Mr. Hilary Benn:

I will begin. I thank the Deputy for these questions and it is good to see him again virtually. On the Internal Market Bill, because the announcement was only made yesterday we have not had a chance as a committee to discuss it but I very much welcome the agreement that was reached yesterday. Michael Gove will be making a statement in the House of Commons later today and we anticipate we will hear more detail about how exactly the agreement in principle has been reached. It has yet formally to be ratified, as I understand it, by the joint committee but there will be a meeting before the end of the year. We read in the reports that agreement has been reached, for example, on how supermarket lorries bringing supplies to Northern Ireland will be dealt with, and it appears exit summary declarations on goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain will not be required.

There is political significance. Obviously there is a history to the Internal Market Bill, and various members of the committee from different parties will take different views on what the Government did, but at least an agreement has been reached because clearly there has been compromise on both sides. This takes me to the Deputy's third question on the talks. I have always thought there would be an agreement because the alternative is unthinkable. It would have a big impact on the United Kingdom economy. We saw that with the Office for Budget Responsibility report a couple of weeks ago. We have discussed on our visits as a select committee to Dublin, and as the Deputy knows we have been twice, the impact it would have on the Republic of Ireland. It is in nobody's interests and, therefore, it is the responsibility of the negotiators, and the politicians who give them their instructions, to find the middle ground which can be done. That is how agreements are concluded.

The bilateral relationship it is hugely important. It always has been. I hope it will be strengthened in the future. We will need to make the fullest possible use of the institutions that were created under the Good Friday Agreement because the relationship we have as joint members of the European Union will no longer be there. I am sure I speak for all members of the committee in saying that a strong relationship between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is something we are all very much committed to because we are bound together by so much history and so many shared interests now and in the future.