New Clause 10: Northern Ireland Protocol Bill
New Clause 10 - Condition prior to limitation of the Northern Ireland Protocol
‘(1) This section sets out the condition which must be satisfied before a provision of—
(a) the Northern Ireland Protocol, or
(b) any other part of the EU withdrawal agreement,
is excluded provision.
(2) The condition must be either—
(a) the agreement condition (see subsection (3)), or
(b) the Article 16 condition (see subsection (4)).
(3) The agreement condition is that the United Kingdom and the EU have agreed following negotiations that the provision is excluded provision.
(4) The Article 16 condition is that—
(a) the United Kingdom is unilaterally taking appropriate safeguard measures, in accordance with Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol,
(b) before taking those measures, the United Kingdom has followed the procedure set out in Annex 7 to the Protocol (which governs the taking of safeguard measures), and
(c) the safeguard measures being taken necessarily require that the provision is excluded provision.
(5) Where the condition is no longer satisfied, then the provision ceases to be excluded provision, and as a consequence any regulations made dealing with excluded provision lapse to the extent that they relate to provision which is no longer excluded provision.
(6) For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of this Act remain subject to section 7A(2) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, save where a provision of—
(a) the Northern Ireland Protocol, or
(b) any other part of the EU withdrawal agreement,
is excluded provision which has satisfied the requirements set out in this section.”
This new clause is intended to prevent Ministers from deviating from the international agreement that is the NI Protocol unless this has either been agreed to between the UK and the EU, or the UK have followed the procedure set out in Article 16 of the Protocol for unilaterally taking safeguard measures.—(Peter Kyle.)