 Welcome to the fourth meeting of the committee in 2019. I would like to remind members and the public to turn off mobile phones and any members using electronic devices to access committee papers during the meetings should ensure that they are switched to silent. Apologies have been received today by Claire Baker, MSP and Neil Findlay, MSP is joining us today. We also have apologies from Jamie Greene MSP and Kenneth Gibson MSP. The first item of business on the agenda today is consideration of a statutory instrument proposed by the Scottish Government. This SI, the Creative Europe programme and Europe for Citizens programme revocation, EU exit regulations 2019, would consent to the UK Government legislating using the powers under the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018. The new regulations will create a UK-wide spending power, which, in the event of a no deal, will allow the UK Government to fund UK organisations that have been awarded funds from these EU programmes. We have had a notification document and the committee has been asked to consider the SI consent notification and determine what it would like to do next. Does anyone have any comments on the notification? I think that this is the first notification that the committee has received, and secondly, given the incident case, it is not clear about the implications for areas that are devolved and, indeed, the Government's position. I think that it would be perhaps useful to ask the Government to provide us with further information and clarification. Thanks very much, Annabelle Ewing. I was struck by that, because those funds come through the Creative Europe Office, which is in Scotland, and the SI effect would be that those funds would then come through the UK, which is quite unprecedented in the area of culture, which is, of course, devolved. Does anyone else have any comments to make? We have a number of options. We can write to the Scottish Government to confirm its content for consent. We can request further information from the Scottish Government or, indeed, we can take evidence from the Scottish Government on the consent notification. What are committee members minded to do? I think that I would like to have more information myself from the Scottish Government. That is agreed. That is now agreed. The next item of business today is an evidence session on the article 50 negotiations. We shall have a short suspension until our witnesses take their seats. To continue our item of business now is an evidence session on the article 50 negotiations, and the committee will take evidence from Dr Katie Hayward, the reader in social divisions and conflict at Queen's University Belfast, and Tony Connolly, the Europe editor of RTE News. I would like to welcome you both to the meeting. Thank you very much for coming to give evidence to us today. Of course, your evidence session is particularly timely given events in Westminster this week. Since the vote this week on the Westminster amendment, Donald Tusk has reiterated his earlier comments that the backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation. We have had other comments of a similar nature from other European leaders. The message coming out of the UK is that there is a possibility of negotiations. I wondered what your views were on that and whether you thought that this was a matter of someone blinking first. People in Brussels have been watching the process very closely. The vote was followed very quickly by what seemed to be a co-ordinated response from the European Union. There had been contacts throughout the day, similar to the meaningful vote a few weeks back. That was to send out a very clear signal that the withdrawal agreement was not going to be reopened. There was scope for some movement on the political declaration and a request for an extension to article 50 would be favourably received. That was the key message from Donald Tusk. That was carefully prepared. The feeling is that there is a mismatch between the interpretation of what happened in Westminster and the interpretation in Brussels. The idea that the vote on the Brady amendment gave Theresa May a mandate is contested in Brussels because they think that the amendment is vague and does not spell out what the alternative arrangements on the Irish border would be. It has allowed different constituencies within the House of Commons to interpret the amendment to their own ends. Therefore, they do not see it as a precise mandate or a stable mandate. Of course, the message from the EU going back to when they concluded the withdrawal agreement was that there is no point in us taking the risk of going in to renegotiate or open up the withdrawal agreement if it is simply going to falter in the House of Commons. That, in turn, would open us up to further requests for renegotiation. They are only ever going to consider something that they are sure will get a clear mandate in the House of Commons, and they just feel that amendment does not deliver that and that it will be picked over by the different groups in the House of Commons. That would be the view of the Irish Government as well. Thank you very much. Dr Hayward, you may not have had the opportunity because you have been travelling to hear the interview with Jeremy Hunt this morning on the today programme. He said that the UK Government is going to be focusing on proposing two things to the EU. One of them is demonstrating unconditional support for the good five-day agreement and a promise that the UK will not use the border as a backdoor into the internal market. What do you think the chances are of them convincing the EU of that? Thank you for allowing me to appear before you today. It's good to hear Jeremy Hunt emphasising the good Friday Belfast agreement because, of course, that's why we have the protocol in the first place. The dual commitment of avoiding a hard border and protecting the good Friday agreement has been there at the very beginning. It's also good to hear that because we haven't heard much mention of the good Friday agreement in the debates in the House of Commons with regards to the backstop in particular—a core focus of the debate has been around—the question of unilateral withdrawal and a time limit, of course. The question is, what backstop are they particularly focusing on? There are two sides to this—two elements to the backstop, of course. The protocol in its fullness protects the good Friday agreement maintaining the conditions for north-south cooperation. However, how is that done? We have all UK arrangements in relation to customs being part of the single customs territory and the second element is the Northern Ireland specific arrangements. I think that the question of where we go forward or what trees might be particularly keen to get from these—I wouldn't call them negotiations, but from her request to the EU—what particular aspect of the backstop is she looking at? Is it all UK or is it the Northern Ireland specific arrangements? Of course, if it relates to the all UK, that has knock-on effects for east-west relationships, so movements between GB and Northern Ireland. That too would raise concerns from businesses in particular in Northern Ireland about the implications for the movement of goods east-west. There is a complexity in the layers of the backstop that is completely overlooked in a lot of the coverage of the debate that tends to focus on trade and the UK's capacity to have free trade deals in the future. My third point is that since the vote on the amendment earlier this week, there has been a return to a lot of talk of technological solutions. Mrs May in July last year, I believe that it was in Belfast, said that no technological solution to address these issues has been designed yet or implemented anywhere in the world. To your knowledge, has there been any advance in technology since last July that would make a solution based on technology on the table, so to speak? Technology is used to facilitate customs in particular. If you look at a lot of the evidence put forward in relation to how technological solutions might help in relation to the movement of goods on the island of Ireland, it is very much about making those customs declarations and ensuring that that process of customs facilitation is as smooth as possible. What technology cannot do is look inside the goods that are crossing the border, look inside the vans, etc., to tell what is in it. There are processes for scanning goods, but they do not relate to the actual quality or the nature of those products inside a van, for example. When it comes to the real challenge of facilitating movement of goods across the