Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the European Union has a number of SPS and veterinary agreements with third countries based on equivalence, not dynamic alignment. We continue to be open to an arrangement based on equivalence. At the moment, our understanding is that the European Union does not wish to negotiate such an arrangement.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Frost, to his distinguished place on the Front Bench; I have many good memories of working together on European issues in the Blair Government. When it comes to making the Northern Ireland protocol work more flexibly, the key question surely is about trust between the Commission and the British Government. Will he seize this golden opportunity today to affirm publicly that the British Government are not seeking to scrap the Northern Ireland protocol or negotiate any changes to the text that the Prime Minister himself agreed?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I too have happy memories of working with the noble Lord in a rather different context a few years ago. Our clear position is that the protocol depends on the consent of all the people of Northern Ireland. As long as that consent is not maintained, it is difficult to see how the protocol can be genuinely durable. We are working to sustain the protocol, but in a pragmatic and proportionate fashion.