Northern Ireland Protocol

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for those warm and, I fear, over-generous words. I thank him none the less. It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to colleagues sitting behind me, who have worked in private, in confidence, behind the scenes for some months to bring us to this place, supported by the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe. They deserve enormous credit. It is a collective achievement of minds; many Members of the House in their various ways have contributed to getting to this point. I hope that everyone around the House can now support the agreement as a basis for providing a better future for the people of Northern Ireland.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The scrapping of tariffs on steel will be welcomed by steelworkers in the Port Talbot steelworks in my constituency, but may I press the Prime Minister on non-tariff barriers? Will he confirm that quotas will also be scrapped? He will be aware that the European Union is introducing a carbon border adjustment mechanism. Will he confirm that the Windsor framework will eliminate the risk of a carbon border in the Irish sea?

[The Prime Minister]

The UK Government are also exploring mechanisms for a carbon border adjustment mechanism—it is something the Treasury started consulting on last year. That is one of the dialogues that we have with the European Union, and other countries are considering such mechanisms to ensure that they can work in a complementary fashion. The work for all these things is at a relatively early stage, so there is lots of development work to be done to make sure we implement them.