Irish border, technology fails at the first hurdle, not least because it requires physical infrastructure. A lot of the concentration on having technological solutions without physical infrastructure relies on having technical checks or inspections away from the border. If you consider the points that have been made very clearly by the PSI chief constable, for example, at some point, you will have to have feet on the ground to inspect what is being moved across the border. In that, there is a risk not only that the customs officials making those inspections become a target but that the police who are protecting those officials become targets, too, and you have that escalation of security risks that we saw at the beginning of the troubles. Tony, you went into a lot of very interesting detail on customs arrangements in your briefing this week. Do you have a view on the technological proposals? In the context of the no-deal planning that the European Commission is undertaking at the moment, yes, it is looking at all the potential ways of mitigating delays, for example, at Dover Calais. The whole question of contingency planning at EU level is obviously a very sensitive one, because while it can talk openly about trying to manage a potential chaotic situation at the different ports connecting Europe to the UK, it cannot talk openly about the Irish border because of the political commitment to no infrastructure and no hard border. From conversations that I have had, yes, it is looking at the kind of realities that are available for trying to mitigate those delays at Dover Calais. You can pre-clear a consignment of goods going from, say, Toulouse to Manchester. There is a barcode scan that takes place. While the truck is travelling to Calais, the authorities can do their risk analysis. Is there any red flag that we need to raise with the consignment, or does it look okay? If it looks okay, then it is green-lighted at Calais, and that process should happen in reverse as well. However, you still need to have a declaration filled. That declaration has to be presented. If there is a problem or if there is a random inspection, you have to have manpower and infrastructure in space to do that. The whole question then becomes, how can you possibly transpose that to the Ireland land border? You have ports that have a presumed set of infrastructures and presence of staff and officials where you can manage the flows, but if you have a 500-kilometre land border with 200 crossings, then it is a different order of magnitude. One aspect that the authorities are looking at to try to mitigate things is what is called transit, which was a little bit confusing for me to begin with, because I thought that transit was simply going through a third country to another part of—from one member of the single market to another—going through a third country. However, transit would again facilitate a much more frictionless movement for customs, for consignment, because you have what you call an authorised consignee and an authorised consignor. Larger companies that have the resources to do that can register with the customs authorities and they again can do the pre-scanning at the point of departure and again at the point of arrival, which would obviate the need for checks at the border. The problem from an Irish perspective is that it is only big companies who can do that, who can afford to do this authorised consignee and consignor procedure. That requires going to a financial institution to get a bond that, under the common transit convention, you need to have to prove that your goods are not going to be sold in transit and that you are covering any customs duties or VAT or excise obligations. It may be a small mitigating factor in terms of technology and what can be done at the Irish border, but it is marginal. It is not going to be suitable for thousands of small SME operators who constantly go back and forward across the border. I would be interested in your thoughts on what effect that is having on the future, the Good Friday agreement, on all three strands. Dr Hayward, you have already mentioned some extent east-west and north-south, but one of the issues throughout the process is that there has been no assembly or executive functioning in the north. Representation of Northern Ireland has often, certainly in debate in Britain, been boiled down to the DUP, who do not represent Northern Ireland. They represent a specific section of the community there. The Good Friday agreement was never designed to deal with a situation like this. It was designed for something quite different, which it has been and is achieving. What is this doing to the future of a peace process that is underpinned by that agreement? It is a very good question and it is a really important one. Fundamentally, even if you look at it in the simplest of terms, the Good Friday agreement was about a good trusting relationship between the UK and Ireland, which, in the past, has been a very distrustful and wary one. EU membership helped to create trust and respect in that relationship. Fundamentally, the relationship between the UK and Ireland underpins a Good Friday agreement. Even, we have to be honest, when we have had several difficulties in the implementation of the peace process and in levels of trust and co-operation among the political parties themselves, even throughout that point, the relationship between the two Governments in particular has been one that has sustained the process. Added to that is the importance of the devolved institutions. You are right to highlight the fact that we have not had the assembly sitting for two years. The assembly has meant that, for Irish citizens in Northern Ireland, that being part of the UK has been something that, for most people, they have been able to feel comfortable in and confident in through representation through those devolved arrangements. We have a perfect storm at the moment in relation to the agreement, even if you set Brexit aside. That is because we do not have the devolved arrangements and that relationship between the two Governments is fraught not just in relation to Brexit but publicly as well and a lot of the discourse around the relationship between the two Governments and the levels of common ground between them. The more we hear about disagreement in that regard, the more it underpins the stability of the agreement itself. That is before we get into the questions of changing opinions with regards to the possibility of a border pole. I would say that, from the very beginning, the referendum has caused enormous difficulties between the Irish Government and the DUP, because the initial reaction to the referendum prompted an instinct in the Irish Government to try and seek solutions or to get some national consensus or conversation going about the impact of Brexit. It recommended what it called an all-island civic dialogue, but there was a bit of a breakdown in communication and the DUP felt that they were being bounced into this. Even within days of the referendum, there were very sharp exchanges between the DUP and the Irish Government, so that kind of got off to a bad start. In August, just after the referendum, there was a joint letter from Martin McGinnis, the late Deputy First Minister of Sinn Fein and Darlene Foster, the First Minister of the DUP, setting out a joint analysis of the challenges posed to the island and to the peace process and to Northern Ireland by Brexit. That was the last time that you had any cross-party consensus between the two sides and things have drifted apart ever since then. Ironically, it has been a problem for Theresa May and her negotiating team, because when the withdrawal agreement was concluded, obviously, there was a lot of outreach by the British Government not just to businesses in the UK, but also to Northern Ireland, and they invited, in a quite a high profile way, a series of business organisations to Darning Street. The politics of this has now become so polarised that they could not get the Ulster Unionist Party to support the withdrawal agreement. The DUP is a different relationship, obviously, and they opposed it from the start, but any attempts by her negotiating team to get the Ulster Unionist Party, who had been a lot more open to the direction of travel of Theresa May and the negotiations, because the backstop had now become an orange and green issue, they simply could not come forward publicly to support it. You have this real polarisation in Northern Ireland politically and socially. The space now has to be occupied by business organisations and civil society to try and promote the withdrawal agreement and the