Jim Allister
MP for North Antrim · Traditional Unionist Voice · United Kingdom
“Once more a Committee—and therefore this Parliament—has been asked to approve a regulation that has the effect of departing Northern Ireland from the UK legal framework governing the subject matter.”
“In fact, batteries made to United Kingdom standards will become illegal in a part of this United Kingdom, to the extent that a criminal sanction of imprisonment could be imposed for using a battery that meets UK standards.”
“It requires that in developing any regulations, these draft regulations included, the Government should have special regard to “the need to maintain Northern Ireland’s integral place in the…internal market”. They are not maintaining an integral place if they are applying different rules—foreign rules—to a part of the United Kingdom.”
“Ministers from the Northern Ireland Office talk rather glibly about these matters, but the lived reality of the supply chain is very different: a full international customs border that is now inflicting damage on the import of steel; tightening import control system 2 checks; a parcels border; a plants border; and £192 million spent on bu…”
“I certainly recognise that, once again, Northern Ireland is being used in the reset as a cover to realign the whole United Kingdom with the EU. That, of course, is the gameplan of this Government, and this is but a small example of how they are going to deploy it.”
“You subject yourself to a similar disenfranchisement of your own electorate so that they do not elect the people who make the laws that govern them.’” That will be the ultimate outcome.”
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“Ministers from the Northern Ireland Office talk rather glibly about these matters, but the lived reality of the supply chain is very different: a full international customs border that is now inflicting damage on the import of steel; tightening import control system 2 checks; a parcels border; a plants border; and £192 million spent on building border posts—all to placate a European Union to which the Secretary of State and others seem totally beholden. When will the Secretary of State actually stand up for Northern Ireland? Can we please not have the usual trite reply that it is all the fault of Brexit, when it is the very opposite? The denial of Brexit is the altar upon which our supply chains are being sacrificed.”
“I ask each Member whether they would do that to their constituents. Just think about that. Would members of this Committee impose on their constituents a foreign-drafted, designed and implemented law that means they cannot buy batteries made to the standard of their own country? That is the question.”
“In fact, batteries made to United Kingdom standards will become illegal in a part of this United Kingdom, to the extent that a criminal sanction of imprisonment could be imposed for using a battery that meets UK standards. How absurd is it that in a part of this United Kingdom we are going to impose penalties on anyone daring to use a battery produced to UK standards? I am very disappointed that the primary concern of the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Epping Forest, is why it took so long to enforce foreign jurisdiction on a part of the United Kingdom. That is a quite shocking observation. When my consumers buy an e-bike, an electric car or a simple battery, the Government say they cannot buy one that meets United Kingdom standards. That is what we are doing here.”
“The narrative is quite clear: the 2006 EU regulation historically applied to all parts of the United Kingdom. After Brexit, however, when the EU amended the regulation in 2023, it ceased to apply to GB, where it has been revoked. But a part of this United Kingdom, namely Northern Ireland, is to continue to be subjected to foreign-made, unfiltered, unchecked law made by the EU. And the consequence is that my consumers in Northern Ireland can now only use and be supplied with batteries that meet that foreign diktat. Of course, the EU is infamous for micromanaging everyone’s economy if it can. We can now only use, import and deploy batteries made not to United Kingdom standards.”
“Once more a Committee—and therefore this Parliament—has been asked to approve a regulation that has the effect of departing Northern Ireland from the UK legal framework governing the subject matter. Let us be clear: this Committee is being asked to nod through a regulation imposing a law that no parliamentarian in this United Kingdom made, scrutinised or had any hand in drafting. This Committee is being asked to nod through the imposition of a foreign rule—made by the European Parliament, not this Parliament—and to nod it through so that it is enforced with criminal sanction in a part of the United Kingdom, of which this is meant to be the sovereign Parliament that makes the laws and decides the criminal penalties. But no, we are here obeisantly to nod through a regulation to enforce foreign law on a part of the United Kingdom.”
“Another aim in section 46 is “maintaining and strengthening the integrity and smooth operation of the internal market”. Therefore, even under the statutory test of section 46 of the Internal Market Act, these regulations fail, and they fail lamentably. I ask every self-respecting Member of this House simply to apply the test they would apply if this was being done to their constituents. They know that they would not do this to their constituents, so why do it to mine?”
