Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment have they made of the work of the UK–EU Joint Consultative Working Group.

The Joint Consultative Working Group is established by the Northern Ireland Protocol as part of the governance arrangements for the Protocol, though it is not empowered to take any decisions other than to adopt its own rules of procedure. The Government is clear that as those broader governance arrangements do not include any structures for UK or NI representatives to have a say in EU rules, a democratic deficit has been created whereby rules are made and imposed on Northern Ireland with no say in the matter.