backstop and so on. On the east-west strand, bilateral relations between the two Governments are quite simple when they are both inside the one-tenth of the European Union. If the UK does leave in March or more likely June or whenever it may be, that is going to become quite different and there will be occasions where the UK Government can no longer deal directly with Dublin and will have to go through Brussels. How will that affect the east-west strand? Famously, the first time a British Prime Minister ever met an Irish Prime Minister was after both countries joined the EEC in 1973. There had been no bilateral contact for 50 years before that. It is true that Brussels has provided a relaxed, spacious forum for ministers from both sides to get to know each other across a whole range of issues. In fact, the Irish Government and the British Government have always shared a lot of policy issues. They have had the same approach in taxation, in the digital single market, in general liberalising the EU's single market. That has been a loss to the Irish Government. The withdrawal agreement, if I am not mistaken, does provide for a more structured contact between both sides if the backstop comes into effect to make sure that that dialogue is facilitated. Of course, there is an overarching joint committee envisaged in the withdrawal agreement between the two sides, the UK and the EU. There will be the potential for Northern Ireland ministers or officials to get involved in specialised committees, to have some kind of ownership of the way the backstop has been handled. In relation to bilaterals, you will know about the mapping exercise that was done for north-south co-operation, identifying 142 and 156 areas. There was concern that they would not be able to be sustained after Brexit. Anyway, they have been looked at in detail and they have identified which areas can be supported bilaterally. There is an element, particularly relating to the common travel area, that is actually cranking up the bilateral relationship between the two at the moment, formalising in law things that have been previously dependent on common EU membership or based on informal arrangements. We could expect, looking at Strang 3 in the British Irish Council and the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference, that they will have quite a lot of substantive detail now to relate to each other with regard to the common travel area and things such as reciprocal healthcare arrangements, etc. I was looking at the document of the clerks that the committee helped to provide to us for today's meeting. It is the UK Government's document of 9 January on commitments to Northern Ireland and its integral place in the UK. The UK Government reminds us that the principles of the joint report, dating back to December 2017, have been endorsed overwhelmingly by the UK Parliament and enshrined in the EU Withdrawal Act 2018. Of course, in the joint report, it was recognised that arrangements would be required to avoid hard border. The withdrawal agreement then looked at what that should look like and came up with the backstop. In terms of paragraph 43 of the joint report, it states that, at the end, the UK also recognises its commitment to the avoidance of a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls. That is the joint report. The joint report is enshrined in the UK's legislation thus far. In the UK's legislation, it states that ministers when exercising powers under the withdrawal act must have regard to the joint report. My question is, sorry, my Lord, betrayed me, so I cannot help myself. My question is that there is so much going on, but the UK Government has legislated to enshrine the principle that there should be no hard border. Leaving to one side all the things that are going on at the EU level, at a domestic level, it would need to surely amend the legislation because the legislation says that there will be no hard border. Irrespective of what the commission says or what has gone on in Brussels, this is what the UK Parliament has said—or am I misunderstanding something with your detailed knowledge of the intricacies of that on a day-to-day basis? How does that sit with what is going on at the moment? I think that that is a very well-spotted point that you make. We are only guessing at the moment at what the alternative arrangements that the British amendment refers to are. As you said, we heard Jeremy Hunt this morning on the day-to-day programme talking about the UK committing to the Good Friday agreement and protecting the single market. However, you can also see from briefings and from what Theresa May said in the House of Commons that they are looking again at technology. There has always been a bit of a belief among people like David Davis that you can avoid a hard border but still have infrastructure. You just do not have the infrastructure at the border and have the checks away from the border. That might be how they are going to try to thread their way through this. As Katie said, the backstop and the Irish protocol are not simply about a specific set of physical checks for customs. They are about a whole range of other things that need protection if you are going to protect north-south co-operation. What they call the achievements, benefits and commitments of the Good Friday agreement are a much more conceptual, abstract set of achievements and potentials going into the future. It is hard to see that technology is going to be the answer. That is what the EU and the Irish Government are going to say. The withdrawal agreement commits us and the political declaration to looking for and exploring and exhausting technological solutions, but they do not exist yet. Because they do not exist yet, we have the insurance policy of the backstop underneath. You are right to note that. There is a House of Lords amendment that emphasises in the UK's withdrawal act the importance of avoiding a hard border. The question is how you define that. Even in what is in the withdrawal act and the protocol, in particular about addressing unique circumstances and maintaining the necessary conditions for continued north-south co-operation, avoiding a hard border and protecting the agreement, there is a lack of clear definition. That is partly because what does it mean to avoid a hard border? I think that we have had a year now in which you have seen differences between the UK and the EU as to what they understand a hard border to mean. I would argue that very clearly, if you go to the Irish border region in particular, they would tell you what a hard border means. That is not least because they obviously experienced a hard border very much so in the past, but also I think for many people, the connection between those checks and controls and the peace process is something that is very much tightly made in people's minds. That is one thing to bear in mind. What we have in the protocol is an interpretation of those principles to avoid a hard border and protect the agreement. That is very much based in law. It is not saying that it is the backup solution, so it is saying that this is not what they ideally want to fall. They would hope that there will be alternative arrangements as based through the future UK-E relationship. They will consider those. That is why you would need the transition period to be able to consider those alternative arrangements. We must acknowledge that there are certain things about avoiding hard border and protecting the agreement that cannot be addressed technologically. For example, a significant portion of trade across the border is in agri-food. You cannot have technological solutions for dealing with that particular issue. For example, entering animals for breeding or for slaughter into the single market requires that they go through a border inspection post. As Toni has already noted, this is not a small procedure. It involves a veterinary certificate documentation and the ability to go on and others to come and check and inspect, etc. At the moment, those border inspection posts are in the sea and air entry points, not at the land entry point. How do we avoid having checks at the border except for legal arrangements relating to regulatory standards in certain areas? That is what the protocol manages to do with huge flexibility from the EU side and to some degree flexibility from the UK side as well. If we are speaking realistically, if we are going to uphold those principles, we are going to have a compromise in the end and some flexibility on both sides. Technology will not get us away from that. I appreciate that the issues of the border checks are just one element of many and many