EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee

Jeffrey M Donaldson Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Fundamentally, whatever turbulence may occur, whatever bumps in the road there might be in the months ahead, the strengths and resilience of our economy mean that we will prosper mightily. The manufacturing leaders in her constituency in West Bromwich and more widely across the Black Country and the west midlands are benefiting directly from the investment that we are making in customs intermediaries, in new IT processes and systems, and in our Prime Minister’s broader commitment to levelling up. We must make opportunity more equal across the United Kingdom, and my hon. Friend’s championing of business in West Bromwich is a critical part of that.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

Protecting the Good Friday agreement means protecting Northern Ireland’s place as an integral part of the United Kingdom, for that is the settled will of the people of Northern Ireland exercised through the principle of consent. Will the Secretary of State give us an update on discussions in the Joint Committee on the issue of export declarations and the fact that they are not required for goods travelling from Northern Ireland to Great Britain? Will he also give us an update on the issue of goods at risk and the EU attitude on this, to ensure that goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland that are not passing on to the Republic of Ireland are not subject to unnecessary and costly disruption?

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes three very important points. On the first, about exit declarations, he is absolutely right: the protocol is there both to help us safeguard the EU’s single market, but also to affirm Northern Ireland’s integral place in the United Kingdom and within its customs territory, and there is no need for customs declarations for goods coming from Northern Ireland to the rest of Great Britain. As for his point about goods at risk, he is absolutely right about that as well: bread that is baked in Huddersfield and goes into a supermarket in Ballymena should not be subject to tariffs, because it is trade within the United Kingdom. And his final point is right as well: the Belfast agreement was a balanced agreement, and sometimes some of the rhetoric we hear about the Belfast agreement seems to me to be inadequate in its understanding of the vital importance of the fact that the majority of people in Northern Ireland have voted to stay part of the United Kingdom. Their rights, their views, their loyalty needs to be respected.