Lord Hain:

-----from a number of Conservative politicians in government and outside that only applies to British soldiers is completely contradictory to and outwith the Good Friday Agreement. I heard the former director general of MI5, Jonathan Evans, now Lord Evans, saying exactly that. There is wide support across the House of Lords on a cross-party and non-party basis for the idea that it has to be treated in an even-handed way.

On SPS issues, it is obvious that in recently striking a deal with Australia on agriculture and SPS questions among other things, there was no room for aligning with EU standards. In these free trade deals it is clear the Conservative Government is determined to strike free trade deals which do not automatically align with EU SPS standards. That is a major problem, but a bit of goodwill could be applied on both sides, which means Lord Frost and Boris Johnson removing unilateral threats to renege on legal agreements they have made, which is what the protocol is. They signed up to it and either knew the detail, including SPS, or they did not and signed it with their eyes shut. It requires goodwill from Brussels, London and, to the extent that it is a factor, Dublin. There should be common sense applied. The crucial thing is trust. The EU has subcontracted to the UK, and this is unique, responsibility for policing its external frontier across the Irish Sea. That is a big part of the protocol and it can only operate on trust. That trust could be to rebuild and a lighter touch application of the protocol introduced, including on SPS issues, which, as Deputy Ó Murchú implied, would deal with 80% of the problem. That is the way forward. We can find all sorts of mitigations which lighten the load but do not remove the necessity for Northern Ireland and products coming into it to comply with EU standards.