NI Protocol: Lord Frost says Government wants relationship between UK and EU ‘not ultimately policed by EU institutions including the courts of justice’

He was responding to questions at Westminster’s European Scrutiny Committee.

“What we’d like to see instead is an arbitration mechanism which is normal in these sort of treaties, it is exactly what we have in the trade and co-operation agreement (TCA),” he said.

“The arrangements in the TCA are good arrangements … we worked very hard on them all last year and would be a good model in this case too.”

He insisted the UK is not interested in any arrangements which keep the court by some other name.

“It’s highly unusual in an international treaty to have disputes settled in the court of one of the parties and that is the fundamental principle that we take into this, and the fundamental thing we need to remove from the arrangements going forward.”