Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

As was covered earlier in the question session, a huge amount of work has been done by the Department of Health and Social Care, including on additional procurement capacity and express delivery. That builds on extensive work by the industry, including the additional stock and additional flow capacity that it has procured.

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I want to ask specifically about the important issue of Northern Ireland. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government remain fully committed to all the existing elements of the December 2017 joint report between the UK and the EU negotiators? Yes or no?

[Stephen Barclay]

Our commitments were set out in the letter to President Tusk. It contains our commitment to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which includes putting no infrastructure at the border to impede north-south flow.

[Keir Starmer]

I asked a careful question, and I got a careful answer, which did not confirm full commitment, so let me press on. It has been reported this week that EU member states were told by the European Commission that the UK Government were proposing to reduce the ambitions of the 2017 joint report relating to Northern Ireland—not the Good Friday agreement, but the 2017 joint report. In particular, it has been reported that the UK is rowing back from the “legally operable” solutions to avoiding a hard border to what has been described as “aspirational” measures—that is quite specific. The pledge now is only to have trade across the Irish border that is “as frictionless as possible”—again, a difference. These are important issues, and I know that there has been a bit of knockabout this morning, but this is of huge importance across Ireland. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to reject those reports and make it clear that there will be no rowing back from the solemn commitments made two years ago in the 2017 joint report?

[Stephen Barclay]

First, as I said in my previous answer, there has been no rowing back from the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which is an area of common accord between us. Secondly, the reason I pointed towards north-south co-operation is that, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be well aware, the Prime Minister drew a distinction in the letter to President Tusk between the backstop and the Northern Ireland protocol. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will also know that, while the two terms are often used interchangeably in the Chamber, there is a distinction between them, particularly on the basis that the north-south co-operation, the common travel area and the benefits of the single electricity market are distinct from the points in terms of alignment.

As for right hon. and learned Gentleman’s further question around the legally operative text, I addressed that point to some extent in my remarks in the Chamber yesterday in that there is a distinction between the European Commission saying that all aspects need to be set out in a legally operative text by 31 October and looking at, for example, what role the joint committee will have during the implementation period, because the implementation period means that things need to be in place by the end of December 2020 or, if extended by mutual agreement, for one or two further years. It is therefore within that that there is a distinction to be drawn.