Hilary Benn

Let me start again. It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. I offer my thanks to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) for having secured it, giving us another opportunity to debate the Windsor framework. As Members will be aware, the new arrangements for freight and parcels come into effect tomorrow, 1 May. They are an important step forward in the implementation of the Windsor framework, and an important part of the commitments that were made in the “Safeguarding the Union” Command Paper. They follow a lot of preparatory work across Government and industry to ensure that the necessary processes and systems are in place. The Government recognise, and I recognise, that the new arrangements represent a change for some businesses when sending and receiving goods, but I must be frank: the system in place since the UK formally left the EU was never viable in the long term. My point goes right back to the reason why we have a Windsor framework, which the hon. and learned Gentleman and I have debated many times: when we left the European Union, there was an issue that needed to be addressed. The United Kingdom had one set of rules, and the European Union had another. In every other part of the world, trade between those two entities would be governed by a border, and stuff would be checked to ensure that what was coming in complied with the rules of one jurisdiction or the other. The unique difference in respect of Northern Ireland is that there is no practical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Therefore, the question that the previous Government had to address when negotiating the Windsor framework was: as a good neighbour, how do we ensure that goods that move into the Republic—and therefore into the European Union—comply with the rules of that jurisdiction, in exactly the same way that the United Kingdom ensures that goods that come into our jurisdiction comply with our rules? That is the first point. The Windsor framework is a huge improvement on the Northern Ireland protocol, which, as I have said many times, was never going to work.