Baroness Couttie:

I will touch on the question asked about whether we are serious about an Australia-type deal, as it has been dubbed. The whole of the Conservative Party would want to have a proper free trade agreement with the EU but I do not think that this extends to "at any cost" among a significant number of people within the party. Therefore, when Boris Johnson says he is prepared to leave on Australia-style deal terms, which are pretty much the same as WTO terms, I think he is serious about that.

Building on what Lord Kinnoull said about state aid, again, the rationale behind pushing back on what the EU requires on state aid is not just because there are provisions that are used more normally in trade agreements between different countries, which we would be happy to adhere to. It is also about the sovereignty of the UK.

We are coming out of the EU and wish to be an independent nation state and set our own rules. We do not wish to have legacy arrangements with the EU whereby we are left following rules over which we have no control, although we are prepared to sign up to standard trade agreement-type rules which cover the same issues. That is where the block is.

I entirely agree with the Senator that peace in Northern Ireland is of paramount importance. That is a generally held view across the whole of Ireland and the UK. I do not think there was any intention to undermine that in Part 5 of the Internal Market Bill, although some people have stated that that is its effect. I will not go into detail regarding why I do not think it will do so in practical reality, but I can understand that people are concerned in that regard. I touched on the reason for the Part being included in the first place in my earlier contribution. If what we are being told is true - I suspect it was a verbal comment and we have not seen evidence of it - there was a sudden realisation that the way the protocol was worded in terms of the joint committee could be used in a way that would be vexatious and cause enormous difficulties for the Northern Ireland economy and, although I hesitate to say it, the peace process as well. If a comment was made that the EU was serious about designating all products that came from the UK to Northern Ireland as being at risk, then the UK believed it needed to do something strong to fight back, probably partly as a negotiating tactic, but also to show that we were not going to be pushed around and agree to things to which we would not otherwise agree in order to avoid that possibility. As I stated, I hope it will eventually come out when some form of agreement is reached.

On the issue of liaison between Ireland and the UK, I sincerely hope that we continue to have a productive dialogue. It is useful for both countries. I hope some sort of committee, such as this one, will continue and that we will have regular contact with it. I refer to the report we produced and to which the Senator referred.