equality, human rights, equality of citizenship and protection of identity all, within a spirit of partnership, must be reflected.

That type of approach will enable the full benefits of the Windsor Framework to be realised. We have heard so much this evening about the negative side to the Windsor Framework. I have talked to many people in Northern Ireland. One of the results of the LucidTalk/Queen’s University poll showed that the majority opinion on the Windsor Framework is generally accepting or supportive of the arrangements established for Northern Ireland. Why? Because people want to move on. They want economic benefit. They want economic opportunity for their families and associates. We need access to that EU single market and the UK internal market. With the full realisation of the economic opportunities, with stability and political progress, we achieve a more balanced, peaceful reconciliation and shared society.

However, for our region to succeed, we need a significant budget to address the needs of our population. The challenges of health waiting lists, the crumbling fabric of our roads and schools, public sector reform and transformation are all required. People need access to services such as health waiting lists in a more expeditious manner without having to meet countless impediments. Assembly Members and Ministers must face these challenges and implement difficult decisions. While £3.3 billion on a conditional basis was a significant allocation, it presents dangers because some of that is recycled money, the Executive have significant overspends from previous years, and the public sector money, while very welcome, is not current expenditure and that money has to be found for future financial years out of the budget. Money that was earmarked for 10 new integrated schools in the fresh start agreement of 2015 seems to have disappeared and other money is no longer present either because a significant amount is now required for the full education budget. Where is the levelling-up money for Northern Ireland?

I also welcome the €800 million shared island funding from the Irish Government for cross-border infrastructure projects such as the A5, the Narrow Water bridge, Casement Park and the Boyne heritage centre. That demonstrates a clear commitment by the Irish Government to deliver north-south projects and the much-needed bipartisan approach. Maybe in his wind-up, the Minister could advise us on the reform of the institutions. What discussions will the Government have with the Assembly and Executive Review Committee, and what analytical work has that committee commenced about the review of such institutions?

I do not support the amendment. I support that part of the Motion that deals with the restoration of the institutions. Much work needs to happen to create that economic opportunity, and that is why it is vitally important that we ensure that the full benefits of the Windsor Framework and the work of the institutions are realised for the people of Northern Ireland.

For me, this debate is about including everything, and the Good Friday agreement with its three-stranded approach, representing the three sets of relationships, affords us the opportunity to deal with that without fear of exclusion, marginalisation or triumphalism. The Good Friday agreement must be our lodestar—our guiding light. Bipartisanship and partnership, with parity of esteem, must be central to all our discussions. That must be the way forward. I defer to my noble friend Lord Murphy on the Front Bench, who was a significant negotiator in the Good Friday agreement and helped to bring forward—along with my colleagues in the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists and the Irish Government—that agreement, which was based on that duality of approach, partnership and parity of esteem. That is where we need to be to achieve progress and benefit for all the people, because I firmly believe that both Governments and all parties must work together, committed to bipartisanship, partnership and delivering for all. That is the way forward.

Reference has been made in the other place to the fact that there is no all-Ireland economy. One has to look only at the single electricity market, the agri-food industry which operates on a cross-border north-south basis, the Coca-Cola Company, and animal health, and the island of Ireland is considered a single epidemiological unit. It is a mistruth to say that that does not exist. We must face what are the political realities and the fact that there are many people in Northern Ireland, and all those political identities must be recognised and accommodated. The best way to do that is through the mechanisms and three-stranded approach that already exists in the Good Friday agreement.

The Windsor Framework, though unchanged by the new arrangements we are discussing today, is not a fully fledged document—it is, indeed a framework. Nowhere is this more evident than over veterinary medicines, about which the Windsor Framework committee is now conducting an inquiry. That explains why some members of the committee recently spent two hours in a large, drafty barn in County Down with some impressive farmers, veterinary experts and several hundred sheep. I cannot pre-empt the conclusions of our inquiry, but we hope to produce a report shortly. I can say that we found widespread support in Northern Ireland for the proposal set out in Safeguarding the Union to rapidly establish a veterinary medicines working group, provided that the membership is right and includes real knowledge of, and expertise on, Northern Ireland.

That leads me to my last point. Neither the Government of the United Kingdom, nor the Northern Ireland Executive are—now that we are outside the European Union—around the Council tables when EU legislation is discussed and agreed. But much of that legislation will have effect in Northern Ireland and will affect farmers, consumers and businesses. Businesses in Northern Ireland will have access to the single market for goods of the European Union and be part of the internal market of the United Kingdom, and both are a clear advantage. However, a way must be found to ensure that direct first-hand knowledge of Northern Ireland is taken into account while legislation is being prepared, and not just when it has reached its finished state. I hope the Minister, who is still missed in our committee, will give us a reassurance on that point.

