Member

The legal recommendations have been quite clear. That is why I drafted new clause 3, which would provide a route to allowing this Bill to apply in Northern Ireland. It would do so by exempting the tobacco directive from passing through the conduit that delivers EU law to Northern Ireland—namely section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Northern Ireland is governed under these pernicious EU laws through annex 2 of the Windsor framework, which sets out 289 laws that will continue to apply to Northern Ireland. One of those laws is the tobacco directive. Along with the other 288 EU laws, the directive is, through section 7A, applied as superior law in Northern Ireland law—law that this sovereign Parliament cannot disapply.