Brexit: Lord Frost says EU and UK must find 'new balance'

Lord Frost is appearing in person before the committee

The UK's Brexit minister has described negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol as "a little tense" at the moment.

Lord Frost appeared in person at Stormont's Executive Office committee on Friday.

He said the UK and EU needed to find a "new balance" to ensure problems with the protocol's implementation were resolved.

But he said elements of the protocol were also currently "working well".

Lord Frost's evidence to the committee came just a week after the EU's chief negotiator gave evidence to the committee.

Appearing before the committee, Lord Frost repeated that the government is preparing to publish its plans for the future of the protocol in the next fortnight, before Parliament rises for the summer recess.

He said the EU had still not responded to 12 papers tabled by the UK.

• As it happened: Lord Frost briefs MLAs

The EU has said a temporary Swiss-style veterinary agreement for Northern Ireland, in which the UK continues to follow EU agri-food rules, could be a solution, but it has been rejected by the UK.

Lord Frost accused the EU of being unreasonable in responding to some of the UK's concerns.

"Their solution is 'why don't you adopt our rules, then there won't be a problem'. We're accused of being ideological but it seems to me, equally ideological to say 'why don't you just adopt our laws?'"

He said there were possible resolutions but that "getting politics in the right place seems to be difficult".

Lord Frost's appearance at the committee comes just over a week after EU chief negotiator Maros Sefcovic addressed a Stormont committee

"It is a little tense at the moment. Nobody wants that but the protocol issues are at the core.

"There is a big prize if we can get this right, it does need both sides to take the situation seriously and fix the problems that currently exist," he added.

The protocol is the part of the Brexit deal which keeps Northern Ireland in the EU single market for goods and means EU customs rules are enforced at its ports.

It was agreed by the UK and EU in October 2019 and was subject to further negotiation and agreement in 2020.

Lord Frost helped to negotiate the protocol on behalf of the UK government, but previously said it was not being implemented as he intended.

Under the terms of the Brexit withdrawal treaty, the protocol can only be removed by a majority vote of the Stormont Assembly, with a vote due in 2024.

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Committee chairman, the SDLP's Colin McGrath, said the government needed to "own your deal" and work to develop pragmatic solutions.

Sinn Féin's Pat Sheehan put it to Lord Frost that political problems with the protocol were being "completely overblown" and that a majority of businesses in Northern Ireland were supportive of the protocol.

The minister replied that GB-NI trade opportunities had changed and in some cases, disappeared, and that was not what the government had "wanted to achieve" when delivering Brexit.

"Nobody that I've spoken to from a wide range of political and civil society, businesses, nobody thinks it's working perfectly as it should, or have suggested improvements," he added.

Earlier on Friday, Lord Frost had met business representatives from Newry Chamber of Commerce and Trade, and other business leaders.

Lord Frost (centre) meets business leaders in Newry on Friday

Former DUP Economy Minister Diane Dodds said the government needed to recognise that the protocol had no support from any unionist parties at Stormont.

"You and the EU have overridden consent and now want majority rule. What are you going to do to restore the balance of consent?," she asked.

Lord Frost said he had "a good deal of sympathy" for that argument.

"The consent mechanism is an albeit imperfect way of allowing the institutions here to say, looking at all these variances it's working tolerably, or looking at them all, it's not working," he added.

"If you don't have a fairly broad consent at most points, this is not simply something about in four years' time - you need to have broad consent to make it workable and that's why it worries us so much that we don't have it.

Ulster Unionist vice-chair of the committee, John Stewart asked Lord Frost to explain what any "rebalancing" of the protocol would look like.

Lord Frost said he would not reveal the details prior to a statement being made in Parliament, but added that the "fundamental issue" was finding a way to ensure goods could move from GB to NI in a "freer way than possible" at present.

Lord Frost's appearance at the committee comes just over a week after EU chief negotiator Maros Sefcovic gave evidence to MLAs about the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol.

Last week, the EU agreed to a UK request to delay a ban on chilled meat products from Great Britain being sold in Northern Ireland.

Products such as chilled sausages were due to be prohibited from 1 July as a consequence of the protocol arrangement, but this has been postponed for another three months.