Northern Ireland Protocol

Before I call the Secretary of State, I wish to make a short statement in the context of this session. I am exercising the discretion given to the Chair in respect of the resolution on sub judice matters to further extend the waiver granted for proceedings in January to allow full reference to the challenge to the Northern Ireland protocol and to allow limited reference to the active legal proceedings.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the Northern Ireland protocol and to lay out the next steps. Our first priority is to uphold the Belfast/Good Friday agreement in all its dimensions. That agreement put in place a new arrangement for the governance of Northern Ireland and these islands composed of three interlocking strands: a power-sharing Government at Stormont on the basis of consent and parity of esteem for all communities; intensified north-south co-operation on the island of Ireland; and enhanced arrangements for east-west co-operation. So much of the progress we have seen in Northern Ireland rests on this agreement, and for the agreement to continue to operate successfully, all three strands must function successfully. These arrangements are the foundation on which the modern, thriving Northern Ireland is built. It commands the support of parties across this House, and we will continue to work with all communities in Northern Ireland to protect it.

As a Government, we want to see a First Minister and Deputy First Minister in place, and we want to work with them to make further progress. The basis for successful power sharing remains strong, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister laid out yesterday. However, the Belfast/Good Friday agreement is under strain, and, regrettably, the Northern Ireland Executive has not been fully functioning since early February. This is because the Northern Ireland protocol does not have the support necessary in one part of the community in Northern Ireland. I also note that all Northern Ireland’s political parties agree on the need for changes to the protocol.

The practical problems are clear to see. As the House will know, the protocol has not yet been implemented in full, due to the operation of grace periods and easements. However, EU customs procedures for moving goods within the UK have already meant that companies are facing significant costs and paperwork. Some businesses have stopped this trade altogether. These challenges have been sharpened by the post-covid economic recovery. Rules on taxation mean that citizens in Northern Ireland are unable to benefit fully from the same advantages as the rest of the UK, such as the reduction in VAT on solar panels. Sanitary and phytosanitary rules mean that producers face onerous restrictions, including veterinary certification, in order to sell foodstuffs in shops in Northern Ireland.

These practical problems have contributed to the sense that the east-west relationship has been undermined. Without resolving these and other issues, we will not be able to re-establish the Executive and preserve the hard-won progress sustained by the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We need to restore the balance in the agreement.

Our preference is to reach a negotiated outcome with the EU; we have worked tirelessly to that end and will continue to do so. I have had six months of negotiations with Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, which follow a year of discussions undertaken by my predecessor. The UK has proposed what we believe to be a comprehensive and reasonable solution to deliver on the objectives of the protocol. This includes a trusted trader scheme to provide the EU with real-time commercial data, giving it confidence that goods intended for Northern Ireland are not entering the EU single market. We are already sharing over 1 million rows of goods movement data with the EU every week.

I call the shadow Minister, Stephen Doughty.

We are grateful for advance sight of the statement from the Foreign Secretary, and I apologise on behalf of the shadow Foreign Secretary, who is unfortunately self-isolating due to covid.

It is over two and a half years since the Government negotiated and signed the withdrawal agreement. That deal included the Northern Ireland protocol, which required, by its design, some trade barriers and checks in the Irish sea. That was clear from the outset and it was a choice by this Prime Minister and by the Government, yet now, barely two years later, the Government are trying to convince people that their flagship achievement was not a negotiating triumph, but a deal so flawed that they cannot abide by it. Either they did not understand their own agreement, they were not up front about the reality of it, or they intended to break it all along. The Prime Minister negotiated this deal, signed it and ran an election campaign on it. He must take responsibility for it and make it work.

The situation in Northern Ireland is incredibly serious. Power sharing has broken down, Stormont is not functioning and political tensions have risen, while people in communities across Northern Ireland face rising bills as the cost of living crisis deepens. The operation of the protocol has created new tensions that do need to be addressed by listening to all sides, as well as to business and to consumers, and both the UK Government and the EU need to show willing and good faith. This is not a time for political posturing or high-stakes brinkmanship.

Everyone recognises that the situation in Northern Ireland is unique, and we want checks to be reduced to their absolute necessary minimum and for them to properly reflect trade-related risks. It cannot be right, for example, that goods leaving Great Britain that have no realistic prospect of leaving Northern Ireland, such as supermarket sandwiches, face excessive burdens, and the EU needs to understand that practical reality. Unnecessary barriers will only hamper business, inhibit trade and undermine confidence and consent.

Our priority, as the United Kingdom Government, has to be peace and stability in Northern Ireland and protection of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is vitally important that we get the Executive back up and running and functioning, and that we fix the very real issues with the Northern Ireland protocol.

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s acknowledgment that there are issues with taxation, with customs, and with procedures and bureaucracy. Fixing those issues does require the EU to be open to changing the protocol. As yet, and I have had six months of talks with Vice-President Šefčovič—my predecessor had 12 months of talks—the EU has been unwilling to open the protocol. Without that, we cannot deal with the tax issue, we cannot deal with the customs issue and we will not sort out the fundamental issues in Northern Ireland. It is our responsibility, as the Government of the United Kingdom, to restore the primacy of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement to get the Executive up and running.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question about legality, we are very clear that this is legal in international law, and we will be setting out our legal position in due course.

I call the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Simon Hoare.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

“The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it’s inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed, and then nothing is safe—not home, not liberty, not life itself.”

Those are not my words, but Margaret Thatcher’s. Respect for the rule of law runs deep in our Tory veins, and I find it extraordinary that a Tory Government need to be reminded of that. Could my right hon. Friend assure me that support for, and honouring of, the rule of law is what she and the Government are committed to?

