Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his response is to the call all for a six-month delay to checks in the Irish Sea in the document entitled: Implementing the Northern Ireland Protocol: What Business in Northern Ireland needs & why published by the NI Business Brexit Working Group.

The UK Government will continue to prepare to meet our obligations under the Northern Ireland Protocol, in line with the approach set out in the 20 May Command Paper, the UK’s Approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. In this paper, we committed to providing guidance to business, including our plans for extensive HMRC support for Northern Ireland businesses engaging in any new processes under the Protocol. We will publish that guidance this summer.

We will also continue to engage with business through the Business Engagement Forum, which met for the first time on 10 June and which will play an important part in our thinking as we implement the Protocol.