Northern Ireland Protocol

My Lords, as set out in the Statement, I say that the brake will come from the Assembly and, as with the petition, from 30 MLAs; however, it will have to come from more than one party, as in the current arrangements. Obviously, the intention of the framework is not to deny Northern Ireland access to the market in the rest of the island of Ireland. Indeed, for some industries, there is great dependency on trade across the border; that is inherent in the small part of the trade and co-operation agreement that I was discussing with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. We hope that openness to the Republic of Ireland in respect of the market and trade in it will be preserved in this agreement; however, the fundamental point is that the agreement also addresses our UK internal market and strips down unacceptable barriers to east-west trade, which have rightly caused concern and regret in Northern Ireland.