“It requires that in developing any regulations, these draft regulations included, the Government should have special regard to “the need to maintain Northern Ireland’s integral place in the…internal market”. They are not maintaining an integral place if they are applying different rules—foreign rules—to a part of the United Kingdom. Section 46 also states “the need to respect Northern Ireland’s place as part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom; and…the need to facilitate the free flow of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with the aim of…streamlining trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. That is the very opposite of what these draft regulations will do. They will impede trade so that a battery cannot be bought from Great Britain.”
“You subject yourself to a similar disenfranchisement of your own electorate so that they do not elect the people who make the laws that govern them.’” That will be the ultimate outcome. On the laws governing the type and use of batteries, which is one of a vast number of areas where this is going to happen, the Government will say, “You, the electorate, are not worthy of electing people to make those laws. No, we are going to be colony-like, subjecting you to laws that someone else makes.” The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth might think that is a good way forward, but I certainly do not. I remind the Government that section 46 of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is very clear.”
“I certainly recognise that, once again, Northern Ireland is being used in the reset as a cover to realign the whole United Kingdom with the EU. That, of course, is the gameplan of this Government, and this is but a small example of how they are going to deploy it. They hide behind Northern Ireland and say, “Oh, well, we are doing it in this part of the United Kingdom, so we will all simply align ourselves to laws we do not make—laws we cannot change. We will impose upon the whole United Kingdom the disenfranchisement we have already imposed upon Northern Ireland, which cannot make laws on this because it is subject to foreign jurisdiction. We are now going to say to the whole United Kingdom, ‘You do the same.”
“May I first correct the Minister? I am not a DUP Member, and I am surprised she does not know that. Secondly, she is also wrong to say that we are debating the merits of this law, as we are not. This already is the law in Northern Ireland, courtesy not of this House but of the EU through sections 7 and 8 of the 2020 Act. It already is the law, so all we are discussing now is how far we are going to penalise people if they breach this foreign law. We are not discussing its merits. If the Government wanted to tackle unsafe batteries, they should have done so across the whole United Kingdom, and they have not—they are hiding behind Northern Ireland.”
“Does it come as a surprise to the hon. Gentleman, if he is correct about the purpose of the Belfast agreement in that regard, that former terrorists who were elected continue to this very day to glorify and regularly celebrate their acts of terrorism? Surely that is not compatible with their having turned their backs on terrorism.”
“There cannot be any hiding behind what is euphemistically called the peace process in Northern Ireland to justify the elevation of terrorists, because peace came in Northern Ireland—I will correct some Members here—not because of the Belfast agreement but because our gallant security forces defeated the terrorists, who were then, sadly, able to win the peace and gain what they gained. With those thoughts, I strongly support the petition, and I salute those who brought it to the House.”
“That is one of the dangers of allowing the elevation of terrorists into elected office. An act of terrorism is an act that deliberately takes on the political system to destroy it by the bomb and the bullet. It is wholly incongruous, given the definition of terrorism, to then have those terrorists, still boasting of their acts of terrorism, involved at the highest levels of that system. I come back to my first point. If the Government are to act on this petition, and they should, they need to act on a nationwide basis across the United Kingdom. We cannot have one rule for one and another for another.”
“The second, chilling, abiding consequence of allowing terrorists to be elected is that it sends a very dangerous message to the next generation of people who might be tempted to tamper and get involved in terrorism, because what do they see? They see that it worked for the previous generation of terrorists. They end up in the highest offices in the land, so it incentivises rather than disincentivises the pursuit of terrorism. If young people, misled by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland, look at the Sinn Féin Benches and see multiple former terrorists presenting and parading as statespeople, having attained elected office, what message does it send to those young people? It sends a message that terrorism worked for them—“So why not for us?”, they might think.”
“Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), we have a situation in Northern Ireland where regularly, weekend after weekend, elected representatives glorify acts of terrorism and salute the so-called bravery of those who were what they call freedom fighters and what the rest of us call vile terrorists. For example, to this very day the First Minister will regularly salute the memory of terrorists. She does that from a position of elected office, and that elevates, sanitises and justifies the very acts of those terrorists. That is the fallout of allowing terrorists to be elected to public office.”
