Well, they may. My request was going to be for the Minister to set out which of the tests that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley set out the Government agree with and which they perhaps do not. Listening to his objectives, I do not think that that list can have come as an enormous surprise, so it would be helpful to get a bit of a steer about the extent to which there is some commonality.
My final point is that, very clearly, as several of my hon. and right hon. Friends have said, there was envisaged in the protocol and the political declaration the idea that the protocol was not a permanent solution but a temporary solution. Certainly, both sides—the British Government and the EU—said that they would take seriously alternative arrangements that could be put in place to enable businesses in Northern Ireland to have unfettered access to the Great Britain market, but just as importantly, to enable businesses in Great Britain to trade freely with Northern Ireland, for the benefit of both Northern Ireland businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland.
Even if one accepts—and I am not sure that I do—that those arrangements could not have been put in place several years ago when we left the European Union, saying that they can never be put in place and that, as technology and business procedures develop, we cannot develop our arrangements, seems unreasonable. Both the EU and the British Government should, working together, be able to take those forward. I look forward very much to listening, in the not-too-distant future, to the Minister’s response to what has been an excellent debate on both sides of the House.
2.36 pm