Mr. Barry Andrews:

In that case, I will only touch on trade and a little on Brexit. On trade, I agree that the Energy Charter Treaty dispute settlement mechanism is completely inappropriate and we need to move into a new phase, which is reflected in the plans around a multilateral investment court and the investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS, that was attached to Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP. In my view, it brought trade completely into disrepute. There was a lack of public confidence in trade delivering prosperity across the world and that must be corrected. I am delighted that Members in this House are so engaged on that issue. It is very much involved in the House's discussions on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, which is now a national competence to decide on what the House wants to do about ratifying the investment elements of CETA

Senator Higgins asked about due diligence and whether it touches on the Control of Economic Activities (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 and the issues contained therein. It definitely does. I had a discussion with the ambassador of Palestine only last week on the very same subject. I am excited to see what the European framework for supply chain due diligence will do, not only for the occupied territories but also for Uighurs in Xinjiang in China.

On Brexit, Senator Currie asked if we will remember the importance of Northern Ireland. I take it very seriously, as part of my job as an MEP, to try - we all do this - to fill the gap left behind by the Northern Ireland MEPs because much of the EU acquisthat is contained in the protocol impacts Northern Ireland and yet there is this big democratic deficit.As a result, we must play our role. There are other things that can happen. For example, building out the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly and having Northern Ireland civil society involved in a joint working group. There are many other things we can do to fill the void resulting from the democratic deficit. I will leave it at that.