“There are abiding lessons from the experience of Northern Ireland I must correct the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who said that Martin McGuinness had no convictions. Martin McGuinness was convicted twice by the Dublin criminal court of membership of the IRA, which is a terrorist offence. Yet he went on to become Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. There are two abiding consequences of allowing terrorists to be elevated to elected office. The first is that it sanitises the very acts of terrorism. As I said in my intervention on the hon.”
“Yet he is a man who was once an MP, then a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and then a Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive. That is what happens when we do not fetter the rights of those who have taken up the bomb and the gun and we allow them to abuse the democratic process. I think of another continuing member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Pat Sheehan, who got 24 years for an attempted booby-trap bomb. He still serves as an elected representative. I think of Paul Butler, who was convicted of the murder of a policeman. The Principal Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Carál Ní Chuilín, is a convicted terrorist. She was convicted for a booby-trap attack on a police station. There are many more besides. That illustrates what happens when we do not address an issue like this.”
“And more than that, he is to this day a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Think of the absurdity of that: an Old Bailey bomber sitting in judgment over a police service on the Northern Ireland Policing Board. If the Government ever act as they should, they must take action across this United Kingdom to prevent all those with terrorist convictions from attaining office. Of course, Kelly is not alone. There are many more, including Conor Murphy, a man who was elected to this House. He has never served here, because Sinn Féin refuse to take their seats, but he still got all the expenses of this House. He is a man who was convicted of the possession of explosives and given a five-year sentence, and he still has unanswered questions about his knowledge of the murder of young Paul Quinn in south Armagh.”
“We have had a gallery of serious terrorist convicts elected not just to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and not just to this House—they do not take their seats but get all the expenses that the rest of us get; some have gone on to hold governmental office in Northern Ireland. I think of some of the more notorious ones, such as the Old Bailey bomber, Gerry Kelly, who came to this city to bomb the Old Bailey. A man died and, in due course, Gerry Kelly was convicted and put where he ought to have been—in prison. He escaped, shooting a prison officer in the head in the course of his escape. He was then able to stand for and be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. More than that, he was able to become a junior Minister to the First Minister of Northern Ireland.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I commend the petitioners who brought forward the important issue we are debating. I certainly endorse both the spirit and the letter of the petition, but I want to make an important point. If the Government are ever to act on this matter, as they should, they must act on a UK-wide basis. I say that as someone who represents a constituency in Northern Ireland, where too often a double standard has been applied. We should not and must not have a double standard on the issue of terrorists being allowed to be elected in one part of the United Kingdom but not in another. I say that in the context of the sad experience of Northern Ireland.”
“The Minister talks about standards in voting and public life. As I indicated in my speech, weekend after weekend, we have people in public life glorifying terrorism and saluting the memories of their fallen colleagues, as they call them, who were vile, vicious terrorists. How is that upholding any standard in public life?”
“Today the Department confirmed to me in a written answer that over the years 2018 and 2019, the Ministry of Defence paid almost £12,000 to Jeffrey Donaldson in respect of a peacekeeping consultancy for the Cameroons. How common is it that sitting Members of Parliament are paid consultancy fees, and who else has been paid?”
“I really would like the Minister to address this question: what is the effect of the regulations on the sale of machinery made in Great Britain to another part of the United Kingdom? I would like a very clear answer on that because, in significant measure, it goes to the heart of the matter. Please, Minister, answer that question.”
“Not satisfied with subjecting my part of the United Kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction making laws that we cannot change, they are now going to set the whole United Kingdom under identical laws made in a foreign place. I really do think it is time that we, as parliamentarians, woke up to what we are being asked to do. I have one practical question for the Minister. Under the regulations, Northern Ireland’s goods will have to bear the European CE marking and the UKNI marking, and then they will be able to be sold into Great Britain. What about machinery made in Great Britain? How can it be sold into Northern Ireland? It will not bear the CE marking. Will it bear the UKNI marking? Have we created a situation in which we are going to cut the pipeline of supply from GB to Northern Ireland?”
