G7 and NATO Summits Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Cabinet Office

G7 and NATO Summits

John Redwood Excerpts
Wednesday 16th June 2021

(2 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

Yes, of course; we have massively increased support for the NHS, for instance, all of which is passported through to Wales. Funding has massively increased, and of course we work very closely with the Government—the Administration—in Cardiff. I think that it would be helpful in delivering great infrastructure for Wales, whether that is improving the A55 or the M4, if there were some consistency of approach. With the M4 bypass, for instance, and the Brynglas tunnels, I think it was crazy to spend £144 million of taxpayers’ money on a study without actually doing the bypass itself. I am very happy to work with the Welsh Labour Government if they get their act together.

John Redwood Portrait John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]
- View Speech - Hansard - -

No fewer than five representatives of the European Union at the G7 tried to hijack the agenda to undermine the people of Northern Ireland with their one-sided and unfair view of the protocol. Will the Prime Minister, who chaired the event well, make sure that goods can flow freely in the UK internal market, given that there are legal ways of doing this unilaterally? Does not the Good Friday agreement require the EU and the UK to respect the needs and wishes of both communities?

Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My right hon. Friend is completely right. It was the EU that shocked people in Northern Ireland by invoking article 16 of the protocol in January and trying to put a barrier on the movement of vaccines between the EU and the UK. We would never have dreamed of doing something like that, but it was that action that undermined people’s faith in the protocol.