Speeches by Robinson.

“Good morning to you all, and hello Lisa—it is nice to see you. You are right that FSB talked about anti-coercion but it also said that there could be a straight exemption for Northern Ireland from the EU, if it chose. The FSB raised it three weeks ago, and I have spoken on it publicly in support. Do you, as an academic…”

“Joël, have you any indication that we are being considered fruitfully?”

“Stormont has now been back for a full 14 months. That has given us the opportunity to see—and for you to indicate to us—how effective you think democratic scrutiny mechanisms have been over that period.”

“Lord Murphy’s review is looking at some of the practical outworkings of these mechanisms. The impediments that have come up thus far include a lack of political will on the Committee to explore individual issues in depth, which seems to be borne out of whether you are pro or anti-EU, so there is no effective scrutiny o…”

“Lisa, have you had an opportunity to consider the Government’s response to the notification of the pulling of the Stormont brake? What does that say or point to in relation to EU alignment and the Government’s intentions in that regard?”

“I think they are hellbent on as much alignment as they can get for the entirety of the country, and that is their political raison d’être. You mentioned the response to the Stormont brake being pulled, and the Government's response highlights one of the deficits. The brake was pulled because the Chemical Industries Ass…”

“Thank you. Joël, do you have reflections on that discussion about the frailties of the process? Last Thursday, the Government decided to add three new chapters on critical minerals and tariffs emerging from Ukraine and Moldova. They did that without seeking an applicability motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly. So…”

“On Moldova and Ukraine, there was a tariff agreement that was almost a reiteration of a pre-existing agreement, save that we are now incorporated in EU quotas, which was not the case before. Somebody might say that was inconsequential and that it was almost a roll-over, but is it not the case that this UK Government ar…”

“They clearly don’t.”

“Do you agree, Lisa, that there seems to be a number of issues at play here? One is that a lot of people talk of AI and do not really understand what they are talking about. That is true of the UK Government; they know that they will have to legislate or regulate in this area but are not entirely sure how, so they are a…”

“No.”

“Good morning, Dr Dunbar. Thank you for joining us this morning. You are not a member of the veterinary medicines working group—is that right?”

“You are a member?”

“Reflecting on what you have said this morning, are you outlining that you do not have information gleaned from that veterinary medicines working group, or that you are not in a position to share that information this morning?”

“Okay. If I put some things to you, would you tell me if they sound wildly inaccurate?”

“Would it be right to say that there are 14 products now considered high risk?”

“Would I be right to say that about 60 products would be considered at medium risk?”

“Yes. Are you aware of discussion around two potential options, one categorised as a critical products list, which would receive the necessary animal health and welfare certificates from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, and a second alternative solution that is described as a cascade model? Does that make any sense…”

“That would envisage a vet diagnosing a problem, believing that they need a medicine, and understanding that there is no alternative to that medicine. You then cascade through a number of options, and essentially on animal welfare grounds that medicine would be made available to that vet. Does that sound about right?”

“Yes. Practically, do you as a veterinary association have concerns that in going through all those steps, it may be that the medicine required by the vet is simply not available, or the distributors do not have an ongoing supply because the individual circumstance has not arisen, and therefore the individual medicine h…”