“It really is ridiculous beyond belief. The fundamental constitutional and democratic point is that in this Committee this afternoon, parliamentarians are being invited to nod through laws that they did not make, did not write and cannot change to enforce the EU regulation that is coming in in January, and to enforce it in a part of this United Kingdom in respect of which this is supposed to be the sovereign Parliament. What an insult to all of us as parliamentarians to belong to a proclaimed sovereign Parliament to have to pass laws that we did not make and cannot change. That is the very essence of what is before us. The Government, as has already been referred to, have said it themselves. In order to produce their reset, they are going to bring in a statutory instrument to make the whole of the United Kingdom compliant with EU laws.”
“The regulations are the latest example of the humiliation of this proclaimed sovereign United Kingdom Parliament in adopting laws that it did not make and laws it cannot change—laws that are made in a foreign jurisdiction. We have already seen that in multiple examples. We have had it in the vehicle type regulations, under which people cannot now buy a new car in Northern Ireland made to GB-type regulations and must buy one made to EU-type regulations at an extra expense of £4,000; we have had it with tumble dryers—there are certain types of tumble dryers that can no longer be bought in Northern Ireland; and now we are to have it in respect of machinery. Who would have thought that the EU single market was so fragile that the composition of a leaf blower coming into Northern Ireland placed it in jeopardy?”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to make a statement on steel tariffs in relation to Northern Ireland.”
“Many businesses in Northern Ireland depend very much on steel imports, yet here they are facing a new regime tomorrow and only hearing about it today.”
“Secondly, will the EU’s new traceability rules, which it calls the “melt and pour” rules, be applied to steel being imported into Northern Ireland? If they are, they will impose an extra layer of bureaucracy, with form filling and certificates having to be obtained that are not required when steel is brought into Great Britain. Could we have clarity on that? Thirdly, last Thursday the Minister said that 74% of steel imports to Great Britain will not be covered by the UK trade measure. Can the same be said of Northern Ireland? Is it the same level of exemption—if we want to call it that—in respect of Northern Ireland, given the import of the EU governance? I ask those questions because in Northern Ireland we do not make steel; we rely exclusively on importing it.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for coming to the House. I have to say, there is an inherent absurdity, and indeed a constitutional offence, in having to come to the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom to ask whether there will be any tariff arrangements on moving steel from one part of the United Kingdom to another. Indeed, one recalls that last Thursday, the Minister said that he could not tell us because he had to await the EU decision, which underscores how absurd it is that these matters are governed by a foreign jurisdiction and not by ourselves. I have three specific questions for the Minister. First, is there any quota differential in regard to any class of steel, and if so, in respect of which classes?”
“Surely the Minister must agree that sustaining and instilling confidence in victims is essential to securing and sustaining prosecutions, and therefore any indication that there could be early release of such a person is bound to undermine a victim’s confidence. Last week in Northern Ireland, through the bravery of two young women, we saw Jeffrey Donaldson convicted as a child rapist—a man who passed himself off in this House and elsewhere as a statesman, demonstrating that no one, thankfully, is above the law. But if we get into the business of early release for child rapists, how do we ever hope to sustain victims coming forward?”
“The Minister said that the business of this Government was to secure the borders of this nation. In that context, can I therefore ask him how many of the buses travelling through the open back door into the United Kingdom from the Irish Republic have ever been stopped and how many of those seeking asylum have had their credentials checked since this Government came to power two years ago? We all know what happened a few weeks ago in north Belfast, where an asylum seeker is now in custody for attempted murder, yet there has been no effort by this Government to close that back door. Why is that? Why are we allowing people to enter this United Kingdom unchecked? We talk about stopping the small boats. When are we going to stop the buses?”
“I use this debate to draw attention to those facts and to say to this Government—more in hope than expectation—that one day they will realise that they are the Government of the United Kingdom, and that means promoting the United Kingdom, not promoting the partitioning of it. It means promoting the growth not of an all-Ireland economy, but of an all-UK economy. Sadly, this Government, deliberately and consciously, are failing in that fundamental mission.”
“Intertrade UK is seeking to promote trade within an economy of 70 million people, and it gets £750,000 to do it. InterTradeIreland is supposed to be promoting trade on an all-Ireland basis for a population of 7 million, and it gets millions upon millions, 40 members of staff, and more. Where is the logic? Other than the logic of wanting to do down inter-UK trade, where is the logic of being so abundantly miserly with Intertrade UK in comparison to the funds being given to InterTradeIreland? When I read that the Government’s second priority in this area is this idea of “protecting the UK internal market”, I see it as a joke—not just a joke, but a very sick joke—because the very opposite has been done to my part of the United Kingdom.”
