Before the Minister sits down, I think he will allow me to make my point now. I want to say how much I welcome his tone and the spirit in which he has approached the House on this. I think he is a very constructive Member of the Front Bench opposite. In that context, I want to raise my concerns.
I am on the EU Select Committee. We have taken a lot of interest in the Irish question and produced reports. I am very concerned by the fact that the
Government produced their proposals on a customs partnership last August and made a commitment in the December consensus, but there is absolutely no evidence that the Government have come forward with any alternative proposals on the border to those of the Commission. In circumstances where they have had all this time and no alternative proposal has been produced, a reasonable person can conclude only that the Government have concluded that there is no alternative to remaining in the customs union and the only way they have of trying to spike being cornered in this way is to try to get the EU 26 to tell the Irish that they have to back off a bit. Is that sinister? After all this delay and the lack of information on what the Government are doing about the border, it is not sinister—it is a reasonable conclusion.