Northern Ireland: Restoring Devolution Debate
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Gavin Robinson
Main Page: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)Department Debates - View all Gavin Robinson's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
Northern Ireland: Restoring Devolution
Gavin Robinson Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Julian Smith
Again, these are sensitive issues—free vote issues—but the law has changed and the Government will now follow through and deliver on it.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
These responses are calamitous. For the Secretary of State to hold up a copy of the Belfast agreement, yet not to have apprised himself of paragraph 12 of strand two or paragraph 5(b) of strand one, which outline further expansion of north-south arrangements, subject to the Assembly’s consent, and paragraph 5(b), which indicates how that consent is to operate, is an outrage. He told the BBC last Thursday that no party would have a veto, but Sinn Féin operated its veto on the restoration of the institutions today, as it has done for the past 1,000 days, and the EU will have a veto in the Joint Committee. Can he answer the question that he was asked earlier: will Northern Ireland goods require customs declarations for what is supposed to be unfettered access to the rest of their own country?