Northern Ireland

My Lords, I do not want to go beyond what was in the Statement. We know that practical north/south co-operation is in everyone’s interests. That is currently the case, for example, with regard to bird flu. Disease control in food production animals does not recognise the border. Public health is an issue on which we have to work together. A whole area of north/south co-operation is in everyone’s interests. The question related—it was inferred from previous Statements—to joint control over the internal governance of Northern Ireland. But there will not be any joint control over the internal governance of Northern Ireland because that remains a matter for the British Government.