My Lords, I was not keen on the amendment originally proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, and I still think there are issues with the proposal before us.
Reference has been made to the joint report issued in December last year. The problem is that that was completely contradictory. It contained almost mutually exclusive objectives. I feel that putting that into the Bill has its problems. The truth of the matter is that the border as we refer to it on the land is only part of the border. The rest of the border is in the sea. Of course, the vast majority of trade goes across the sea from Irish ports to Welsh ports. That is where the bulk of trade takes place. One statement is that we have regulatory alignment, and the other is that that will not obstruct access to the UK-wide market. That can happen in only two circumstances: either we all remain in “a” or “the” customs union, or Northern Ireland businesses have to have two entirely separate regulatory environments in which to function—one for the UK-wide market and another for the EU-wide market. Anybody who thinks that will be progress is wrong.
With regard to the difference between hard and soft, the terms are unfortunate. The only conceivable way any hard border could arise is if the European Union were to try to force the Irish Government, if disagreement were arrived at, to put in a border to protect the single market. There are no circumstances in which any UK Government will put up infrastructure. I cannot see any circumstances in which an Irish Government could put any physical infrastructure. It is almost totally inconceivable. Unless Mr Barnier is going to bring his breezeblocks and cement with him and build it himself, I do not know who will do it, because we will not and I do not think our colleagues in Dublin will. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, may hold their coats, but politically and emotionally it is an impossibility. What we should be doing—perhaps the Minister can update us on where we are with this—is sitting down with our Irish colleagues and Mr Barnier and working out the detail. Only we who live in Ireland can erect it and only we have to live with it, so we have a vested interest.
It is such a shame—I have had this conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—that Stormont is not functioning because that would open up so many more opportunities for us. We could devolve some issues to Stormont and, with the north-south bodies and the regulatory arrangements we agreed there, there could be a flexible approach that would
avoid so many of the difficulties that the Government are now facing. I have to say to the Minister that we have arrived at a position of paralysis and stasis where nothing is happening politically, and that is a mistake. History tells us, and colleagues who have experience of Northern Ireland know, that vacuums get filled with all the wrong people. We are allowing this vacuum to develop and take root, and the longer we leave it the harder it will be to get people around the table to get this fixed. We are moving into local government elections next year. We do not even know where we are in this place with regard to what might happen. It is not the Minister’s responsibility to answer today on this, but if Stormont was working, we could do so much more on these issues to get a resolution that would be satisfactory to the British Government, ourselves and our Irish colleagues.
I attended the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly the week before last. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, was there. We talk regularly to colleagues there. There is huge anxiety. We understand that, and why there is anxiety. People have to understand the emotion behind this. This is often misunderstood. I have brought it to the attention of this House that relatively modest amounts of trade go between Northern Ireland and the Republic. It is only about 1.6% of Irish exports and 1.6% of Irish imports, but there is the emotion that goes with that. The main trade goes from Dublin to Holyhead, or from Rosslare to Fishguard and so on. However, that is not the issue for a lot of people. The issue for a lot of people is what that represents. As the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, rightly points out, it is not that there is no border. Of course there is a border; we are two jurisdictions. We have eliminated the physical manifestation of division, if I may put it that way, and these emotional things are what is driving a lot of our Irish colleagues. It is not always pounds, shillings and pence. There is an emotional issue which we have to take into account.
My only anxiety about where we are with this is the December statement, which I believe has fundamental contradictions that we have not solved. If the Minister, his colleagues and his right honourable friend in the other place could put more pith into their attempts to get Stormont going again, that would add enormous flexibility to what we could achieve in the next few months.
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