important elements pertaining to the Good Friday agreement. I would have thought the language, hard border, physical and infrastructure, but it is the language of related checks and controls is where they are going to have a problem in not adhering to what they have just passed in the UK Parliament in May last year. However, it seems that changes of mind are happening quite frequently. In that regard, there were all agreements on international agreement and the UK Prime Minister no less has signed up to it. Now, some weeks later, the UK Prime Minister is saying that she supported the Brady amendment. It was not just that it was a backbench amendment, she supported it and indicated that she supported it. She signed up to whatever she signed up to some weeks ago has now come back and said, I am not doing that. That would raise issues about the trust issues going forward. Whatever happens, assuming something happens, and then we go to discussions on what the future trading arrangements will be, where is the trust going to be in somebody who signs up to an agreement and the other parties to that agreement take that in good faith? Then she comes back and says, no, I did not really mean that. I just think that that is a very serious thing in terms of international relations. Of course, that is one issue and another. If the UK is going back to Brussels to say that you have to open this up, well, opening up can have consequences in other areas. I think that that is already, there has been a bit of murmuring about that. You want to open up this deal? Well, let us open it up again. Let us look at fisheries, for example. I do not know what you have any comments on those two strands. I think that, from the Irish Government's point of view, whenever these things happen, as you mentioned, it also happened after the joint report was signed in December 2017, when, very soon afterwards, the Secretary of State for Brexit, David Davis, said that it was not legally binding. Any of those kind of remarks and positions will automatically prompt the Irish Government to say that this is why we need a backstop, this is why we need an insurance policy, because trust is really central to this. The EU approaches this in a slightly more legalistic manner. Article 50 sets out the negotiations. We have come to the end of those negotiations. The treaty has to be ratified by the UK according to its constitutional requirements, so it has always known that the House of Commons would have to ratify the treaty. There was an observation by Sabine Van, the deputy chief EU negotiator on Monday at a panel discussion in Brussels on Monday whereby she was contrasting the EU's approach, whereby, after every negotiating session, the article 50 task force would brief the member states through what is called the working party, so the officials from all the 27 delegations would have a regular meeting in Brussels where they would be briefed by the article 50 negotiators on the state of play. Even if that meant that one day they were contradicting what they had said the day before because there had been an objection or whatever, but there was a stark contrast to the British approach to the negotiations, which was that they were to be handled by a very small and tight circle of people and that the information was simply not shared with the rest of the system. On the question of trust, is something worth noting in relation to the trust within Northern Ireland of the British Government? I wouldn't labour the point too much, but it is notable that what we have seen in Northern Ireland, which has been, I think, unprecedented in the least of the last 20 years, is business communities and leaders coming out, trade unions, civic leaders coming out in support of the withdrawal agreement and the protocol. That does not happen very often in Northern Ireland, particularly given the political environment. So, they have had quite a high public profile and, on their best, have a profile outside of Northern Ireland as well, or the Ireland of Ireland, in saying that the protocol is important and that it would bring those benefits. This is with the encouragement of the Prime Minister who wanted to show support in Northern Ireland for the withdrawal agreement. The fact that she then supported the Brady amendment, which wants to replace the protocol, I think, has a risk of undermining people's sense of confidence going forward in that fundamental relationship of trust between citizens in Northern Ireland or otherwise non-political and the UK Government. Indeed, every issue involves many other issues—all very important. Thank you for that. Thank you very much. Tavish Scott. Thank you. I sometimes wonder if the best thing to show Tory MPs would be Brian O'Driscoll's documentary on the United Irish team that he put out the other week, which I thought was a brilliant piece of television. It showed what the troubles were really like, even in that context, particularly before doubling on Saturday as well. That aside, and it does relate to Annabelle Ewing's question, does only the Irish Government now are taking no deal really, really seriously after what happened on Tuesday night in the House of Commons? Yes. I think that there is definitely a change of tone in Irish Government pronouncements in the past few days' exasperation, a much sharper analysis from Simon Coveney, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, about trees of May wanting it both ways. The question of no deal planning is distinctly sensitive for the Irish Government. On the one hand, you have what you do on the border. On the other hand, you have this huge exposure of the Irish economy and particular sectors of the economy to the UK market and what that will mean. The Government has been publishing contingency plans. It has been hiring extra customs officials. Again, the same vulnerability that you get in the UK politically where people challenge whether or not the Government is properly prepared. Those same vulnerabilities exist in the Irish system, but they were caught last week, in a sense, when the issue of the Irish border and no deal came up. The Government was forced on the defence of a little bit about not planning for a hard border, and yet the European Commission seemed to contradict that by saying that there would have to be checks on the Irish border in the event of no deal. That has been a difficult week for the Government. Have they managed to resolve that in terms of squaring the lines between Brussels and Dublin? They did their best. The problem there was that not only did it seem to put Dublin at odds with the European Commission but it also prompted Michelle Barnier, the chief negotiator, to make some comments to Le Monde, saying that his team had been looking at decentralised paperless checks in the context of the withdrawal agreement and checks away from the border. That template was not for the Irish land border, but for how to minimise checks on the Irish sea. That was seized upon, obviously, by the Leave campaign and Conservative backbenchers, that this proved that the backstop was a hoax and simply a rws to trap the UK in a permanent customs union and so on. That, in turn, put the Commission somewhat in the back foot. The overall picture that I can get through talking to officials in Brussels and Dublin is that, yes, of course, the EU has an obligation to its internal market. It has obligations under the World Trade Organization to define its external frontier and that problem will have to be solved. Somehow they are not going to send customs officers up to every single border crossing on day one of no deal, but they will have to sit down and work it out with the UK. The strategy for the Irish Government has been to try and forcefully remind the British Government that they have solemn obligations under the Good Friday agreement to ensure no hard border. Just getting back to the joint report that Mrs Ewing referred to there, the Irish Government believes that the British guarantee of no hard border enshrined in the joint report is a guarantee that survives whether there is no deal or not. They believe that the UK, as a democracy that respects international law, is morally and politically obliged to ensure that the Good Friday agreement is not undermined by border infrastructure. What do you think that means in practice? Exactly, that is the question. I think that the Government's view in Dublin is that that means getting back to the backstop, getting back to the issue of regulatory alignment. The issues and the dilemma at the Irish border are fairly binary. You are either in one customs regime or you are not. If you have two regimes