Professor Katy Hayward:

I will be as succinct as possible. A fundamental question is what we are talking about when talking about an EU-UK agreement. Obviously, there are various strands to this and a pertinent question to ask is if we will get agreements announced as they arrive, or are we going to wait for a comprehensive agreement that is then presented as a package. For example, we know there has been progress on IT access, and data sharing between the UK and the EU with respect to GB-NI movements which has been a long contested issue. We know there has been progress on that and they are currently testing the systems. If there is an agreement on that, will it be announced soon, or will they hold off? A similar question applies to tariff rate quotas for steel. Will they announce that because a solution has potentially been found or will they hold off? That will be really testing in terms of the quality of trust in that relationship, and also how much they are going to try and build confidence in Northern Ireland apart from across the EU and wider UK around the possibility of them finding agreement. Obviously beyond that we have issues around customs, particularly the very difficult issues around sanitary and phytosanitary checks, SPS, and how much data is required and how many checks and controls. That will be when we get into more legal arguments apart from the technical ones. That will be more complicated even though we know in principle they both agree on the green and red channels, express lane etc. When it comes to the details we can imagine quite quickly differences between the two in terms of what GB businesses are prepared to do in terms of paperwork etc. I suspect that will be when we come to some problems. There are other issues in relation to parcels. We know from polling that the possibility of customs declarations on all parcels is something that people have most concerns around though it is not being implemented. Will there be any agreement on that? Will the grace period with respect to veterinary medicines be extended before the end of the year? This is all before we get to the questions of governance and how much the issue of the Court of Justice of the European Union is going to hold up any ultimate agreement between the UK and the EU. That is something we need to bear in mind. This is very complex and there are various different issues that are contested and on which the two sides are trying to find agreement. We then come to the question of timing. Will they be expecting the Secretary of State to postpone the elections? Will the hope be that there can be some form of agreement before an election?

If we are thinking about those time pressures, then we have two other issues of concern. One is how good this agreement would be and to what extent it has dealt with the complexities, difficulties and the evidence particularly from businesses here with respect to making this thing manageable. The second issue with respect to timing, is in preparing the ground. We know from polling that the expectations particularly on the side of unionists, with regard to what is possible from an UK-EU agreement, have to be managed very carefully. We have seen worrying trends in our polling in terms of the growth of those who are strongly unionist saying they want the protocol gone altogether until they are willing to see a Northern Ireland Executive reformed. There is a real challenge here for the DUP leadership in particular, as Professor Shirlow alluded to. There is danger in thinking we will get the UK-EU agreement, it will be sold and then we will get the institutions up and running again. We need to bear in mind that this is going to be much more complex and look ahead to the fact that it is going to evolve. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the context for this will get more and more difficult as we go on as the UK diverges further from the EU. Fundamental towards this is preparing the ground for continual engagement between the UK and the EU and for the fact that there will not be one moment where all this is resolved. It is actually going to be a long process rather than happening in a particular moment.