Member

What is baffling and surprises me is that a Government who claim they want a reset with the EU are now seemingly picking a fight with seven EU states and the European Commission and branding their interpretation of EU law as wrong. They are insisting on implementing a measure that is incompatible with the rules of the Windsor Framework and the tobacco products directive, which the Government claim to support. Is it that the Government have been given some form of private reassurance that the Commission does not intend to take enforcement action? Perhaps the EU intends to change its tobacco directives in future. But it would be a disgrace if Northern Ireland’s constitutional position and the practical realities of its laws were being decided through back-room understandings and wink-and-nod politics. I think we are entitled here, in this House, to know if that is happening.