that are in different legal systems next to each other, then you have to have checks and those checks have to happen somewhere. The way to avoid those checks and support the Good Friday agreement is to have some kind of alignment in the future. Just in the context of your discussions with contacts in the Brussels machinery, as you said earlier on, the clear and carefully co-ordinated responses that were made straight after what happened the other night in Westminster, we will absolutely hold now over the next month whatever the heck we can all guess what might happen over the next month in the Commons and so on and so forth. I noticed that Prime Minister is not on plane to Brussels today. She is meeting back benches, which seem to be far more important to her than to talk to the Irish Prime Minister or any other leader. Presumably, you are able to absolutely hold a line now. It is either no deal or the agreement that has already been reached. There will be some language. You can have as much language as you like in political agreements, but there will be no change to the withdrawal agreement. You would have to say on the basis of the signals so far and on the basis of two years of fairly unrelenting solidarity with Ireland that that will not really change. That is not to say that member states are not worried about a no deal situation and that questions are being raised and that perhaps private conversations are being had. How can we get out of this? We all want to avoid no deal. Is there anything that can be done? The problem is that you always get back to this issue of how far the EU could push the envelope in a way that does not leave them exposed if that concession is then rejected again by the more hard-line elements within the British side. There are reports that there would be no pressure put on Ireland, but maybe Leo Varante with the T-Shop would take a step himself to get everybody out of the mess. Again, because things are so binary, it is hard to see what step he could take. He could talk about a review clause. He could say, well, we can have some legally binding codicil or protocol that says that we promise to look at technology when it becomes available, but you are still going to have to have this underlying safety net, or the first wrong, or the back something. On the no deal hard border issue, it is clear that there is no planning for the hard border at the moment in relation to no deal. We have seen what the UK Government has been putting out on technical notices. Many of them say, look to the Irish Government for Northern Irish businesses, they are still undefined for them. The Irish Government is contingency planning, but as Tony said, it is not in relation to the border. The EU has a lot of contingency planning, but it is not specifically in relation to the border. I think that the EU would work closely with Ireland if and when it comes to that point to not put them under undue pressure. At the same time, there is a recognition that checks and controls will be necessary if we have a no deal situation. To leave that wide-swinging gate in the single market and into the UK cannot be a situation that would last for long. It is worth noting that in this period of great uncertainty, the people most affected are in the border region. Of course, that level of integration between the UK and the EU 27 is most direct material in the Irish border region. In trying to find certainty, businesses go to the other side of the border or do not make that decision to develop the business across the border. We have this re-entrenchment of the back-to-back development that we had in the past that had such a negative impact in the border region. I think that already we are seeing the impact of Brexit and a negative effect in economic terms in Northern Ireland in particular. One final question, presumably Barclays announcement today last night about moving vast amounts of their UK operations to Dublin. It must have been that Dublin economy is booming on the back of some of those things happening, particularly in financial services. I do not think that it has been the stampede that perhaps some people expected to be. Certain sectors have followed a pathway or companies that already had a presence in Dublin simply expanded them. There are obviously well documented infrastructural and housing limitations in Dublin that they are trying to sort out, but there is a potential upside there. Thank you very much. Neil Findlay. I am sorry, I missed part of your contribution. In terms of the position in the Irish Parliament, is there absolute unity in the Irish Parliament on this? In terms of the Prime Minister's position? Yeah, I mean, I think that there is universal support in the Irish Parliament and political system for the Government's position on the backstop. There is resistance and criticism on no-deal planning, which you would expect from the opposition, but there is very strong support across the board. That obviously poses a risk and it keeps pressure on the T-Shark, not to at all step back from the Irish red lines. I mean, Theresa May is not the only leader who has those considerations. It cannot be excluded that if we do get into a no-deal situation and there are tariffs and if there is enormous disruption to agri-food trade that you might not get a groundswell of questioning about why the Irish Government was so devoted to the northern question for so long, why we have ended up in this situation. I do not think that you can exclude that, but politically for the moment, the Government's priorities have been broadly supported. Just in terms of the dynamics in the oil, if he was to roll back from any of that position, would that put the Government under very significant pressure in terms of the future of the Government, or did they have the majority that they can just charge on? Well, they are in a minority administration, conference and supply, and they are under pressure not to step back from the situation. In their coalition partners, are they more robust than saying that you cannot step back for this red line or are they pretty much in the same position? I think that it has been difficult for Fena Ffoiol, the coalition partners, to find its true position on this in a sense because it is instinctive for them to try and challenge the Government at every point. They did appoint a new spokesperson on Brexit, Lisa Chambers, who has taken quite an assertive line against the Government in its bilateral relations with the UK. She has made a consistent critique of the T-Shark, to say that they should have had more of an outreach to the UK, that the backstop arrangements unnecessarily alienated backbenchers and the Eurosceptic constituency, that there should have been more outreach and so on. However, that line of attack has run out a little bit. At the moment, everyone is trying to fixated on avoiding no deal, but also ensuring that the Government holds its line on the backstop. Do you want to add anything or is that fine? That's okay. In terms of the assembly not being in setting at the moment, what impact has that had? Tony was right to mention the letter between Foster and McGinnis in August 2016. It set out key priorities that if you look at the manifestos of all the parties, they could all speak to, so that includes addressing the unique circumstances in Northern Ireland and avoiding a hard border and avoiding friction in East West as well. That's not to say that or not to acknowledge the huge differences between the political parties and their positions on Brexit and obviously on the union as well. Fundamentally, the difference made by not having an assembly is that we haven't had committees, for example, considering these issues. The whole question of Brexit has become polarised as a point of difference between green and orange in the detail as to what Brexit actually means for Northern Ireland and setting forward common interests for Northern Ireland. In the absence of the assembly sitting, we have seen, again, some extraordinary levels of co-operation between political parties. The so-called Remain parties only should pay in the STLP alliance in Greens coming out with joint statements several times. That really hasn't been noticed much elsewhere, but it's really significant, raising concerns and then offering support for the protocol. I am conscious of the wider questions of what is happening within the UK and the way that this has been approached from London and Westminster and the role played by devolved administrations and consideration given to them and to devolved Governments and executives in all of that. I am conscious that it wouldn't have made all that much