Northern Ireland Protocol

Mark Francois Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The solution that we are putting forward will actually save costs by reducing the bureaucracy that traders currently face when shipping goods into Northern Ireland. So our overall proposal benefits traders into Northern Ireland and the people of Northern Ireland; it does not make the EU any worse off, and it helps to protect the single market.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the statement, as I am sure will the Nobel laureate Lord Trimble, who wrote in a national newspaper this morning that it was urgent to address the problems of the protocol. As an architect of it with John Hume nearly a quarter of a century ago, he also raised the issue of the adverse influence of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland. Can the Foreign Secretary assure the House that under her sixth heading, which I think she called governance, she will take action on that issue as well?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I can assure my right hon. Friend that we will take action to ensure that the arbitration mechanism is in place for Northern Ireland, as it is in the trade and co-operation agreement, rather than having the ECJ as the final arbiter, which it is at present. He is right to highlight the article today by Lord Trimble. We need to go back to the original thinking behind the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which was about treating the communities of Northern Ireland with equal esteem to make sure that we have successful arrangements in place to protect peace and political stability. That has to be this Government’s priority.