Northern Ireland Protocol

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his engagement with the Secretary of State and myself in recent weeks. He is right: there is a balance to be struck, and the Good Friday agreement is about respecting that balance—it is about the aspirations and identities of all communities in Northern Ireland. That is what we have sought to achieve with the Windsor framework. As I outlined, something we have heard loud and clear from businesses in Northern Ireland is that they value their access to the single market and they value, as all of us do, not having a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. That is something we have had to bear in mind as we considered these negotiations, but I believe we have struck the right balance and the framework means that this agreement can command the support and consent of communities right across the spectrum in Northern Ireland. I look forward to working with him and his party to deliver it.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

May I, too, send my best wishes to, and align myself with the comments of others about, detective chief inspector John Caldwell? What happened is a stark reminder of the courageous and special work that all PSNI officers do every day that they are working, to keep all people in Northern Ireland safe. We owe them all a great debt for that work.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend and my Front-Bench colleagues on the phenomenal focus they are putting on ensuring that we can secure a deal that, as I know we all hope, can restore power sharing in Stormont. Getting back to having good governance in Northern Ireland by elected representatives in Northern Ireland is key for people there.

Another key area for the citizens of Northern Ireland is access to goods, as my right hon. Friend has rightly outlined. Will he confirm for the House that in this deal we will be able to secure the free flow of trade not only for Northern Ireland businesses into Great Britain, but for Great British businesses into Northern Ireland? Regulations were preventing some goods from moving, and it is great to know that the Great Yarmouth banger will be able to get back on the supermarket shelves, where required, in Northern Ireland. However, for many businesses it was the administrative burden of moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, not just the regulatory one, that needed to be removed in order to allow them to see this as an economic benefit and therefore protect the structural integrity of the UK internal market.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for the work he did on this topic in his role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It was invaluable in paving the way for my colleagues and I to take forward that work and bring it to a successful conclusion today. He is right to highlight the administrative burden of moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. I am confident that with the new green lane, based on using existing ordinary commercial data and data sharing, in place of the bureaucratic customs arrangements that were there hitherto, we have taken an enormous step forward. It delivers what businesses have asked for. We have worked closely with the business community in Northern Ireland to deliver it, and I am confident that as they study the detail, they will see that it provides that smooth flow of their goods around the United Kingdom, as it should be, and ensures Northern Ireland’s place in our UK internal market.