difference. Primarily, it's about the difference that it makes within Northern Ireland, I think. That's a bit of trepidation in asking this. The role of the people in the north on this partitions of the arrogant belief that the Parliament is the voice of the people at times, but you are alluding to the fact that people have not been excluded from their voice being heard because the assembly is not sitting. If what you are saying does not really matter whether the assembly is sat or not, then we might be wondering why we are all here. No, I'm not saying that at all. I think it's important. Looking back over the past couple of years and the way it's been approached, and most particularly the dynamics post the election in 2017, I think it's focused attention on Westminster in particular and what happens in that as a Commons in particular and about arithmetic in Parliament that perhaps has surprised some of us. Now, I think fundamentally for the good Friday agreement and for a sense of leadership and common purpose within Northern Ireland, it would have been just far, far better of course to have the assembly up and running because we can't separate now the risks and the uncertainty and noting what's happening amongst the dissident republicans, et cetera. That's been very much exacerbated by not having the assembly sitting and by the sense of uncertainty about that and whether it will get up and running soon at all. All of these things get into a maelstrom of uncertainty that undermines people's sense of confidence more broadly in the peace process. The final thing that I would ask is just in a sense, in the role of the DUP amongst the public, what is the perception of their role? I mean, there was mentioning before, we went into session near Sammy Wilson saying that people go to the chip shop if there's no food, you know what bizarre statements, but some of the language and rhetoric that they've been coming away with is really frightening. But how is that reflected in there amongst their constituency? The DUP's approach is confident in their support base. Most particularly if they see a threat to the union, then if they identify that threat and if they have a platform or position based on a sense that that threat is real and vital, then they will continue to have unequivocal support from their traditional support base. And we ought to recognise, of course, the Ulster Unionist party as well, which did campaign to remain, but has come out, as was mentioned earlier, against the withdrawal agreement or with serious concerns about the withdrawal agreement. Amongst the unionist communities in Northern Ireland, there is anxiety about all of this. And the DUP are quite confident that their position is one that would garner support amongst their traditional supporters, worth noting where many of them are, which is not some have seen the border region, and the majority not in the border region. Thanks very much, Stuart McMillan. Thank you, convener, and good morning, panel. Mr Connolly, you mentioned Sabina Nawain and Elaron in your comments, and there were three comments that I'd like to put on the record, and that was one that was from Sabina, which said that there is no negotiation between the UK and the EU, and that's finished. The Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, stated that, given that the whole set of circumstances, the present deal is the only deal on the table, and the Giever Hofstadt said that the backstop is needed because of the UK red lines. Those three quotes are extremely strong and bearing mind also. I'm an SNP member and my party are in disagreement with the proposed withdrawal agreement, but those three statements are very clear. Do you have any thoughts in terms of any way that the UK Prime Minister can get herself out of this chaotic situation that she herself has created? I think that it's going to be very difficult for her to avoid another scenario where the headlines the next day are humiliation and rejection and so on. I think that she has potentially set herself up for that. The view in Brussels is that because of the way she has manoeuvred her withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons to this position where she thought that she could try and get a mandate to look at the backstop again is that she has essentially become a hostage to both the DUP and the European Research Group. That means that she's going to have to have a maximalist approach to any changes to the backstop or legal protocols that would be added. That, in turn, is going to face a lot of resistance at EU level. As I said before, I think that the instinct in Brussels and among the member states, and you did have that very co-ordinated response, is to let the kind of shock of that response filter into the UK system and to sit tight for a while, again, say to Theresa May, well, we're waiting for your proposals, the ball is in your court, et cetera, et cetera, and then see what she can bring forward. There's no doubt at all that there is a strong concern about a no-deal Brexit that's worth emphasising, and if there are creative solutions that will get everybody out of this predicament, then of course they will be explored. But again, you get back to this problem of the binary nature of Britain's exit and what that means for the Irish border and the kind of mixed interpretations of what the British amendment is. To me, that would suggest that there's very, very little room for manoeuvre or for a happy ending to this particular gambit. Dr Hebert? I think that it's very, very unlikely that, in fact, almost impossible that they will look again at the Northern Ireland-specific arrangements, because, as is noted in the unilateral commitments paper of the Government, it's really a domestic question as to how you avoid any possible friction there in East West. Notably, the draft withdrawal, the draft back sort that we saw from early last year has those Northern Ireland-specific arrangements quite clear in that. What has changed is the UK-wide UK-EU single customs territory, which was a huge achievement on the part of the British negotiators, because the message from Brussels up to that point was significant resistance to such a thing, because it gives the UK quota-free, tariff-free access to participation effectively in the customs union with no financial obligations. It's a remarkable achievement. If we were to see any tweaking of the withdrawal agreement, I would expect it to come in relation to that. As I mentioned before, that has no effect for East West. Worth noting, if that was possibly to come back into question, that's not something that the Prime Minister could come back to Parliament with something done and dusted by 13 February, or I'd be very surprised if she could do that, because that would be substantive change. There are two answers to the second question. It follows on from Annabelle Ewing's questions regarding the issue of trust. The backdrop of this whole crisis situation has not been pleasant by any manner of means. Annabelle Ewing was touching upon earlier regarding the joint report that was published in the beginning of January. The situation from the vote on choosing out with the Brady amendment. The Prime Minister is being extremely inconsistent with her positioning, and then, in December, a Conservative MP Preetie Patel suggested that food shortages should be used as a leverage position against the Irish Government. When it comes back to the issue of trust and trying to build up some type of positive negotiating position, how could the EU, genuinely, the EU 27, genuinely consider that the UK are serious about this, when clearly events of the past have proven to be otherwise? I think it's a major issue, but my instinct is that Theresa May's options are so limited that she's entirely focused on doing whatever it takes to get the thing across the line in the House of Commons to win ugly metaphor with American football that has been mentioned, and that trust is of secondary importance there. I think that she must have factored in that the EU is not going to deliver the kind of changes that she's looking for and that there has to be a calculation that if she's not going to come back to the House of Commons until the 13th or 14th of February, at that point you have just six weeks left to the end of March, then the options on the table could even more stark. It's either her deal or there's no Brexit or it's no deal. The environment then could be, you could get a second push for an extension to article 50, and that in turn alarms the Euro skeptics that they may lose Brexit, and they may in turn say, okay, well we didn't get the changes to