My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Cormack, who has spoken so passionately, as did the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I, too, also pay tribute to the contribution made by the then Conservative Government at the start of the Good Friday agreement. Speaking on the eve of the US elections, never has it been more timely to remind ourselves of the ongoing importance of that agreement.
Given that I do not think that there will be another opportunity to do so, perhaps I may briefly refer to the original Clause 1(3) which states that the principles set out in that clause
“have no direct legal effect except as provided by this Part.”
If they have no direct effect, presumably statutory instruments will need to be introduced for them to have effect. Will they become directly applicable at the same time in all four constituent parts of the United Kingdom?
I welcome in particular the probing nature of Amendment 3. I shall refer in passing to the evidence that we took in the EU Environment Sub-Committee. I am disappointed by the seeming lack of urgency reflected by the Government in preparing, in particular, farmers, producers, the road haulage industry and other interested parties involved in the production of or associated with agri-food, which of course is a mega business for Northern Ireland. In our letter to the Secretary of State, we concluded:
“We urge the Government to consider the likely impacts on Northern Ireland businesses and consumers of the increased levels of checks and controls that will be required as a consequence if the UK-EU future relationship negotiations are not successful.”
We noted that in his original reply the Secretary of State did not acknowledge the challenging timetable to implement the protocol in this regard. I know that when we come to discuss Part 5, there will be opportunities to consider this in more detail, but Clause 11 already looks at some of the details in Part 1 that relate to this.
I will use this opportunity to ask the Minister to assure us that in parallel with the consideration of this Bill, that what the Secretary of State said in reply to
the sub-committee on 7 October, which was that the Government are actively engaging with the Northern Ireland Assembly, along with Northern Irish farmers, producers, hauliers and all those who are involved in the agri-food industry to enable them to be fully prepared to do business on 1 January 2021, is the case. Leading up to July, the evidence we took indicated to the contrary. There had been no direct contact of any specific nature with the Northern Ireland Assembly and certainly not with those interested parties from which we took evidence. Can my noble friend put my mind at rest that this has now moved on and that there have been direct contacts with the Northern Ireland Assembly and with the parties that will be affected in this regard?