I'm disappointed, I have to say, but not surprised to hear that the Welsh Government will be voting against this legislative consent motion today. And of course I rise to contribute to this debate as both an Irish and a UK citizen, and someone who has been a long-standing member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, whose committee on European affairs I actually chair. So, I've given some long consideration to this legislation before us, and I've come to the conclusion that it is, reluctantly, necessary to support it, because the truth is that the UK Government has been working very hard at trying to negotiate a reasonable solution to some of the problems that the protocol has thrown up on the island of Ireland and between the UK and Northern Ireland in terms of trade.

And I think that the Bill that we have before us, should it be enacted—should it be necessary for it to be enacted—will actually deliver on the most important issue that we all need to be cognisant of, and that is that we must protect the Good Friday agreement. We will be marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday agreement next year. That has given us peace and stability in Northern Ireland over the past quarter of a century, and we need to ensure that the bedrock of peace and stability, that agreement, is fully upheld as well in the future. And of course, one of the important aspects of that is to avoid this hard border on the island of Ireland, and I believe that we can do that if we implement the principles in this Bill, whilst still safeguarding the UK market and ensuring the integrity of the UK's own internal market as well.

There have been over 18 months now of intense discussions with the EU without agreement, and the UK Government would, of course, far rather a settlement that is negotiated between the EU and the UK, but unfortunately the refusal to budge on the EU side has meant that it's necessary to try and bring forward an alternative solution. So, this Bill, I believe, will fix those practical problems with parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, which have come about as a result of parts of that protocol. It will protect the parts of the protocol that work, and those unintended consequences that have arisen as a result of the implementation of the protocol can be dealt with.

There are four key areas, principally, that the UK Government is trying to address. The first is the burdensome customs processes that businesses are facing across Northern Ireland and in the UK; the second is inflexible regulation; the third is tax and spend discrepancies between Great Britain and Northern Ireland; and the fourth is around governance issues. It's going to introduce green and red channels to remove unnecessary costs and paperwork for businesses trading within the UK, whilst ensuring that full checks are available for goods that end up entering the EU. It will give businesses the choice of placing goods on the market in Northern Ireland according to either UK or EU goods rules. It will ensure that Northern Ireland can benefit from the same tax breaks and spending policies as the rest of the UK, including VAT cuts on things such as energy-saving materials and COVID recovery loans. At the moment, they can't do that because of the EU protocol. And of course it will normalise governance arrangements so that disputes are rightly resolved by independent arbitration and not by the European Court of Justice. 

I've heard many references to this issue of whether this will amount to an unlawful breach of international law. The position of the UK Government is clear, and it's published in detail its legal position and the legal advice that it has received, and that is that the legislation is lawful under international law on the basis of the doctrine of necessity. It supports the balance provided for in the Good Friday agreement, which is, of course, as I say, the paramount thing that needs to be protected here, whilst dealing with these issues, the small number of problems that the protocol has thrown up. And we know that if we don't deal with these problems that are exhibiting themselves as a result of the implementation of the protocol, that it will continue to feed community tensions in Northern Ireland. The reality is that those community tensions that currently exist and that have been causing the Executive not to be formed since the last elections in Northern Ireland are largely as a result of this protocol, of these barriers, if you like, which have been put up in the Irish sea. So, we need to address them; we need to do it in a fair and balanced way. I'd rather there was a negotiated settlement, as would the UK Government, but that is clearly not possible at the moment, and bringing forward this Bill will hopefully bring an end to the impasse and deal with these issues once and for all.