I fully agree with my hon. Friend.
The protocol costs a significant amount annually. Some £350 million a year is spent on the trader support service, which is £18,000 an hour—let us think how that could be utilised to make things better in Northern Ireland. The protocol is damaging a wide range of small family businesses and larger industries in my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for North
Antrim (Ian Paisley) eloquently highlighted the issue around organic eggs. Such issues have a daily impact on our business.
Again, there is an issue around seed potatoes that Wilson’s Country in my constituency has been at the fore of fighting, because it cannot bring seed potatoes from Scotland. That would be unacceptable anywhere else in the UK, so the Government should not accept it for the people of Northern Ireland. It beggars belief that the Government have stood by while trade has reorientated from within the UK. It serves no benefit to the UK; that diversion of trade must be addressed fully in any new agreement.
The Government know well what must be done, and they know the prize. The NIO prioritised a whopping £600,000 of taxpayers’ money to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Belfast agreement, yet the longer it takes to reach an agreement on the protocol that respects the fundamentals of the Belfast agreement, the more air is escaping from the party balloons. Although the Bill extends the period in which an Executive must be formed following an election by 52 weeks, my hope is that this new deadline is never met, and that we have our Executive back sooner rather than later. To do so, however, the EU will have to stretch itself. If it does, it will unlock the prize of devolution; if it does not, it will be responsible for the demise of our political process and the Belfast agreement. Time will tell.
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