Speeches by Benn.

“My understanding, on the non-agricultural geographical indicators, is that there was an applicability motion considered by the Assembly. We then spent a year looking at it, because the issue was, “Is this going to create a regulatory border?” That is the most important test that we have to apply. We spent a year doing …”

“Which are the three you are referring to?”

“When you say only two were put—”

“If it is okay, I will have to come back to the Committee having found out from the Department for Transport when they are going to take forward the commitment that they have already given.”

“I didn’t see that.”

“As you are aware, the last Government allowed manufacturers to produce cars to either a GB standard or an EU standard, which created the problem to which you refer. We have been working to remedy that. Lilian Greenwood, when she was a Transport Minister, met car dealerships to discuss this, because we were all concerne…”

“A lot of the recommendations in Lord Murphy’s report relate to the Government. They are things that are within our control to deal with—anything that is relevant to the operation of the Windsor framework that does not go beyond the essential element that the Windsor framework is here and is the best means we have avail…”

“I know that you have just been taking evidence from him. I am very grateful to him for having undertaken the work. The Government will publish its formal response within the six months required under the arrangements that have been set out. I thought it was a very good report. It reflects what a number of other people …”

“And the oral history is the third—there we are. A lot of very good projects are doing some of that already. There is the wonderful exhibition at the Ulster Museum, which, if anyone listening has not been to it, I could not recommend more strongly.”

“Any time, as you know.”

“We are appointing historians, who will be able to look at all the stuff and produce that. But I want to take forward the memorialisation and the other two main bits, which have momentarily escaped me. Themes and patterns is the second—”

“The removal of the word “Reconciliation” from the title of the commission does not in any way suggest that the Government thinks that reconciliation is not important, but you cannot effect reconciliation by legislation. When I went to WAVE, a gentleman whose brother, I think, was murdered said, “Why do you expect me to…”

“The criminal justice process is separate. These protections are not applying to the criminal justice process; they are applying to coroners courts and to the commission. The criminal justice process is entirely separate.”

“Clearly, in respect of this consideration, of course for veterans only, because this is about contact through the MOD. That will not apply to other witnesses.”

“We intend to take that forward through the discussion of a protocol with them.”

“Some of these considerations are already available to everyone in respect of coroners courts. The right to seek anonymity is already available for coroners courts. We will apply it to the commission, through clause 56 under the legislation. The right to give evidence remotely, as you will be aware, and to have regard t…”

“In other words, to give evidence from elsewhere in Northern Ireland, but not going to the coroner’s court.”

“There will be a protocol in relation to protection from cold calling or letters landing on your doormat that you were not expecting. The plan is to have protocols in respect of both the commission and the coroner service that if they wish to speak to a veteran, they will tell the MOD. I suspect that, in practice at the…”

“I think the fact that they are going to come into being and that we are going to legislate for them has been welcomed. However, there remains a lot of fear and worry about what these changes will mean. In respect of immunity, which a lot of this is crystallised around, although it was put on to the statute book, it was…”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”