Baroness Couttie:

I am happy to speak on this. I take a different point of view. What I suspect happened is that the negotiations between the two sides got quite fraught and someone in the negotiations made some comment about the ability to behave vexatiously and use the joint committee to block goods flowing from Great Britain into Northern Ireland as a negotiating threat. The British Government's response to that was Part 5. It views it as a safety net. I, too, would like to see it removed after the negotiations have reached a point where we all can sign up to them and agree on a sensible way forward as far as Northern Ireland is concerned. I very much see this as a safety net and not a negotiating tactic within the Conservative Party at all. It is much more EU focused than internally focused.