NI Protocol: MPs’ committee identifies risk of bar on GB drugs in NI

The European Scrutiny Committee has issued a detailed report on new proposed EU laws, and how they impact on Northern Ireland.

Its latest findings include the issue of medical drugs being sent across the Irish Sea into the Province.

In their 36-page report examining new EU Commission plans the parliamentary committee said it was “troubling” that among Brussels health provisions was one element were if the EU does not grant authorisation after six months, any GB-exported medicine to Northern Ireland could no longer be used in the Province.

“It seems to us that there remains a risk that the same medicines are not available in both GB and NI in the event that EU and GB regulators take different views,” the report says.

The committee did note that the EU Commission has committed itself to protecting the ongoing supply of medicines from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

But the committee added that the British government has said the EU “time-limited derogation” or “grace period” excluding medicines from Irish Sea border checks “does not provide the required long-term certainty” over GB-exported medications to the Province.

Sir Bill Cash, the veteran Eurosceptic Conservative MP and chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, expressed concern about the potential threat to the medicines supply from Britain.

“An important part of wielding sovereignty is that you are able to provide the same services to all citizens. If implemented, the EU’s proposals on medicines would only create more anxiety, not less, for patients in Northern Ireland being treated with new UK-approved drugs that could be withdrawn just half a year after their introduction without EU approval. That is one of the reasons why our committee thinks the protocol in its current form is untenable,” Mr Cash said.

The European Scrutiny Committee said its analysis indentified around 29 EU Commission proposals which Northern Ireland will or most likely will have to follow in the years ahead. The committee said these new proposed EU laws would be made with little or no input from the UK parliament.

Their report was published less than 24 hours after the Court of Appeal in Belfast ruled that the protocol “subjugates” part of the Act of Union and takes precedence over centuries-old law governing trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Senior judges dismissed a joint-unionist challenge to the protocol finding that it trumped part of the Act of Union because the post-Brexit trade deal with the EU was voted in by the sovereign will of parliament.

One of the litigants in the case, TUV leader Jim Allister, said the decision proved that the “much vaunted principle of consent of the Belfast Agreement is a con”.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said on Tuesday night that he believed the EU and the UK can reach a deal over the level of border checks at Northern Ireland’s ports for goods coming across the Irish Sea.

Speaking in the United States ahead of a St Patrick’s Day meeting in the White House with President Biden, Mr Martin said: “There are issues around the level of checks, the amount of checks and so on, we have taken those on board, so has the European Union.

“I believe it should be possible between the EU and the UK to resolve this.”