“When we look at the small print in these accounts, we see that the Government are going to give the mighty sum of £2.25 million over three years to a body called Intertrade UK, the purpose of which, as the name suggests, is to promote trade within the United Kingdom—and the Government are giving it £750,000 per annum to do so. Intertrade UK has no staff and no offices—nothing. Let me contrast that with InterTradeIreland: InterTradeIreland exists for the correlative purpose of promoting trade on an all-Ireland basis. It gets £5 million a year of British taxpayers’ money. It also gets southern Government money. It has over 40 staff, plush offices and a real programme of work. Contrast that with Intertrade UK—the Secretary of State thinks it is adequate to give that organisation no staff, no offices and £750,000 a year.”
“Instead of protecting the UK internal market, this Government have wrecked it, because we now have an internal market that is partitioned by a full international customs border down the Irish sea, courtesy of the very lies I referred to earlier and the Windsor framework. Far from protecting the UK internal market, the Northern Ireland Office has gleefully presided over the sabotaging of the UK internal market. In a recent survey, the Federation of Small Businesses found that 38% of GB businesses that used to supply Northern Ireland have stopped supplying it. Why? Because of the unbearable paperwork and burdens that are put on businesses in order for them to trade with Northern Ireland. Far from protecting the UK internal market, we have a UK internal market that has been riven by this Government’s actions.”
“If policing and justice had never been devolved, the Secretary of State would have had no escape route in terms of finding the money to give policing to the citizens of Northern Ireland. It was a moment of folly, just over 10 years ago, to devolve policing and justice. There is a real burden that I wanted to come to, and it is this. The Northern Ireland Office’s promotional website states that the Northern Ireland Office has three priorities, and within the second priority are the wonderful words, “protecting the UK internal market”. That, of course, is the one thing that this Government have lamentably failed to do.”
“Maybe you have to raise some money yourself.” None of that has happened. The absence of that engendered a belief that yet again they can produce the begging bowl and have the overspends written off. I look forward to hearing from the Secretary of State how clear he is about whether or not that will yet happen again. Reference has also been made to policing. Yes, policing is grossly short of funding and it is a scandal that, in my constituency and others, if you can muster together three or four community constables you are doing well for a town and multiple villages. It is a scandal, but it does bring one back to the absolute folly of ever having devolved policing and justice. The Government’s attitude today is, “Policing and justice is devolved, so you find the money.” The allocations are wholly inadequate.”
“There was much that should have been done by the Northern Ireland Executive parties at the time of going back into devolution to extract the financial settlement that was needed. Now we have reached the situation where overspend is the norm in Northern Ireland. That overspend is built on an expectation that in due course there will be a bail-out. That has been the pattern throughout the years and that is the expectation of this Executive: in due course, there will be a bail-out or a writing-off of the moneys that have been overspent. It has happened before and that is the essence of the demand again. Are the Government going to do that once more? We have had occasions when past Governments have said to the Northern Ireland Executive, “If we’re going to bail you out, you have to transform and do all sorts of things to save money.”
“When devolution was down and coming back at the beginning of 2024, there were parties now in the Executive who had no interest in getting a durable financial settlement. They had such a stampede mindset that they just wanted back into government. They did not support negotiations to enhance what could have been the ongoing sustaining financially of the Northern Ireland Executive. There were others who just wanted back into the Executive for the very sake of power and preferred to lie about what they had achieved in terms of safeguarding the Union. This was an Executive restored on the basis of the biggest lie for generations in Northern Ireland: that the Irish sea border had been removed. It patently has not been removed.”
“Sinn Féin does not even want Northern Ireland to exist, never mind succeed, so is it really any great surprise that when it is in charge of the Department of Finance there is a stand-off about agreeing a budget? For Sinn Féin, the default position is always to blame the Brits, demand more money and turn that into a political campaign on how Northern Ireland is being treated unfairly. Even if it had all the money imaginable, Sinn Féin would not seek to make Northern Ireland work. It cannot make it work and then say, “But none the less, we need the fundamental constitutional change” which is its raison d’être and what it demands. There are at play bigger issues than a mere failure to balance the books. On balancing the books, many of the parties that form the Northern Ireland Executive bear much responsibility themselves.”