the backstop we need, but we're now confronted with perhaps delaying, even worse, losing Brexit, so we'll bite our lips and sign up to the withdrawal agreement. I think that's got to be a calculation by the Government, so I think they have perhaps put the issue of trust to one side at the moment. I'll just come back before I let you in, Dr Heaver. Just on that, the issue of trust should be important because this is only the first part of this UK-EU situation that is going to be there for some time to come. Absolutely. I don't disagree with you that trust is sine qua non of any negotiations. The point is lost in Westminster that the withdrawal agreement is just the start. The predominant argument of Theresa May in terms of how the withdrawal agreement will be applied is that a free trade agreement will be done quickly and will obviate the need for the backstop. Whereas the EU's view is that removing the backstop is not time limited, it's event limited, it will be governed by what's in the trade agreement, how close that alignment is, because the same dilemma is going to be there unless the UK is prepared to sign up to a very high alignment form of treaty, then you're still going to have friction at the Irish border. Another point worth noting is that if the withdrawal agreement is approved, you're going to have to have a lot of legislation over time to give effect to the backstop, to give effect to any checks that might have to happen on goods going east-west. At every turn, you're going to have potential guerrilla warfare in the House of Commons when all this legislation has to go through. Again, your right to trust is going to be important. Dr Taylor? I still have concerns that the backstop is considered to be the future relationship. Your point about the divorce and the future trade negotiations is still to come. I think that that's still missed, unfortunately, by many, especially in the coverage of the backstop. It's worth remembering just quite how long it took for the relationship of trust to build between the British and Irish, firstly at the levels of officials and then, of course, between politicians. This is a process of decades-long process. If you listen to anybody who's involved in the negotiations or for the Good Friday agreement or Anglo-ish agreement or Sunningdale, indeed, you realise just quite how much effort goes into building those relationships of trust now easily broken by public statements. Aside from all of this, we would be concerned looking ahead as to the damage caused by some other discourse used around this particular point in time. One very final question, and very briefly. In terms of the economy that Tabish Scott touched upon, notwithstanding the Barthes and some elements within the financial sector, on the wider Irish economy, what type of forecasting has been done in terms of where the Irish is going to be within, say, 12 months and 24 months? There has been quite a bit of forecasting done by the ESRI in Dublin, the European Economic and Social Research Institute, and the Copenhagen Institute, which did a big report early last year on the potential outcomes for the Irish economy in a soft Brexit and no deal. I don't remember the exact figures, but a three to four per cent hit on GDP would be predicted, if not more. The problem with the Irish economy is that it is somewhat lopsided in favour of pharmaceuticals and high-tech industries, so a lot of those exports go beyond the UK, but the sectors that are very dependent on the UK market are geographically and socially vulnerable sectors, where there isn't maybe a lot of other employment available. Just to take the beef industry, for example, it sells 270,000 tonnes of beef to the UK every year. It's a very high-value market. That's worth €4 billion to the Irish economy, and you can't replace that market overnight. They're doing their best to get inroads into the European market, and the EU-Japan free-trade agreement will offer further opportunities, but in terms of proximity, freshness, all those things are very important factors, and that's the concern. It's worth noting that North-South trade is €3 billion a year, and then Irish-UK trade more generally is £30 billion. It highlights the fact that primarily the concern for the Irish Government has been about avoiding that herd, land border and recognising how closely tied that is to the peace process. That way is far and above beyond the economic costs, whereas if you look at it purely in those terms, trade across the Irish seas is significantly more important for Ireland. We'll now move to Alexander Stewart. Thank you for your patience, Alexander. If a no-deal Brexit occurs, do you think or do you believe that there is scope for many deals between the EU and the UK, and that may allow the border to remain open? The official position of the EU regarding no-deal Brexit is that it has been issuing contingency notices to member states that they've been ramping up meetings between the commission and member states and issuing guidelines. Those are governed by six principles, one of which is that they have to be unilateral, they have to be in the EU's interest, they have to comply with EU law and they have to be short term. There is a real concern in Brussels that there's a self-fulfilling prophecy in the UK that, because all sides want to avoid no-deal, they will come together and make sure that the skies don't fall. They are legislating at EU level for a change to EU law for aviation so that flights can take off and land from the UK. Among member states, there are some strains who would prefer contingency plans to be a bit more generous so that things can keep flowing, but they then run the risk politically of proving the Brexit here's right that no-deal is not a problem. It's a very delicate balancing act. On the Irish border, the optimum solution according to the EU 27 and the Irish government and the commission has been a negotiated settlement including the backstop in the Irish protocol. If that falls away as a result of no-deal, then they are left to pick up the pieces. As Michelle Barnier was quoted in Le Monde talking about paperless, decentralised checks and so on, they would be forced into a situation where they have to look at mitigating solutions but they are only going to mitigate to a rather small degree. All the other ambitions of the protocol in preserving the Good Friday Agreement, the oil island economy and the hearts and minds achievements of the peace process where you could have a situation where people can live their lives feeling that the border does not exist or is irrelevant. It's not just about trade, it's about study, it's about healthcare, it's about just that feeling that you can go back and forward across the border and just live and function and operate as if it wasn't there. Those piecemeal solutions that people may have to grasp on a no-deal situation will certainly not take care of that whole thing. That's why the Irish government and the EU see that this is a much more holistic thing rather than simply piecing together mechanisms that might fit. It is worth acknowledging that there has been significant progress made in relation to the common travel area and bilateral arrangements to try and ensure continuity and certainty for citizens, particularly frontier workers on the island of Ireland, bearing in mind that relates just to British and Irish citizens. In relation to social security payments, for example, or indeed such things as a cross-border rail service that the driver's licenses of the trains will continue to be recognised. They can make progress on that, but, of course, they can't do anything in relation to customs and trade. That can't be bilateral because those competences are those of the EU, and most particularly the EU will be obliged under WQ rules to ensure that tariffs are paid and that quotas would be applied according to their common external tariff. That's what's going to happen at the Irish border in a no-deal scenario. Back in January, Dr Hay, you said that if the UK leaves with no deal, the bare facts will be that Ireland will come, and a little effect and ripple effect would show profound uncertainty. Are you aware of there being any softening, or are you aware of the Irish Government being put under any pressure by any of the EU member states to soften their view at the moment? I know that we've heard that some individuals have made some quite strong views, but that's just individuals. No, Tony will probably be able to speak to this much better than me, but, as far as I understand, there's been no pressure on Ireland in relation to a softening its approach with regard to a hard-border. As