Charitably, I can assure the House that I shall be very brief. I shall make only three points. First—I hope this will not finish his career—I congratulate the Minister once again. It makes a pleasant change to have a Minister at the Dispatch Box who quotes poetry; as ever, he responded with considerable civility. It is also a great pleasure that he does not make speeches that begin, “It says here”. He responded to the debate, and the whole House recognises that.
Before making two more substantive points—although being flattering to the Minister is substantive, as is inviting him to join me later in voting for the Government’s
policy, which might make life a little awkward for him—I assure the House that I shall not go back through all the old arguments about a customs union. If I hear any more references to the wretched Karlsson report, I will go red in the face. It is like Das Kapital: it is more referred to than read. Most of the people who refer to it have never read more than two or three lines in the summary, and will not recognise the bits that talk about the necessity of an infrastructure or the necessity of those customs offices.
Of course, I respect everybody, but I particularly respect the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and my noble friend Lord King. The points that they made about security on the border were extremely well answered by the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Campbell. They should look carefully at what this proposed new clause actually says. They are probably also aware that co-operation across the border and security are probably better than they have ever been, with the joint agency task force between the Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland working together very effectively. The former Northern Ireland Justice Minister—when there still was one in the Northern Ireland Executive—said that she thought that these days, co-operation was saving lives in the island of Ireland. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will consider that.
The point that my noble friend made about a joint approach and joint authority was well responded to by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. He pointed out that what we are talking about is part of an international agreement. There are two sides to an international agreement; more than that, this is about the border, and most borders have two sides to them. It is therefore not surprising that the people on one side of the border need to talk to the people on the other side.
I would like to insert myself—an exciting prospect—somewhere between my noble friend Lord Bridges, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the former Prelate of All Ireland, and the Minister. Bishops are not by nature suspicious, even though they have so much experience of the human condition. However, I hope that the noble and right reverend Lord and my noble friend Lord Bridges will not mind my saying that if I thought that this whole endeavour—this whole negotiation—was in their hands, I would be happy to withdraw my amendment. However, I listened to some of the things that were said, or murmured, about the Taoiseach in the Republic. I hear some of the blame that some people are trying to put on the Republic of Ireland. I notice that, in spite of all these months of intellectual effort, we still have not managed to define what the frictionless border will be.
Touching on the point made by my noble friend Lord Bridges about not having a border down the middle of the Irish Sea, I do not think I would have signed an agreement in Brussels that accepted that. I know enough about “one country, two systems” to keep me going until I drop dead. I hope that will not be for a bit and so does the University of Oxford. I have no doubt about what my noble friend says and where I hope my noble friend on the Front Bench stands. I suspect that the tone of the discussions this afternoon in No. 10 has not been entirely in line with their sentiments. In that slightly suspicious spirit,
recognising that we are simply stating, in this proposed new clause, what the Government’s policy purports to be, I would like to test the opinion of the House.