Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whether he has had discussions with EU representatives on proposals to remove the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The Foreign Secretary leads on our negotiations with the EU and she has had extensive exchanges through both informal channels and the structures under the agreement.

We will continue to talk with the EU and our preference remains a negotiated outcome but while the EU discusses their position and their mandate, we will take steps to solve the problems created by the Protocol and restore the Executive. We are not scrapping the Protocol - we are protecting the elements that work and fixing those that don’t. We remain open to discuss any new proposals but we can no longer wait to address the issues we face now.