Lest anyone should contest the fettered access provided by the UK internal market system, I would direct them to the place the fettering is set out: EU regulation 2023/1128, which amends the EU Customs Code to simplify customs border fettering, and EU regulation 2023/1231, which simplifies the SPS border fettering. I do not question the fact that both these provisions simplify the border fettering, but the critical point is that they do not remove it. If you do not comply with the border fettering put in your way by the misnamed UK internal market system, your only other options will be the red lane or not to cross the border.

Moreover—and this is critical—for so long as we submit to the Windsor Framework, we agree that these matters are ultimately for the EU to determine and that the simplification of the border fettering is enjoyed at its pleasure and could be removed if it chooses to do so, defaulting back to the greater fettering of the red lane, as set out expressly in Article 14(5) of EU regulation 2023/1231.

By contrast, if we look at the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, we find no customs or SPS border fettering of any kind. I therefore suggest that the Minister transparently has it the wrong way round. The Government’s arrangements propose full and unfettered access to the Republic of Ireland and, to the extent of the so-called UK internal market system, privileged access to GB, in that while this does not afford us unfettered borderless access to GB, the fettering has been reduced from what would otherwise be the case.

This is a huge problem for unionism because unionists are very clear that our priority is our relationship with England, Scotland and Wales. The South decided to break away from that relationship. That was its decision. We regret it and stand with England, Wales and Scotland in our United Kingdom. In this context, while of course we want the best possible access to the Republic, that has to be subject to the basic unionist imperative—the union—and thus no customs fettering between any constituent part of the union.

The Safeguarding the Union Command Paper has things the other way around, prioritising the relationship with the South and the advent of a border between ourselves and the rest of the United Kingdom. It is a nationalist rather than a unionist solution because it sacrifices the unionist imperative. Of course, this all has to be seen in the context of the fact that the purpose of the border is to uphold the integrity of a different legal regime in Northern Ireland. That is the result of our disenfranchisement in relation to 300 areas of the laws to which we are subject, and the enfranchisement of a foreign Parliament. My noble friend Lord Dodds has already outlined specifics in relation to this issue.

In this respect, it is also important to reflect on the Minister’s assurances in his letter that the shortcomings of the brake are acceptable when seen in the context of the additional democratic consent safeguard—the so-called consent motion. The shortcomings of the brake include, of course, that it creates a second-class citizenship in which, rather than having the right to stand for election to make the laws to which you are subject, you have to make do with the right to stand for election to try to stop laws in 300 areas that have already been made for you by a foreign Parliament; and that it does not apply to all EU-imposed law anyway. We have already heard my noble friend Lord Dodds comment on that too.

That assertion simply does not stand up to scrutiny. The so-called democratic consent motion should really be called the “renouncing democratic consent procedure”, because that is, in effect, what it is. If, on the one hand, we humour the proposition that it constitutes democratic consent and treat it as a vote on all the laws made in the last three or four years, that does not work, both because it would be absurd to engage intelligently with three to four years’ legislation with one vote and because a no vote would not result in any of the legislation falling away. If, on the other hand, we treat it as a vote on all the laws to be made in the next three to four years, that does not work, for the above reasons and because you cannot vote on legislation that does not yet exist.

The practical impact of a yes vote will be for an MLA to agree to renounce the rights of his or her citizens to be represented in the making of the laws to which they are subject in 300 areas for the next four to eight years, depending on the scale of the vote. Rather than the so-called consent motion filling the democratic shortfall of the brake, therefore, it merely compounds it.

I am of course aware—and this was mentioned earlier—that there has been debate in recent weeks around Bushmills whiskey, which I say very gently is completely beside the point, and a lot of tosh, to use an Ulster word. You do not have to be an expert on this at all, and I do not profess to be one, but, as anyone who knows anything about the history of internal markets knows, they have become progressively more integrated across the world over time, especially in the case of the United Kingdom because, as the celebrated German economist Friedrich List pointed out, England and the UK invented the internal market.

People did not wake up one morning and say, “Let’s create an internal market”; it evolved over time. Rather than judging attempts to take it from the perspective of what being in an internal market was like in 1802, we have to judge it from the perspective of what it is like now. The relevant point in looking at these matters today is what Article 6 delivers in the 21st century, which we enjoyed through the foundational provisions of Article 6 until 31 December 2020, which Parliament has now partially suspended, and yet which today this House is urged to tell His Majesty is not merely important but of foundational importance.

I hope that we pass this Motion, but let us be clear: if we do, we will then be duty-bound to restore those Article 6 rights, because no Parliament worth its salt can tell its Head of State that certain provisions are of foundational importance in the context of a Motion that is specifically about a people who have been partly deprived by that same Parliament of those same provisions.