(Alliance News) – UK MPs are set to vote on the Brexit deal on trading arrangements for Northern Ireland by the end of the month, a minister has suggested.
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said the vote in Parliament would likely be within the next two to three weeks.
Heaton-Harris was commenting as he visited businesses in the region to promote the Windsor framework struck by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the EU.
The framework will reduce the volume of Brexit red tape on the movement of GB goods bound for Northern Ireland that was created by the contentious Northern Ireland protocol.
It also introduces a mechanism – the so-called Stormont brake – that enables a minority of Stormont MLAs to formally flag concerns about the imposition of new EU laws in Northern Ireland in a move that could ultimately lead to the UK government vetoing their introduction.
The DUP, which collapsed powersharing in Northern Ireland in protest at the protocol, has yet to decide whether to back the Windsor Framework and return to devolution.
Sunak has promised that MPs would get a say on the deal he sealed with Brussels and Heaton-Harris said that moment should come by the end of the month.
On a visit to a garden centre on the outskirts of Belfast, he told reporters: “There’s some European processes that also are happening. So, the European Parliament have its say on this, I believe, next week, and then I think there’s one more stage in the European political sphere for it to go through, so that’ll be in the next two or three weeks.
“We will be having a vote in Parliament on a similar timetable.”
source: PA
Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
