Northern Ireland

Does the Minister of State join me in welcoming the fact that we currently have the first applicability motion being brought before the Assembly? It is a change to the previous arrangements and enables the Assembly to vote on whether a change to an EU law can apply in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, under the auspices of the Assembly’s newly established Democratic Scrutiny Committee, the Assembly will be able to block the application of new EU law and refer it to the UK Government for further consideration, and that ultimately the UK Government can veto that law being applied in Northern Ireland. While imperfect, these arrangements represent very substantial progress from where we were, which was an automatic pipeline of EU law, with no opportunity for scrutiny, and no opportunity to block or veto such a law. We are certainly in a better place than we were before these new arrangements.