Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure continued peace amid plans to discard parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Answered by Lord Caine - Shadow Minister (Northern Ireland)
Our overriding priority is the restoration of fully functioning devolved government, as provided for in the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. While the Protocol was originally intended to protect the 1998 Agreement in both construct and implementation, it is now undermining it and threatening political stability in Northern Ireland. We cannot allow this to continue. While our preference remains to resolve issues around the Protocol through negotiation, this will require greater flexibility from the European Union than hitherto has been the case. Our legislation will enable us to deal with the problems created by the Protocol in ways that uphold the 1998 Agreement, avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland and protects the integrity of both the UK Internal Market and the EU Single Market.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures have been put in place to ensure peace and maintenance of an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord Dunlop
The Government remain fully committed to the Belfast Agreement and its successors. We will continue to work with the Northern Ireland Executive and Irish Government for a prosperous and peaceful Northern Ireland in the time ahead, with a shared commitment to wanting to avoid a return to the borders of the past and to finding a practical solution to facilitate the continued free movement of people and goods that recognises the unique economic, political and social context of the land border.