“In introducing the debate, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, lamented the failure of the Northern Ireland Executive to agree a budget; indeed, for any of the parties in the Northern Ireland Executive to even agree with their own party on a budget. That, clearly, is a difficulty in terms of providing the services for the people of Northern Ireland. It would do this House well to ask more probing questions on how, not for the first time, the Northern Ireland Executive have failed to agree a budget. Are there political influences at stake? Sinn Féin controls the Department of Finance.”
“Is the hon. Lady surprised by the misrepresentation from the Secretary of State about what the common travel area means? It means simply that there is common travel for those who are legally in the country, not those who are illegally in the country. Is she also surprised that, for all the Government’s talk, they have taken no steps to deal with the pull factors that bring these illegal immigrants to the United Kingdom? They get free accommodation immediately when they apply for asylum, a weekly amount of money and they are registered with a GP and a dentist, and we are then surprised that they pass through many safe countries to come to the United Kingdom.”
“The Health Secretary told us that his bottom line was to protect children, but he also conceded that puberty blockers can affect adversely bone density and brain development, so why is he taking the risk? Our 11-year-olds are not guinea pigs; they are children entitled to grow up without state-sponsored harm. Surely that should be the starting point.”
“We are a United Kingdom. If we are bringing in United Kingdom legislation, we should at least explain what the effect will be in each part of the United Kingdom. I want to hear from the Minister a clear explanation of what the impact of these regulations will be and how that sits with the supremacy that has been surrendered to the EU.”
“Could the Minister tell me what the consequences of proceeding with these regulations will be for GB steel entering Northern Ireland and not deemed a risk, although there will not be very much of that? What are the consequences for GB steel coming into Northern Ireland that is deemed at risk of moving into the EU in its finished form? It seems that it is the EU—not this Minister or Government—that is dictating and setting that framework. Employers in my constituency are dependent on steel. We do not produce any steel in Northern Ireland, so we depend totally on exports. My employers are already subject to the 25% tariff for rest of the world, which is now going up to 50%. What is their future under these regulations? I do not see many answers. I do not even see that question addressed in the explanatory memorandum.”
“It is not this Government or Parliament shaping and dictating the tariff rules in respect of steel in Northern Ireland. It seems that the Government are trying to align themselves with the EU provisions to diminish that situation as much as they can, but what if they do not succeed in their negotiation with the EU? I would like the Minister to tell us what the Government are trying to achieve for Northern Ireland in this negotiation with the EU. Whatever they achieve, will steel entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the world continue to be subject not to UK laws, tariffs and quotas, but to EU laws, tariffs and quotas? What does that situation do not just for the coherence of our United Kingdom economy, but for the constitutional position of a part of this United Kingdom?”
“However, legally, as things stand, the EU sadly has the status and sovereignty to decree the tariff regime in a part of this United Kingdom. It is absurd beyond measure, but that is the situation. The rest of the world’s steel is already coming into Northern Ireland, and if we exceed the quota, it attracts a 25% tariff. Under EU rules, that is due to rise to 50%. Incredibly, GB steel coming into Northern Ireland has to pass through a full international customs border—the red lane—because no one can properly say that its ultimate manufacture would not be at risk of going into the EU. It therefore passes through the red lane and is subject to customs declarations and, in certain circumstances—if we exceed the quota—to tariffs.”
“I strongly support the points made by the Opposition. This is a rushed and ill-conceived piece of delegated legislation, and I have major concerns about its impact on Northern Ireland and the specialised steel in our defence sector, which is quite significant to the whole nation. There is real concerns about what will happen to that. Northern Ireland is in a very difficult and different position. This regulation purports to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, but I must question whether it really does or will. Northern Ireland is, because of the absurdity of being subject to EU law, already subject to EU quotas and tariffs on steel. In the main Chamber, the Minister for Industry talked earlier today about ongoing negotiations with the EU on this matter.”
“For Northern Ireland, there is both a key sovereignty question and a key economic question. Because of the iniquity of our being subject to EU law, we are already under EU tariffs when it comes to steel imports and quotas, paying 25% once we cross the quota. I have a simple question: can the Minister assure my steel importers that the writ of the United Kingdom will govern their imports, not the writ of the foreign EU?”