Speeches by Robinson.

“Do you agree with their suggestion that article 2 of the Windsor framework is often overlooked?”

“In fairness to you, Lord Murphy, you are right that the recommendation, in and of itself, does not have significance. The issue, however, does. It was before the Supreme Court last week. There is a contested argument now as to whether article 2, in its textual terms, is around “no diminution of rights” at the time the …”

“Thank you.”

“Good morning to you all. Thank you for coming. Ministers, what you have outlined is not the experience that I have. Both of you voted for arrangements that you have since repudiated. On delivering the commitments in “Safeguarding the Union” and commitments that would remove the necessity for checks within the UK intern…”

“Secretary of State, that was not the question. I indicated that you have made that commitment. The question is, “When?” We know that this needs to be in place for 1 February, and we have two and a half months of parliamentary time available for that to take place. Will it happen before there is an example of market fai…”

“This is a real issue, which crystallises in two and a half months’ parliamentary time—three months’ real time—so I am asking: will the solution be in place to prevent market stagnation?”

“Thank you for that. In fairness, I asked the question because I think it illustrates that when we hear in the round that you are driven by trying to provide practical solutions to practical problems, those solutions can be intractable to find. At the very get-go, there is normally a rejection of the problem in the firs…”

“Three specifically were accepted and added to the Windsor framework by the UK Government through the Joint Committee without any recourse or a request for an applicability motion.”

“One was on geographical indicators, one was on Ukraine-Moldova, and the other was, from memory—Fleur knows better than me—[Interruption.] Critical raw materials. I didn’t do too badly from the top of my head.”

“The question is: of the five, three were not put through the Northern Ireland Assembly. No applicability motion was sought. Why?”

“The question is whether, once you have made that conclusion in your own mind, having consulted your own colleagues, you see fit that there should be a democratic role for the Northern Ireland Assembly and its democratically elected Members, all of whom are perfectly capable of understanding the sort of thought process …”

“With respect, Secretary of State, it is not a matter entirely for them, because these democratic scrutiny structures were set up to engage that body politic, so that the democratically elected representatives of Northern Ireland have a role and a say in this. Your failure to engage with them is a separate one. Lord Mur…”

“And I would argue that none of that would have happened had we not pulled the brake.”

“I didn’t disagree with that, but you were disagreeing with Lord Murphy’s review point. That was my question.”

“The question was whether you agree or disagree with the point in Lord Murphy’s review about the ineffectiveness of the democratic scrutiny.”

“Secretary of State, you just mentioned that businesses are good at working out what works for them. Is that within or outwith the context of no divergence of trade?”

“There is an overarching principle that there should be no divergence of trade going back to the protocol, Windsor framework and subsequent agreements. A number of businesses are being encouraged to change their supply lines and find it easier to deal with a foreign economic entity in the Republic of Ireland. That is a …”

“Patently not, but it can be so convoluted, complex and unnecessarily burdensome that businesses look elsewhere. When we talk about the internal market guarantee, we want it to mean something. When people talk about the UK internal market, people seem to struggle or to be unable to realise that a marketplace is somewher…”

“You will know that one of the reasons we pushed for the establishment of the Independent Monitoring Panel was to provide an evidential base and to be able to make rigorous arguments when restrictions are wholly unnecessary and disproportionate. Our intention had been that that evidence base would therefore be available…”

“Okay, so it should be in your inbox in the next couple of weeks. What are the plans for publication?”