My Lords, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, just then, my mind drifted back a decade or so to a debate in the domed hemicycle in Strasbourg on the issue of state aid in a neighbouring jurisdiction, one that was partially under single market regulation; namely, Switzerland. One after another the MEPs from different groups got up and fulminated against the unfair competition and unfair subsidies that were being carried out in particular Swiss cantons. It became clear as they spoke that what they regarded as unfair subsidies were lower taxes—lower corporation and business taxes, and a lower VAT rate. My point is that what we regard as an objective measure will not necessarily be seen that way in Brussels when it has full control of these things.
I did not make the wise life choices that my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley did, so I have no idea how efficacious these vehicles are, but surely that is an issue that ought to be determined through our own national democratic mechanisms and procedures, rather than handed to us by people over whom we have no control. It is this point of trade-offs that I think is being missed.
Of course, how could one not be persuaded by the customary wry, terse brilliance of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in the way he phrases the problem of executive overreach? I think that all of us on all sides recognise the problem. But we are dealing with a world of imperfections, and the alternative is an also unconstrained, and to some degree arbitrary, power where decisions are made, often by middle-ranking European Commissioners who are not accountable to anyone. Inadequate as the statutory instrument is, there is some mechanism of control here. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, just explained, we will have a situation where the state aid regime in Northern Ireland is being imposed by people who are completely outside the democratic process.
Now, I very much hope that this Bill goes through without these amendments. I realise that I am a very lonely supporter of it in these debates, but I hope that once it has gone through, Northern Ireland can become a bridge between the United Kingdom and the European Union, and a forum for co-operation. But that will be possible only if we live up not only to the Belfast Agreement but to the wider principles on which it rests: above all, representative government and a proper link between taxation, representation and expenditure.