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are committed to upholding the rule of law. We are clear that this Bill is legal in international law, and we will set out the legal position in due course.

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Richard Thomson.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of her statement. We have heard plenty about the alleged shortcomings of the protocol, but there should be acknowledgement of the Government’s role in negotiating it; that does not even seem to have reached the level of being limited and specific, from what we have heard today. Ultimately the problem this legislation purports to deal with is not to do with the protocol, which was made necessary by the kind of Brexit that the Government eventually negotiated; the seed of the problem was in the very nature of the settlement.

Neither my colleagues nor I deny for one moment the hurt and upset caused to many in Northern Ireland by the protocol, but we must not forget that Scotland and Northern Ireland as a whole both voted against Brexit, and that there was not cross-Union consent for where we are now. If the consequences of that deal are judged to be not in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland, we need to be honest and recognise that the consequences of the entire withdrawal agreement are not in the interests of any place in the UK, because “getting Brexit done” has meant border checks for goods going from Great Britain to the EU or to Northern Ireland, but an absolute free-for-all for anything coming into Great Britain.

We on the SNP Benches have said all along that a stable agreement needs to be reached with the EU that works for all parts of the UK, and I genuinely wish the UK Government well in that, but with the crisis in Ukraine, the last thing we need to be doing is thrashing around here pointlessly in a snare of our own making. Domestic legislation will, even if passed, not wash away the need to comply with international commitments; nor will it change the fact that if the UK is neither in nor aligned with the single market and customs union, that still creates a trade border that needs to go somewhere.

Restoring devolved government in Northern Ireland and resolving the self-inflicted wounds of Brexit will require good will, trust and a negotiated settlement. I am sorry to say that the threats of unilateral legislative action by this Government to override their own deal are unlikely to be taken seriously in Belfast, and will not be taken seriously in Brussels; there is absolutely no reason why they should be taken seriously in this place either.

I have been very clear that we are open to a negotiated solution, but that negotiated solution needs to deliver on the ground in Northern Ireland and address the very real problems with the protocol, which the hon. Gentleman acknowledges—namely the fact that the people of Northern Ireland cannot currently benefit from UK tax and state aid decisions, and the fact that there is still full customs implementation on goods coming into Northern Ireland. In order to address those issues, it is not just the implementation of the protocol that needs to be addressed; the protocol itself needs to change, and we need that change in the mandate from the EU. It is absolutely our preference to have a negotiated solution with the EU, but we have to be clear that those changes need to happen; otherwise the protocol simply will not deliver on the ground in Northern Ireland, or restore the balance as set out in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and we will not see the Executive in Northern Ireland back up and running, which is what we want.

The EU’s approach to the protocol is so unreasonable that it is banning the movement of tree saplings from Great Britain to Northern Ireland for planting for the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Will the Foreign Secretary promise that her new enhanced green channel will disapply not just customs rules, but these unreasonable and excessive sanitary and phytosanitary rules on plants and foods?

My right hon. Friend is right to point out the very real issues the protocol is causing, particularly on SPS rules, and particularly in respect of goods that there is no plan to transport to the Republic of Ireland. She is right that our proposals will ensure those goods are able to travel freely through the green lane into Northern Ireland as part of a trusted trader scheme. For any company violating that scheme and not following the rules, there will be enforcement, so that we make sure we protect the EU single market. This is a pragmatic solution. We are supplying commercial data to the EU in real time, so that it can manage the EU single market while we protect our UK single market.

I agree that the Commission needs to move further to reduce unnecessary checks and paperwork on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland; a sandwich made in Yorkshire and sold in Belfast presents no threat whatsoever to the integrity of the European Union single market. However, why does the Foreign Secretary think that threatening to change an international treaty unilaterally—I look forward to seeing the description of why that is legal—will encourage the Commission to change its approach, especially when it is likely to undermine trust further, and may result in trade retaliation, which is not in the interests of any of our constituents?

The right hon. Gentleman points out that we need more flexibility from the EU, and need a changed mandate. His point about sandwiches from Yorkshire cannot be addressed through the operation of the protocol; the protocol itself needs to be changed. I have had six months of discussions with Maroš Šefčovič—my predecessor had a year of discussions—and there still has not been agreement from the EU on changing the protocol, which would fix the issues the right hon. Gentleman raised. We have seen the Belfast/Good Friday agreement undermined; we have seen the balance upset in Northern Ireland; and we have not seen the Executive fully functioning since February. In the absence of being able to achieve a negotiated solution with the EU, we are bringing forward legislation, but I am very clear that I am hopeful that the EU will change its position and be prepared to enter negotiations on that, in order to fix the very real issues that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned.

On the response from the EU, I point out that our solution makes the EU no worse off. We have proposals to protect the single market and to ensure enforcement of the green and red lanes. I hope that it looks at our proposals in a reasonable way, just as we are putting them forward in a reasonable way, and that we can work together on a solution.

I commend my right hon. Friend on her excellent statement, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, which enables the Foreign Secretary’s Bill to use our sovereignty, notwithstanding the protocol. Will she also ensure, through instructions to parliamentary counsel, that the Bill fully satisfies requirements when it comes to our sovereignty, the constitutional integrity of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and the Good Friday agreement, and will she ensure that the European Court of Justice and EU law do not displace UK law? I also strongly urge her to take the advice of the Attorney General on matters of international law, despite siren voices to the contrary.

I thank my hon. Friend for his great expertise on this matter. To be clear, on the European Court of Justice, our solution is to have an arbitration mechanism in place, as we do for the trade and co-operation agreement, rather than having the ECJ as the final arbiter.