the EU is people like Juncker are continually saying, Ireland's border is the EU's border, this is a common concern. More generally, the Irish peace process is something that the EU, including Barnier, feels a personal responsibility towards. This isn't a matter of, at the last minute, blinking and leaving Ireland exposed or forced into making concessions. There's a point of principle in the EU, not just about certainty in legal frameworks but also about a small member state being respected and protected in membership meaning something. I would add to that that there are other member states that have very specific concerns that are reflected in separate protocols in the withdrawal agreement, such as Cyprus and Spain. The question would have to be asked if the EU were to suddenly abandon Ireland, how would those countries feel? I suppose that the solidarity and the unity that has been there from the beginning is such that the first person to break ranks on that solidarity, for them the stakes are quite high. The Polish Foreign Minister was quoted two weeks ago as proposing a five-year limit on the backstop. That echoed a previous Polish intervention in a general affairs council in July, where they said that they might have to choose between no deal and Ireland. In July, that had the effect of stiffening the resolve of the other member states who had that meeting then. Many member states who hadn't intended to speak on the Irish question and talked about the importance of protecting the Irish position. Again, the same effect that we saw two weeks ago. That being said, countries also have to look at their own economies, voters and industries. I have no doubt that questions will be asked, but whether it comes to pressure on Ireland, I think that that is unlikely given the way that it has been managed so far. However, to round off my point, I think that this is the situation that the Irish Government has always feared and always wanted to avoid, being, you know, holding the parcel when the music stops. Thank you very much. I was struck by the point that you made there, Dr Hayward, about the obligation on the UK and Ireland to enforce WTO rules. In your weekly briefing, Tony, if I could just quote, I think that this was an important point that you made. It is also the case that between 15 and 20 per cent of the EU budget comes from duties collected or important goods. If a country is in breach of its obligations, either in collecting that duty or ensuring the safety of products coming in, they are subject to ECJ court action and potential fines. Do you think that there is enough of an understanding of that post-no-deal scenario by the UK? I am sure that those who are involved in customs and so on would understand that very well in the UK. On that note, the UK has been taken to the European Court of Justice for the flooding of the single market of billions of euro worth of undeclared Chinese clothing and footwear through Filixto. That often is a reference point to people who are talking about the importance of checks and controls between Ireland and the UK in the future. Do member states fully aware of that? There may be a temptation at Calais simply to let to wave the traffic through in a no-deal situation. The question then is what happens? Member states operate the European Union customs code that is called. They are obliged to do so, but they are not EU officials doing that. It is French customs officers or Belgian customs officers. The law says that they have to ensure an adequate level of control. What does that mean in terms of discretion that they might have in the first week of no-deal? It is hard to say, but that then becomes a bit of a political problem for the EU if they are going to suddenly start chasing countries for not, making sure that they are collecting tariffs and duties and so on. Dr Hewyd? We have not really spelled out what no-deal would mean. We have not heard it spelled out at the highest level of what no-deal actually means. I hear a lot the idea that you could just decide not to enforce a border. Indeed, in the better deal document that seems to be the basis for the malt house compromise, that is essentially an agreement not to have a border. Of course, it does not work that way. If you are turning a blind eye, not only are you allowing things to come into the jurisdiction that could pose risk to consumers, etc., but you are letting down businesses who are adding to the costs that are required to move goods across the border. You are undermining legitimate businesses. Again, we have had that experience in the Irish border region in the past. We saw the damage that was caused then, and there is a real risk to undermining legitimate businesses and the growth of the black market if you have a no-deal scenario. You were writing in the Irish Times recently about the malt house proposal, and you said that if that was a primary school project, it might be quite sweet to think that good intentions could substitute for international law and dispute resolution mechanisms. Do you want to say a little bit more about that? Yes, that was published this morning, so I was particularly looking at the better deal document that proports to having technological solutions and avoiding a hard border, and being an alternative to the protocol that we have in the withdrawal agreement as it stands. Put simply, it is not a document that in any way could be offered as a substitute to the protocol as we have it in the withdrawal agreement. It is worth noting that, if you did implement it as it is suggesting, it would entail very significant checks and controls, including random checks and inspections at premises and so on, which is exactly the kind of thing that the protocol is trying to avoid because of the security risks and the implications that that basically means for perceptions of the British state and authorities within Northern Ireland. Okay, thank you very much. Just to finish off, to return to your briefing, Tony Connolly, you talk about the global implications of a no deal on abandoning the backstop, and you talk about the Irish American lobby, and quote Brian O'Dwyer, who was the Clinton White House attorney at the time of the Good Friday agreement. He said, "...we are prepared to bring that same kind of pressure if a post-Brexit UK seeks a trade deal with the United States without keeping an open border between the two islands." Basically, what you are saying is that abandoning the backstop, going for no deal, won't just have a profound implication on future trade relationships with the EU. It could actually affect future trade negotiations with the United States and around the world. Yeah, I think that that reference was prompted by the developments last week when the European Commission spokesman said, yes, there would be a hard border on Ireland if there was a no deal, and it put the Irish Government a little bit on the back foot. The T-shock Leo Radger was in Davos, and he was asked about this issue in general. He made the point that the UK, when it is pursuing its own free trade agreements around the world, could be kind of hobbled by the fact that there is an unresolved border issue on the island of Ireland. He did not reference the Irish American question specifically, but I was just looked into it and I think somebody drew my attention to that article and the fact that the Irish American lobby could take a position on this. It is hard to say in general, given that we do not know what a future UK-US trade negotiation would look like, given the very different personalities involved, shall we say. However, there is a belief that this could be a factor. One Irish official I spoke to talked about Georgia having trouble negotiating free trade agreements because of the disputed territories South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This could be a similar problem for the UK. The problem is that it would also be a problem for the EU when it is pursuing its own free trade agreements. If part of its territory, if that is the right word, is contested or has some ambiguous trading loophole there. Again, it gets back to this question about even in a no deal situation, all sides are going to have to come together if they are going to re-establish and pick up the pieces and re-establish some kind of trading relationship. The dilemma of the Irish border is not that it does not evaporate because of no deal. You are nodding, Dr Hayward. You agree with that, so the stakes are very high. I thank you both for coming to give evidence to us today. It has been absolutely fascinating and I shall now suspend the meeting. We will go into private session.