My name is on the amendment but I have very little to add to the authoritative introduction from the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I agree with him that we should be pressing at an open door here. At the start of Report, the Minister, in responding to me on what the tariff regime would be in the event of no deal, indicated that we would be told in due course. Such is her power that I understand that the schedules were published this morning—conveniently for our debate. I am sure that that was the only reason for their publication and I am sure that we owe it entirely to the Minister, because the timing is so apt.
I myself have seen nothing from the Government but, according to the press, it is made clear in today’s announcement that temporarily at the outset—I do not know how long that means—if a tariff regime is required on 30 March because we leave with no deal, it will not be applied at the inner Irish border. There will be no tariffs and no customs checks, and imports will be exempt from quotas, although, for imports from the EU other than across the Irish border, tariffs will be charged—10% on motor cars and quite a high tariff on agricultural products of various kinds. I am not quite sure how long such an arrangement can last. It will be a breach of WTO rules, but I guess that the WTO will live with that for a bit. Although I have never wanted a BMW, if I did want to buy one, it would be 10% cheaper if I imported it via Dublin and Belfast, which would be slightly odd. I cannot see that lasting on a permanent basis.
However, my point is that the Government are quite right to exempt the inner Irish border—it really matters. It therefore seems obvious that it should be easy for the Minister to accept Amendment 22, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. The Government have already accepted it in another context, as he explained, and today’s announcements show that they would intend to apply it to the inner Irish border anyway.
The other night, in his reply to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, said:
“The whole point of the present withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol is to ensure that we adhere not only to the terms but to the spirit of the Belfast agreement”.—[Official Report, 12/3/19; col. 978.]
I applaud that. The withdrawal agreement is dead, but we must uphold the spirit and letter of the Belfast agreement, whatever the future regime, and this amendment would permit us to do that. Since it seems to be in line with the Government’s actions and words—in today’s tariff announcements and last night’s speech
by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen—I very much hope that the Minister will be able to accept the amendment.