Absolutely. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for reinforcing that point; there is a kernel of rationale as to why the provision is in the self-interest of Northern Ireland businesses. If the
Government even slightly recognise that—without, perhaps, wanting overly to acknowledge it—that is indeed welcome. I hope that the Minister will expand on that whenever he speaks.
I want to make some closing comments on the democratic deficit. Of course, the largest democratic deficit we currently face in Northern Ireland is the fact that we do not have an Assembly, which means that we cannot do any self-government, pass any laws or strike a devolved budget, and there is money building up through Barnett consequentials to address the cost of living that cannot be allocated to help struggling households. That is the big democratic deficit that the people of Northern Ireland are talking about at present, not the intricacies of European law.
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That said, I recognise that there is an issue in relation to the evolution of EU law in annex 2, over which Northern Ireland currently has no direct say. I do not want to go back through history too much, but when we were part of the EU we had, through the good offices of the UK Government, a front-row seat at discussions around the evolution of EU law. Whether it was an update of EU law or the conclusion of a new law, the UK was very much part and parcel of that.
Now, however, outside the EU, we have a degree of democratic deficit. That has been recognised. The EU has set out four strands for future negotiations—medicines, sanitary and phytosanitary issues, the customs issue and governance—so there is an open door to discuss those issues. It will not be easy to find a solution, because Northern Ireland is not a member state of the EU and will not be treated as such in terms of any future outworkings; but we have to think as creatively as we can, to give Northern Ireland political voices and as direct seats as possible at the table.
The EU proposals do not currently go far enough in that regard. They are essentially around what we would term some form of super-consultation or targeted consultation with Northern Ireland businesses, which is fine as far as it goes; but we need some means by which the directly elected political representatives in Northern Ireland can sit down with their EU counterparts and discuss the evolution of EU law. I stress that those conversations are perhaps most important in the initiation phase of the law, rather than further down the line. It is about simply saying, “That type of proposal will have a differential impact on Northern Ireland,” and it is important that we flag that early.
I recently had a discussion with representatives of the Norwegian Government. They are, of course, part of the European economic area and do not have a direct seat at the table in terms of initiation. They take a very strategic approach to trying to engage in terms of the way in which EU law is developed, and they pick the most important issues. For Northern Ireland we will have a broad range of interests for our interaction with the EU. It will be a challenge, but it is one that we must overcome.
The final point that I want to make is about the debate that has emerged around cross-community consent. It is probably a better discussion for the next stage of the Bill, but unfortunately a lot of our discussions
overlap. Absolutely it is important that we have a cross-community consensus in Northern Ireland on these issues. However, we are currently seeing that a minority in Northern Ireland has pulled down the institutions and we do not have power sharing at all. To me, power sharing is about power sharing happening; it is not about blocking it from happening.
In turn, however, the Government constructed the entirety of their narrative around the Bill by saying, “Unionists have withdrawn from the institutions; therefore we must proceed with this legislation.” In that regard they are addressing only a minority. We have moved from a situation of asking whether the Government are doing something to appease the majority in Northern Ireland, or to appease a cross-community situation, to one where the Government are directly, openly and deliberately only addressing the concerns of a minority—and that includes a minority of political representatives and of business representatives.
It is worth stressing time and again that a majority of the MLAs and of the voters in Northern Ireland are at least pragmatic around the protocol, and that applies to the vast majority of businesses. Of course people recognise that there must be some degree of modification to the protocol to address the genuine concerns, but I have deep reservations if the Government twist that type of situation to say that there is justification for the Bill. We see opinion polls saying that 68% or 70% of people want to see the protocol modified or read that virtually all political parties recognise that there are changes, but that is a million miles away from any notion of majority support in Northern Ireland for this legislation. I fear that Parliament is proceeding on a false pretence to pass very dangerous and destructive legislation.