Mr. Hilary Benn:

I will respond to the question that Deputy Calleary asked about a level playing field. We need to be clear that there is a difference between non-regression, on the one hand, and a ratchet, on the other hand. It is perfectly reasonable to say we are going to negotiate a deal and we know where we all are at the moment, as we have common standards because we have all been in the European Union together. What is clearly not acceptable to the UK Government is the suggestion that if the standards are raised in the EU there should be an obligation on the UK to raise them in the same way. That is not going to work. Although of course, in the EU, we have always been able, as individual member states, to improve on environmental or workers' rights standards if we wanted to and, therefore, it seems to me that is a fair and reasonable basis.

The second thing we all know is that one must have a dispute resolution mechanism and ultimately someone has to decide. It is not going to be the European Court of Justice because the EU started out by saying, we would like them to do that, and that was never going to be acceptable to the current UK Government. It is not going to be the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. It is going to have to be an independent arbitrator and that is what the withdrawal agreement provides for in Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol. The principle there is of an independent arbitrator ultimately deciding alongside two other people, with one from each side. That, it seems to me, would be the shape of a sensible agreement on a level playing field.

It is good to talk to Deputy Howlin again. I really do worry, as all of us do, about the economic consequences of a no-deal for both of us but also politically, as Dr. Whitford pointed out earlier, about what that would do because there will be recrimination. Of course each side will blame the other. We all know who is going to blame who. That is why in the very short amount of time that we have left, the responsibility on all of us who are watching - we are spectators to the negotiations - is to say to the negotiators, and the political leaders "you must do your job, you must deliver a deal". As Prime Minister Boris Johnson said with which I agree, and I do not agree with him on many things, it would be a failure of state craft if there was no agreement. We cannot possibly have no agreement because the stakes are far too high. That is why I think all of our voices should be saying loudly and clearly, to give encouragement to the negotiators, "do what is necessary in order to bring home an agreement".