Baroness Couttie:

I am Philippa Couttie and I am from the Conservative Party. One of the difficulties we face as a committee and in the House of Lords is the lack of evidence we have received to back up the Government's claim that the EU is acting in bad faith. If it was, it would mean the Internal Market Bill and its clauses did not break international law. Although one of our ministers stood up and said it did, we have also had Lord Keen and a minister, Mr. Michael Gove, alluding to the fact that they believed the EU is acting in bad faith. Nobody in the Conservative Party, the House of Lords or the British Parliament as a whole would want to break international law so there is a difference of opinion on where one comes down in the circumstances of not having evidence.

The question was asked about dispute resolution and why the British Government did not choose to use that mechanism, as opposed to Part 5. Again, there is no evidence, which makes the process very difficult. Informally, I have been told the concern was that if the joint committee classified all agricultural goods and food products moving from the UK to Northern Ireland as being at risk, this would cause such an impact on the Northern Ireland economy - and, possibly, the peace in Northern Ireland given the unionist desire to remain intact as part of the UK - it would have a serious detrimental impact on the UK as a whole in the short term. The time required to go through the disputes mechanisms would therefore be too long to save us from some of that impact. That is why Part 5 became important.

As I said, my committee has not seen evidence for that and it is very hard to comment further than that. I thought I would nonetheless put it in the pot.